Waco Brothers – Waco Express: Live & Kickin’ At Schuba’s Tavern

If you subscribe to the dubious theory that most white folks should be banned from rapping, dabbling in the blues, or forming perma-peppy ska bands, it might follow that Brits shouldn’t be tackling Americana. When you come from a country that knows nothing of lost highways or white-trash trailer parks, what can you possibly add to the country music canon? The Waco Brothers’ new live album suggests that the answer is plenty.

In fairness, Wales-born Wacos founder Jon Langford is at this point almost as American as apple pie and Smith & Wesson handguns. Initially semi-famous as co-leader of Britpunks the Mekons, Langford has called Chicago home since the mid-’90s. The Waco Brothers have been a going concern for much of that time, and while they’ve never risen above cult-hero status, this superbly recorded live document will leave you wondering why.

Whether making out like a rocket sled on rails on “Cowboy In Flames” or going full twang on “Death Of Country Music”, the band is shit-hot. With eight albums to draw from, the Brothers serve up all killer, no filler, going full-bore from the moment they rip into the set-opening rave-up “Waco Express”. As much as Langford sounds like a pub-dwelling English punter in that song’s spoken introduction, the second he starts singing, you’ll swear he was raised by George Jones in a Texas honky-tonk. Yes, for one gloriously scorching hour, a Brit shows the world how Americana is meant to be done.