Macon Greyson

When Ray Wylie Hubbard was recording young Buddy Huffman in an Austin studio with the cream of pickers that town has to offer, Huffman was already thinking about forming a band to play the songs and promote the record. He asked Hubbard what to call the band and the Wylie Llama of Texas music drawled, "How 'bout Macon Greyson?" Huffman asked, "What does it mean?" and Hubbard replied, "Nothin'."

Two more studio albums down the line, Huffman has assembled a band around him that rocks the house as hard as anyone on the Texas music circuit. And while Pat Green is covering "Me and Billy the Kid," Macon Greyson covers The Ramones, and I don't mean that cutesy Two Tons of Steel cheesey frat boy imitation of The Ramones; I mean a drum-pounding, Texas-twanging, pedal to the metal version of Ronald Reagan indictment "Bonzo Goes To Bitburg. "

Huffman is the rare guy who can write a song that actually says something yet deliver it where it's fun. The hilarious "PCS" — "folk singers, they got that shit all wrong/play your stupid country song" — mimics trite, overbearing, no-fun, politically correct artists. Huffman has that childlike Daniel Johnston ability to shred the facade with a simple phrase like "How will I know what to think / if you don't tell me how I feel?" Alt-country doesn't get much smarter than this. - William Michael Smith

Macon Greyson performs Friday, December 1, at Goode's Armadillo Palace, 5015 Kirby Drive, 713-526-9700.