7. SPOON When Spoon's They Want My Soul debuted at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 earlier this month, it wasn't surprising so much because it charted so high but because it did so after the band had effectively been dormant since wrapping the touring chores for 2010's Transference, another No. 4 debut. Front man Britt Daniel had spent much of the intervening years with his other band Divine Fits, bouncing between Texas, L.A. and Portland.
But Spoon is an Austin band through and through. Their 1996 debut, Telephono, is all songs Daniel wrote expressly to perform at UT-area bar Hole In the Wall, and drummer Jim Eno has been proprietor of one of the city's most popular recording studios, Public Hi-Fi, for more than 15 years.
6. TOADIES A few years back, we personally asked drummer Mark Reznicek if he and the rest the Toadies would consider moving to Houston. Unfortunately, their pesky families are keeping them in Fort Worth (we kid, we kid) but at least the alt-rock quartet still calls Texas home. Here's hoping these natives continue performing their unique style of blues-infused grunge for years to come.
5. TED NUGENT The gonzo guitar-rocker and right-wing agitator has yet to come up with a Texas-specific nickname as catchy as "Motor City Madman," but Nugent has been a citizen of the Waco area for more than a decade, moving his family from Michigan to a ranch near Crawford in mid-2003. There, he reportedly shared a fenceline with then-president George W. Bush's "Western White House."
In 2006, the Nuge bought a home closer to town, and the popular Fox News guest has remained a vocal participant in national and Texas politics, up to this February's ill-advised comments while endorsing GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott that finally seemed to muzzle him...a little.
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