The Service Industry

Limited Coverage (Sauspop)

The most remarkable thing about the Service Industry is that no one did it sooner. With all the kitchen-bred musicians in Austin, it’s high time a band coalesced around the plight of beleaguered day-jobbers. Following last year’s restaurant-centric debut, Ranch Is the New French, the local pop collective emerges as a leaner, meaner, Middle American music machine fueled by a more generalized brand of occupational dread. As frontman Mike McCoy drolly depicts death by 1,000 paper cuts on “Now Wake Up and Die,” Julie Lowery’s melancholic backing vocals give the would-be anthem a palpable hint of grace. “Have to Go to Work” hits like a prison work song reimagined by Cheap Trick, while “Hollywood out of Austin” cheekily excoriates the VIP puffery of certain celluloid transients. Throw in a swell cover of the Undertones’ “You’ve Got My Number (Why Don’t You Use It?),” and you’ve got the pitch-perfect soundtrack for your next union potluck.

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This article appears in February 15 • 2008.

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Greg Beets was born in Lubbock on the day Richard Nixon was elected president. He has covered music for the Chronicle since 1992, writing about everyone from Roky Erickson to Yanni. Beets has also written for Billboard,Uncut, Blurt, Elmore, and Pop Culture Press. Before his digestive tract cried uncle, he co-published Hey! Hey! Buffet!, an award-winning fanzine about all-you-can-eat buffets.