The Austin Lounge Lizards are a musical group from
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the county seat, seat and largest city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and Williamson County, Texas, Williamson co ...
, formed in 1980. The band includes founding members Hank Card and Conrad Deisler, along with Tim Wilson and Kirk Williams. The third founding member, Tom Pittman, retired from the band in the spring of 2011.
The band started out experimenting with
folk
Folk or Folks may refer to:
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** Folk hero
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*** Folk metal
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*** Folk rock
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Arts, entertainment, and media
* Folk Plus or Fol ...
, but was still heavily country in its style, combining the
bluegrass form with which Pittman was familiar with the progressive-themed
folk rock
Folk rock is a hybrid music genre that combines the elements of folk music, folk and rock music, rock music, which arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the American fo ...
to which Card and Deisler had been accustomed. Between the members, a large number of different instruments have been played, including a rich variety of string instruments such as the
banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...
,
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
, and
fiddle.
The band got its name because, Deisler explained, "I think it was a slang term I'd heard my grandmother use to describe gentlemen of easy virtue who hung around in bars. When we started out, that's just what we were doing—hanging out and playing for beer and tips and stuff like that."
The Austin Lounge Lizards began by playing covers, but eventually they wanted to move towards trying to write their own songs.
Songwriting and sound
All the group's members contribute to songwriting, but the two principal songwriters have been Card and Deisler. Card's lyrics often rely on clever word plays, double entendres, and off-beat but sometimes poignant narratives about ordinary life. His most frequent subject matter is love, especially comically forlorn yearning (Example: "The Dogs, They Really Miss You"). Deisler's lyrics, in contrast, focus on the existentially absurd, often combining absurdly unexpected pairings (such as making
Richard Petty
Richard Lee Petty (born July 2, 1937), nicknamed "The King", is an American former stock car racing driver who raced from 1958 to 1992 in the former NASCAR Grand National and Winston Cup Series (now called the NASCAR Cup Series), most notab ...
the subject of a surreal
Luis Buñuel
Luis Buñuel Portolés (; 22 February 1900 – 29 July 1983) was a Spanish-Mexican filmmaker who worked in France, Mexico, and Spain. He has been widely considered by many film critics, historians, and directors to be one of the greatest and ...
film) as well as pitiable, sometimes lovable characters bewilderingly unaware of their own absurdity and oddness (Example: "Wendell the Uncola Man"). A recurring theme is the inanity of country music clichés, for example the "we were happier when we were poor" trope exaggerated into absurdity in "Love in a Refrigerator Box". Deisler's lyrics also marry comedy with a remarkably dark vision of humanity and its future (Example: Bonfire of the Inanities).
The sound became less country and progressed more to politically aware songs. The songs they wrote tended to be humorous in an extremely off-beat way, in addition to their political nature, in a way reminiscent of
Country Joe McDonald
Joseph Allen "Country Joe" McDonald (born January 1, 1942) is an American musician who was the lead singer of the 1960s psychedelic rock group Country Joe and the Fish.Richard Brenneman"Country Joe McDonald Revives Anti-War Anthem", '' Berkeley ...
's "Fixing to Die Rag". These songs tend to have primarily
liberal messages, "The Ballad of
Ronald Reagan", criticizes the
Republican American president, while "Gingrich the Newt" criticizes the then-
Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
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* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** In ...
of the
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together the ...
,
Newt Gingrich. Their song, "Saguaro", co-written by Ann Clardy and Michael Stevens (former bass player), is based on the story of David Grundman, who died from shooting a cactus (see
cactus plugging).
Discography
*''
Creatures From the Black Saloon'' (1984)
*''
The Highway Cafe of the Damned'' (1988)
*''
Lizard Vision'' (1991)
*''
Paint Me on Velvet'' (1993)
*''
Small Minds'' (1995)
*''
Employee of the Month'' (1998)
*''
Live Bait'' (1999)
*''
Never an Adult Moment'' (2000)
*''
Strange Noises in the Dark'' (2003)
*''
The Drugs I Need
''The'' () is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speak ...
'' (2006)
*''
Home and Deranged
A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. ...
'' (2013)
See also
*
Music of Austin
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...
*
Drugs I Need
''The Drugs I Need'' is a satirical animated short made by The Animation Farm and the Austin Lounge Lizards and produced by the Consumers Union.
Plot
The animation parodies a regular pharmaceutical television commercial, detailing the benefits ...
References
External links
Austin Lounge Lizards
{{Authority control
Country music groups from Texas
Musical groups from Austin, Texas
American folk rock groups
1980 establishments in Texas
Musical groups established in 1980
Flying Fish Records artists
Sugar Hill Records artists