The Waco Brothers with Jon Langford and The Bright Shiners

Wednesday, September 20 - Doors 7pm - $20 adv. - All Ages

WACO BROTHERS – The Men That God Forgot

Shaking off the plague days like a snake sheds its skin the WACO BROTHERS stumble out of the empty, burning desert with a fierce thirst and an epic new album: THE MEN THAT GOD FORGOT. It's the first collection of original WACO tunes since 2016's GOING DOWN IN HISTORY and comes to you via their own label Plenty Tuff Records.

The Waco Brothers got together in Chicago in the mid-90s; battle weary punk musicians who wanted nothing more than to play classic country covers for free beer in their adopted home city. Their residencies at bars like the Wrigleyville Tap and Augenblick became legendary for the sheer volume, speed and energy they brought to this task.

After an early & particularly deranged appearance at SXSW Rolling Stone dubbed the Waco's "Clash meets Cash" and they unleashed a fistful of ferocious albums and endlessly entertaining live gigs that defined the Insurgent Country movement.

Every night is still Friday night for the WACO BROTHERS but these new songs lace that reckless exuberance with a more sober awareness of the tsunami of cynical corruption & materialism that infects our everyday existence. BEST THAT MONEY CAN BUY rips its verses from what's left of honest journalism while IN THE DARK provides a requiem for functioning democracy AND boasts the best twin-lead guitar solo since Thin Lizzy. The album ends with NOWHERE TO RUN a deceptively gentle dance number (inspired by a night on the Outlaw Country Cruise where the Waco's backed up their hero Lee "Scratch" Perry) that presents the struggle for social and economic justice as never-ending. GEORGE WALKS WITH JESUS is a song about George Jones walking with Jesus.

"It's the mission of the Waco Brothers — a Chicago-based outfit that Langford started in the mid-'90s — to bring blood, sweat, and tears back into country music.… They have a rather romantic view; I doubt that, this side of Merle Haggard, any American country act has written a furious hymn to organized labor like the song "Plenty Tough and Union Made."  KenTucker NPR