Being sole participant in your local scene pays off sometimes. Ask Tim Stegall, whose strident and singular POV was sharpened by growing up punk in the rough South Texas oil-and-ranching hamlet of Alice. Veteran Chronicle scribe and Hormones bandleader, he became a key figure in the insurgent scene that grew out of the Cavity and Blue Flamingo during Austin’s early Nineties. While the Hormones were one of many locals supping from the Johnny Thunders devotional, Stegall distinguished his incantations with tonsil-shredding yowls and historically informed pop smarts. Their 1994 debut single “Sell Out Young” finds all the parts in place from the beginning. The slopped-up rockabilly undertones of “Cartographer of Love” and pine-away hooks of “Julie’s in Love” defy punk rock’s lockstep without giving up the grit. Despite its muddied cassette pedigree, “No Love in the Modern World” from the band’s aborted 1996 album hints at what might’ve been had Stegall managed to stanch the revolving door lineup. A 2017 reboot of “Sell Out Young” by the modern-day Hormones provides full-circle closure.
This article appears in July 14 • 2017.
