Hickoids

The Hickoids are to country music what a stick of dynamite is to firecrackers. Back in the days when no one had to worry much about keeping Austin weird, the Hickoids were doing their best to make it the weirdest place in Texas, if not on earth. Winners of Best Country Band at the 1985 Austin Music Awards, the band drank enough free hooch backstage at the show to convince those in charge that free booze backstage was not a good idea for future awards shows. From their inception, the Hickoids went out of their way to shove a huge middle finger and cucumber-sized reefer up the nostril of the Austin country music scene that doted on Jerry Jeff Walker, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and all the other Cosmic Cowboys and Outlaws who were the Live Music Capital of the World's poster children. Part Jason & The Scorchers cowpunkers, part skinhead Mothers of Invention, part Social Distortion after a quickie with Tammy Wynette, the Hickoids have been making country palatable to punks and pervs through songs like "Texas Ranger Man" ("...I love your daughter") that poke fun at every convention in the country music bag of tricks. But all kidding aside, the 20-year vets' tour de force medley of the Hee Haw and Green Acres themes is the stuff of Texas musical legend.