3. Cookie & the Cupcakes: No decent Gulf Coast music collection is complete without at least a copy of Cookie & the Cupcakes' ageless 1993 anthology By Request (Jin). If the Lake Charles group formed by Huey "Cookie" Theirry in the mid-'50s didn't invent swamp-pop outright, they perfected this heartbroken hodgepodge of Cajun, country, R&B and early rock and roll on songs like "Mathilda," "Got You On My Mind," "Sea of Love" and "I Cried." Rocks Off was lucky enough to see them live at Austin's Continental Club around 1996 or so, and we'll never forget it.

Still Active? Sadly, Cookie passed away in 1997 and his replacement "Lil Alfred" Babino in 2006, but Houston's own Nick Gaitan & the Umbrella Man keep the flame burning via a sparkling cover of "Mathilda."

2. Dash Rip Rock: Hold on, isn't Dash Rip Rock opening for Cowboy Mouth tonight? Yes, but we told you this was a personal list, and LSU alum Bill Davis and crew's corn-likker swamp-rock - say, Georgia Satellites meets Poor Dumb Bastards - has always been right up Rocks Off's alley.

It's hard to argue with a band that can write an album updating Dante's Inferno to the contemporary South (2007 LP Hee Haw Hell) and still pull out "Pussywhipped" and "Rich Little Bitch" for encores. (Yes, and the pot song.) Trivia: Cowboy Mouth's Fred LeBlanc was Dash's original drummer before leaving to start his own thang.

Still Active? See Cowboy Mouth.

1. The Neville Brothers/The (Funky) Meters: Rocks Off hopes you saw this one coming at least. Between the two of them, these two groups centered around New Orleans' first family (that would be the Nevilles) mixed up Creole music, jazz and R&B, dipped it into some deep, deep funk, and lit a fiyo on the bayou that has yet to go out. Picked up famous fans like Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger along the way; "Cissy Strut" and "Look-Ka Py Py" have probably been sampled by hip-hop DJs as many times as James Brown.

Still Active? The core Meters - Art Neville, George Porter Jr., Leo Nocentelli, Zigaboo Modeliste - split in 1977 and have sporadically reunited in various permutations, sometimes as the Funky Meters and most prominently as headliners of Jazz Fest in 2005. As for the Nevilles... well, they're family.

HONORABLE MENTION

A-Train (Shreveport's answer to the Radiators, according to a colleague)

Better Than Ezra ("Good" guys)

Bo Dollis & the Wild Magnolias (musical Mardi Gras Indian tribe)

John Fred & the Playboys (Baton Rouge one-hit wonders with 1967's "Judy In Disguise")

Galactic (jammy New Orleans funkateers)

Neutral Milk Hotel (Jeff Mangum's haunted, haunting Elephant 6 crew left off main list due to a brain fart)

The Radiators (recently disbanded Big Easy rock/R&B polymaths)

Red Rockers (New Orleans New Wavers - remember "China"?)

Supagroup (N.O.'s Southern-fried Motley Crue)