Recorded in 2014, this bittersweet EP represents the last musical testament of local punk rock and sartorial legend Davy Jones. The longtime Hickoids guitarist, who died of lung cancer in 2015, was already struggling with the illness when these tracks were cut. While it’s impossible to hear Jones and company reimagine this eclectic six-pack of quintessential Texas songs without recalling the poignant setting of their creation, The Out of Towners also makes at least as much stylistic sense as the Hickoids’ 2011 Brit-rock cover romp, Kicking It With the Twits. Their take on Roky Erickson’s “I Have Always Been Here Before” would’ve fit right in on the 1990 Erickson tribute, Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye. The EP’s strongest suit lies in reconciling Willie Nelson’s “Night Life” and Terry Allen’s “I Just Left Myself Today” with a rage bomb like the Dicks’ “Dead in a Motel Room.” A six-minute immolation of Doug Sahm’s “At the Crossroads” makes an appropriate fin de siècle for one of Austin’s most irrepressible musical characters.
This article appears in December 23 • 2016.
