Lucero at Emo's [Show Preview]

Captain’s Dead

Lucero w/ Robert Ellis & The Boys
Tuesday, February 22
Emos (603 Red River St)
$15, 9pm, outside
[info] | [tickets]

There once was a time when melding punk rock with country twang was hardly revelatory, and on any given night at Beerland you can see the leftovers of the flash-in-the-pan alt-country genre. But it’s hard to deny how fun country-punk is compared to the stuffy Nashville pop that wins Grammys in droves. Memphis’s Lucero understands the simple joy in flaunting genre conventions. They’ve been doing it for ten years, and you can applaud them for their unflagging convictions tonight at Emo’s.

The Replacements got the ball rolling and Uncle Tupelo perfected the country-punk mixture, but Lucero has more in common with the novelistic rock of the Drive-By Truckers or the Hold Steady. The group released their first album in 2001, and over the next decade, they honed their sound through nonstop touring and an album-a-year recording clip. However, Lucero has long avoided treading creative water, a trap that so many like-minded groups fall into. Their seventh album, 2009’s 1372 Overton Park, is the band’s best to date, incorporating a horn section and an epic thematic sweep into soulful, scruffy rock opus that could have been released by Stax Records.

Joining them is Houston’s Robert Ellis and his backing band the Boys. Their laid-back country-folk is a perfect warm-up for Lucero’s grand vision. Country music was never as staid as some like to portray it, and tonight are two reasons why the genre will continue to flourish for generations to come.

Lucero: [official] [myspace]
Robert Ellis & The Boys: [official] [myspace]