Now that Austin has dutifully plowed through ’80s new wave, ’70s soft rock, ’60s psychedelia, and—most recently—’90s fuzz, what genre is the next to be slapped with a fresh coat of postmillennial paint? By the looks of Crooks, gen-yoo-wine country, stripped of its crossover pop sheen and returned to its hard-drinkin’, rough-and-tumble roots. Just like many of the garage revivalists in town, Crooks approaches its blood-on-the-saddle ballads with a bristling undercurrent of bleary-eyed paranoia; never have those wide-open Texas skies seemed quite so threatening.
-Austin Decider/Onion
It’s hard to write rock ‘n’ roll when you’ve given your soul to the countrified blues. As Austin songsmith Josh Mazour discovered, “I couldn't write that anymore when all I was listening to was Townes Van Zandt, Hank Williams and old blues like Blind Willie McTell and Lightnin’ Hopkins over and over… and drinking.”
Drummer Rob Bacak’s spare sticking nicely accents Mazour’s forlorn howl, as he spins tales of honky-tonk tragedies and truck stop Hamlets through whiskey-ravaged cords. The duo found the perfect complement in six-string artist Sam Alberts, who also contributes banjo, mandolin, blues harp, barrelhouse piano, Doug Sahm-esque bottleneck, and Morricone-flavored trumpet.
What results from this unholy trinity is something between Willie Nelson and the soundtrack for a Cormac McCarthy novel. Stripped-down roadhouse odes and lonely laments are sketched with a raw minimalism of instrumentation that seems effortless and heartfelt, the genuine article. One listen to their self-titled debut LP, and you’ll know Crooks are the Real Deal Holyfield.
A country band in the original and truest sense of the term, you won’t find Crooks trafficking in piano bar anthems or boot scoot boogies. Not content to further clog CMT with radio-ready schmaltz, rural sentimentality, or nostalgia for a simpler time, these hounds are out to tree a different animal altogether. If you play a Crooks song backwards, you won’t get your dog, truck, and woman back. Though you might get your morality, humanity and sobriety.
The good geologist, like the musicologist, knows that to unearth the best rock, one must look underground. And this holds just as true for outlaw country. So if you’re looking to wet your whistle in an undiscovered watering hole, give Crooks country a try. It’s just down the road apiece, off the well-worn path.
-Andy Gately, Editor, LiveMusicCapitol.com
...get in the door early to catch Austin's precious Crooks, a spaghetti western of a group served covered in salsa instead of marinara.
-Austinist
Finally locals Crooks took the stage. A cowboy was apparently playing at the Mohawk. No, really. I think he was a real cowboy, he had the hat and the boots and everything, even that drawn out twang to this voice. The set was played with a skeleton crew where Sam Alberts would intermittently play the trumpet or banjo, sometimes nothing, and Rob Bacak played drums on most of the tracks with Josh Mazour (who doesn’t actually wrangle cattle, but looks like he could) up front. The semi-real deal. And I liked it. It reminded me of the kind of country music that I listened to growing up. The kind that CMT destroyed. “My First” is a song about guns! With a western dual trumpet solo leading into what could have easily been the background music for a 1960’s Clint Eastwood movie. It didn’t stop there, and it wasn’t simply one dimensional. A honkey tonk hard rock feel is what you got listening to them and Bacak didn’t hold back when they switched into that mode. Like in “Lord Knows” when they rocked so hard it was almost too loud.
Backwoods banjo and well placed percussion made the songs about little ladies and cheap booze ring with blues influences. I hadn’t seen this type of music performed in a while so I really enjoyed myself and suggest you also check it out. Crooks are playing an unofficial SXSW show with Western Ghost House at The Moose Lodge on the 18th. Tyler Jordan plays again March 12th at Flipnotics, but Monarchs won’t be doing a show until April 9th at The Moose Lodge.
-Austin Sound
Adding to the freaky fun is the strung-out-on-the-saddle country of Crooks..
-Austin Decider/Onion
Have you ever given the ABC answer? You know: Someone asks you what kind of music you listen to and you say, "Anything but country." Austin's Crooks are exactly the reason why that's a dumb answer.
Imagine country music that isn't made for prime-time reality TV shows and that isn't polished on shiny Nashville stages. Instead, imagine country music that is honed in dive bars and played before small crowds of drunken 20- and 30-somethings who grew up wearing flannel and listening to grunge. This is Red River District country. It's throwback, but not cliché. It's inspired by Hank Williams and Gram Parsons, not Toby Keith or Keith Urban. Crooks spent last year recording an album, and today they officially release the thing with a show at Mohawk. Throw in like-minded folk and indie-rock bands Frank Smith and Western Ghost House, and you're looking at a solid all-local Thursday night bill.
-'Nites Nitesblog.com
Nowadays, “country” (like “rock”) is a meaningless catchall applied to the twangy pop of groups like Sugarland and Taylor Swift, but an increasing number of kids like Austin’s Crooks and Frank Smith seem intent on reclaiming its traditional roots. Call it “indie-billy”: Both bands dabble in high, lonesome sounds played with bluegrass and honky-tonk instruments, but filter them through a postmodern range of moods that eschews easy sentimentality or hokey phrasings. With its Ennio Morricone trumpet flourishes, Crooks—celebrating the release of its debut CD here—is the weary gunslinger, while Frank Smith’s battered, fragile harmonies are those of the earnest sharecropper about to lose the farm. To paraphrase David Allen Coe, if that ain’t country, it’s a damn good joke.
this is in Montgomery. Can you believe they actually put Hank's real cowboy hat where the stone one is now... someone stole the original... and to be honest, i might had someone not beat me to it!
