Does it float?

​The fine folks at punk toy firm Aggronautix, famous for their GG Allin and Keith Morris "throbbleheads," have now outdone themselves, yet again, with the release of a J Mascis model, complete with real doll hair.

It's a shame that this is not Mascis' real hair, though. That would make this figurine pretty special and a psychotic little gem to a few thousand Dinosaur Jr. fan boys. This is easily of one the coolest Aggronautix throbbleheads out there. This is the same company that made the Andrew W.K. and GG Allin bobbles that sit on my desk. I think the Allin one winked at me once.

With the Dinos currently laying down tracks for a follow-up to 2009's Farm, according to member Lou Barlow, you should probably score yourself one of the bad boys for Mascis to sign next time they come to town. If he let's you get close enough to his person while holding a miniature version of him that is.

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Photo By Groovehouse

Ben Folds solo in 2010 at the House Of Blues

​The eight-year run of '90s indie act the Ben Folds Five was fruitful in many ways. We got the most catchy song about a Christmas abortion ever in 1997's "Brick", three excellent studio albums full of snarky, romantically-challenged piano-based indie-rock, and we were introduced to one of the best songwriters of the past two decades in lead singer Ben Folds.

(So let's tally it up. So far in 2012 we will see reunions from At The Drive-In, Refused, Stone Roses, The Promise Ring, Black Sabbath, and maybe -- just maybe -- another turn from Jawbreaker. Oh, and maybe the Spice Girls.)

A Folds solo career would come after the BF5 splintered in 2000, with singles like "Rockin' The Suburbs" and "You Don't Know Me" (with help from Regina Spektor), plus a handful of albums full of grand, quirky power-pop. Folds acid tongue just grew sharper in the '00s, as the musician aged into a loveable curmudgeon. A sort of slack-ass Randy Newman for Generation Y.

Last week, the BF5 finally made their reunion plans public and Folds posted a picture to Twitter of himself, bassist Robert Sledge, and drummer Darren Jessee in full-tilt boogie in a studio, cooking up a spring album.

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​Lonesome, Onry and Mean was sad to learn via Chuck Prophet's Facebook page this morning that Reg Presley, lead singer of Sixties proto-punkers the Troggs, has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The Troggs are known primarily for their 1966 hit "Wild Thing." LOM was a sophomore in high school when the tune came blaring out of the speakers of the car radio and rocked our world. It seemed that within a week every rock station in the country was playing "Wild Thing" once an hour. It was literally everywhere.

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​Etta James, almost universally praised as one of the finest voices of our era, has passed away at 73. Ironically, Ms. James had been discovered and recorded by rhythm and blues pioneer Johnny Otis, who passed away only two days ago. Ms. James, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, and has been honored numerous times by the Grammys and other halls of fame.

James grew up singing in church, where she formed her first all-girl doo-wop group. Otis signed her to record the "answer song" to a hit he had produced for Hank Ballard, "Work With Me, Annie." Otis changed the group's name to The Peaches and recorded James singing "Dance With Me, Henry." The song quickly raced to No. 1 on the Rhythm and Blues chart and was instrumental in securing the group an opening slot on a tour with Little Richard.

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​1992 was a pretty heady year for music in general, with the masses gobbling up all the gangsta rap, grunge, and pop-country they could. That year would see the release of not only R.E.M.'s Automatic For The People, Peter Gabriel's Us, Pantera's Vulgar Display Of Power, but also what is arguably The Cure's last great album, Wish, although 2000's Bloodflowers has it's champions.

This was also the year that saw not one, but two new Bruce Springsteen albums in Lucky Town and Human Touch. Let the Bruce fanatics fill you in on those, sans the E Street Band.

On the country front, only three artists, Garth Brooks, Wynonna Judd, and Billy Ray Cyrus, held the top slot on the country albums chart in 1992, dominating the list for 12 months. Brooks hit big with Ropin' The Wind, and it's follow-up, The Chase. His Christmas album, released in August 1992, Beyond The Season, was the best-selling holiday album of the year, but never made it to number one.

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Courtesy of Miller Outdoor Theatre Advisory Board

Doyle Bramhall

​The unexpected passing of Doyle Bramhall of heart failure November 12 has caused Lonesome, Onry and Mean to revisit the man's career. And while Bramhall is probably best known for his association with Stevie Ray Vaughan, who cut several of Bramhall's compositions and copped his singing style, Bramhall's greatest musical achievements may have been during his tenure with Marc Benno and the Nightcrawlers.

Benno and Bramhall formed the Nightcrawlers after the break up of Texas Storm, Jimmie Vaughan's band that included Bramhall as drummer and vocalist. The Nightcrawlers recorded a stellar string of albums in the mid-70s and had quite a bit of buzz but never really caught that one big break. We caught up with Benno, who was in a reminiscing mood, via phone today.

"I didn't fully realize until I was at the funeral what a big part Doyle had played in my life," Benno said. "It was a very moving service."

Benno recalled rough and tumble days in Austin in the early 70s "when we were all strung out and running wild."

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​Another Austin music legend, Joe Gracey, passed away this morning of cancer complications. He was 61.

When Lonesome, Onry and Mean arrived in Austin in June, 1973 after having worked in radio in West Texas, Gracey immediately became our hero. A disc jockey at the notorious KOKE-FM, Gracey and cohort Rusty Bell were the voices of the progressive country movement, having invented a format that basically spun nothing but what we would today call alternative country. It was an amazing mishmash that included Willie, Waylon, Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Murphy, Jimmy Buffett, Commander Cody, Kinky Friedman and a host of others who were making what would later be termed Redneck Rock.

Gracey, who had ties to all the Austin bands bubbling along in that red hot scene -- Freda and the Firedogs, Greezy Wheels, the Lost Gonzo band and a dozen others -- was the coolest cat on the airwaves. What he and Bell achieved at KOKE caused the staid, old-school country stations like KVET to up their game, yet this was just the tip of the iceberg of achievements of Joe Gracey in a life of activity and creation.

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Courtesy of Miller Outdoor Theatre Advisory Board

Doyle Bramhall

​Doyle Bramhall, one of the legendary Austin drummers and a noted songwriter, passed this morning. He was 62.

Unconfirmed reports on Facebook noted that Bramhall had been under the weather for some time. He had recently had pneumonia. A longtime fixture on the Austin scene, Bramhall was living in Alpine.

Bramhall played Miller Outdoor Theatre July 22.

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​Last Sunday's passing of longtime Houston radio personality "Crash" Collins and our subsequent blog about him brought in some interesting commentary from people who remembered Collins' long tenure at rock radio station KLOL-FM. Collins was one of the first disc jockeys to ditch the formalized diction and most of the other accepted disc jockey practices of the day. He literally dripped cool.

He, along with Pat Fant, who was recedntly inducted into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame, developed the free-form, no-playlist format that set KLOL apart from other radio stations in the area. Collins and the other djs were the first in the area to stop playing hits and start playing deep cuts from albums.

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Photos by Marco Torres

​See pics of Taylor Swift taking over The Juice Box in our slideshow.

It's perhaps unfair to say Taylor Swift has "snuck up" on us, considering she's sold over 20 million albums and was featured on just about every one of last year's "top entertainer" lists. But that's what happens when you're an artist who confines your emotional turmoil to your lyrics and not, say, shaving your head or walking around with no underwear on. The Britneys and the Mileys attempt to cling to relevance by wearing fewer clothes and courting controversy, while Swift merely writes songs addressing the everyday problems of legions of tween and adolescent girls.

Her stage show is part Broadway extravangaza, part confessional, and Minute Maid Park was packed to the rafters with daughters kids and their parents Saturday night who had come to take part in the spectacle and bask in the non-judgmental glow of Taylor Swift, the patron saint of unrequited teenage love, sundresses and cowboy boots.

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