Peglegasus

Tired of Adventures (Entropic Carnival)

Third time’s the charm for Peglegasus, the decade-old Austin bar band dropping into one of their best beer-drenched blurs, “Superdiver,” absolutely cold as the first notes on Tired of Adventures. Everyone spreads out a little after that, guitarist/singers Berke Marye and John Voskamp rummaging about the SST post-punk closet, everything from angular melodies to progressive surf instrumentals, while drummer Peter Voskamp tries to contain the Keith Moon in him. At a lean 33 minutes, Tired of Adventures feels like the full 45, the latter half of the album happily meandering through loopy, vaguely Meat Puppets-sounding songs like “Shark vs. La Foussa” and “La Fouche,” the nonsensical French chansonish “The Soup Was Mine,” and the rainswept acoustics of “Fleas ’96.” Following Bacon, Lettuce & Tornado (’92) and So Much for King Tut (’96), released by Austin’s ill-fated Sector 2 label, Peglegasus finally sounds like they’re making music for themselves, finding the spirited middle ground between barroom chemistry and studio formality. By the time most hole-in-the-wall bands pull up to the 10-year mark not having made a million, they often break up, not realizing that musically, the payoff is just around the corner. With Tired of Adventures, Peglegasus proves the journey is just beginning.

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This article appears in December 3 • 1999.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.