Austin Lounge Lizards

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Threadgills Old No. 1 is a restaurant on N Lamar; quite far north. It's famous as the place where Janis Joplin got her start and has always supported live music. Many nights you can have dinner and catch some music. We've been a few times over the years -- recently to see the Shawnee Kilgore residency with Jeff Plankenhorn as the guest. While they advertise "home cooking" you're better off cooking at home.

Tonight, however, they have the Austin Lounge Lizards -- one of our favorite bands. Kate wanted to invite them to come and play at our 40th Wedding Anniversary this summer but I don't think our bank account is sufficient for that. Judging by the full house they clearly have a good following. We are not alone.

Our friend Pat, who never travelled much but loved reading about music, had introduced us to them many years ago when he mail ordered "Creatures from the Black Saloon" (1984). Since then we've collected their entire catalogue and enjoy everyone of them.

The band was formed in 1980, Conrad Deisler and Hank Card are shown above, and are celebrating their 40th Anniversary with a show on March 28 at the Cactus Club Cafe. We'll be home by then, this is our only chance to see them on this visit to Austin. They all have reasonable day jobs and only perform occassionally so we're lucky to have them at all during our stay in Austin.

If you don't know their music you need to be prepared to laugh your head off. They do funny tunes poking fun at all sorts of stuff. Like "Another Stupid Song About Texas" which is, another stupid song about Texas. Another one that has me in tears is "Buenos Dias Budweiser" where they sing in Spanish with odd translations. Another is "The Drugs I Need" which parodies drug advertisements. And "Jesus Loves Me (But He Can't Stand You)" that pokes fun at the Christian Fundamentalists.

They also engage the audience with banter and some funny jokes.

"I see it's an older crowd tonight. Are any of you veterans ... of the civil war? Are any of you still working? And I don't mean consulting."

We had a friendly waitress and enjoyed a couple of Mexican martinis. Having eaten here before we went for some appetizers instead. Kate had the carrot cake, we shared some salad, sweet potato fries and garlicy grits. They were pretty good -- huge portions of course.

On the sad political front, Trump is wrecking his revenge after his acquittal -- Ambassador Sondland and Lt. Col . Alexander Vindman, who testified under oath at the house hearings have been fired. To top it off Vindman's twin brother (who had nothing to do with anything) has been goose stepped out of the Whitehouse.

The Austin Lounge Lizards have a song for that -- "We've Been Through Some Crappy Times Before". Yeah sure, but does it have to get this crappy?