Lizards Lead to Laughs and Leonard
David Zimmerman | Baton Rouge, LA USA | 12/13/2006
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I can't estimate how much I've laughed and sang along to the songs in the Austin Lounge Lizards "Employee of the Month". Any anti-Cowboy fan will delight in learning and singing "Stupid Texas Song", a send-up on Texans pride in all things Texan ("if heaven isn't Texas, partner, I don't wanna die!"). The "Beach Lizards" follow up with "Hey Little Minivan", a family-bound hot rod song, complete with my favorite bridge line "Step away from the car! Step away from the car!" sung by the theft-deterrent system. "The Dogs, They Really Miss You" lampoons any number of broken-hearted country love songs (the dogs playing (or not playing) poker, carried over from "Paint Me on Velvet" are featured near the end). "Rocky Byways" tells the story of a "sharp dressed chicken" (from an itinerant bluegrass band) being discovered by Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl at the Piggly Wiggly and somehow it all makes sense. "Love in a Refrigerator Box", the story of what happens when a junior high school couple gives birth to triplets "Velma, Thor and I"--love conquers all as they live in a 20 cubic foot refrigerator box and wear "blown out tires" for shoes. "Leonard Cohen's Day Job" takes a shot at the Canadian troubador, whom I've grown to love after the Lizards directed me to him. The album closes with "The Other Shore", a look at what awaits when we die--as we are reunited with all our possessions, both those wanted and those lost ("earring backs, National Geographics from 1974, crazy cowboy shirts" and many others). This one is a capella and the harmonies are really quite nice if you can hear them over your own laughter. The title appears nowhere in the album, but it still seems appropriate--we can all use a little Lizards laughter as we run on the mouse's treadmill every day."