The Ranchero Brothers, Stubb's, April 12

The Ranchero Brothers

Stubb's, April 12

It's probably sin around these parts to confess to never having been that crazy about the Old 97's. The band's intentions were always clear enough, but the execution seemed to fall a bit short. To these admittedly jaded and volume-damaged ears, the band's country stuff never had quite enough twang and the rock stuff never rocked out enough. It always brought to mind images of 21-year-old college boys in khaki shorts and maroon A&M baseball caps jumping around sloshing their Coors Light on the frat-house carpeting. Ah, but the Ranchero Brothers, that's a bit of a different animal. The Brothers consist of Old 97's Rhett Miller on guitar and Murry Hammond on bass, and granted, an acoustic duo perched on stools is not always the most electrifying setup for live music, but at Stubb's, the pair spotlighted their songwriting chops and stretched their legs on rich vocal harmonies. For the better than half-full room, the two did songs about tried-and-true subjects like trains, open roads, lonely beer joints, lost loves, and loves one wished to have lost. Their songcraft, though, takes an oblique approach to subject matter that could be tired and hackneyed in the hands of lesser writers. The pair's vocal abilities are nothing to sneeze at either, with harmonies and background vocals weaving in and around each other seamlessly and fleshing out the minimal instrumentation to the point where a full band would've been irrelevant. The rapt audience of Old 97's fans hardly needed to be converted, hanging as they were on every phrase and the duo's occasional between-song wisecrack. True, the 97's have never liked being lumped in with alt.country bands, but such has been their lot; the Rancheros' style falls more in line with that appellation. Miller and Hammond may not wear Ropers, Wranglers, or Resistols, but their subject matter is sincere, true to form, and as pure-by-Gawd-Texas as ripply waves of heat coming up off the blacktop, with a flattened Lone Star can and a dead armadillo stinking up the passing lane.