Tuesday night: Asylum Street Spankers

Austin's super-acoustic Americana vaudeville band Asylum Street Spankers corrals a big lineup and a wild palette of swing, country, folk, and just about every other genre suitable for snappy beats and catchy tunes. The group took its ever-cheeky songwriting into kids' territory with its last studio album, Mommy Says No!, but the new double-disc live recording What? And Give Up Show Biz? leaps right back into vulgar, acrobatically wise-assed material with sarcastically cheery rants about the inglorious life of a touring band. The set documents a two-week run of a musical revue of the same title, in which they "look back on their underwhelming career and complain about their place in the music world," to quote the liner notes. It certainly doesn't sound like something recorded in a proper theater setting, though. It sounds like a rowdy night with a band that's been pounding it out in clubs for 14 years, and it's a good indication of what should happen at the High Noon Saloon tonight. The band's male-female harmonies, fiddle, clarinet, washboard, and dozen different stringed things tear through new tunes and live staples, stopping only for equally on-the-nose skits like "The Morning Moron Mob," a tribute to crappy drive-time radio shows. It's certainly a lot of topical, wacky, goofy stuff to cram into one band's set. Luckily, the Spankers' on-the-dot musicianship wraps it all up neatly on such songs as the Bill Hicks-referencing "Winning The War On Drugs":