Biography
Conrad Deisler, guitarist and founding member of the Austin Lounge Lizards, recalled that the band’s name originated from a slang expression his grandmother had used for gentlemen of easy virtue who lingered in bars. In the group’s early days, he noted, that description fit their routine of hanging out and performing for beer and tips. Their story began in the late ’70s when Deisler, then a student at Princeton, joined Hank Card to pursue a mutual passion for folk and country music through progressive folk ensembles. The pair arrived in Austin in 1980 and encountered Tom Pittman, a banjo and pedal-steel player recently relocated from Georgia. They merged Pittman’s bluegrass background with the folk and country styles Deisler and Card had explored in their northern college bands. Rather than limit themselves to bluegrass and traditional country covers, the Lizards discovered an aptitude for crafting bizarro social and politically themed songs saturated with tongue-in-cheek twang.
Although the ensemble experienced turnover among mandolin players, bassists, and fiddlers, the central trio of Pittman, Deisler, and Card endured, supported by extended tenures from bassist Boo Resnick, drummer Paul Pearcy, and multi-instrumentalist Richard Bowden. Across changing configurations, the Austin Lounge Lizards earned recognition for their Texas-sized twisted tales and humorous songs, delighting audiences for more than two decades. As they put it, “Our accents are the drawliest, our howdies are the y’allest/Our Lone Star flag’s the waviest, our fried steak’s the cream graviest.”
Their debut album, Creatures From the Black Saloon, appeared in 1984. Subsequent releases included The Highway Cafe of the Damned in 1988, the live recording Lizard Vision in 1991, Paint Me on Velvet in 1993, Small Minds in 1995, and Employee of the Month in 1998. Never an Adult Moment followed in late summer 2000. Strange Noises in the Dark came out in 2003, succeeded the next year by the DVD Lizards Times Twenty: Live at Antone’s, which marked the group’s twentieth anniversary. Drugs I Need arrived in 2006.
Although the ensemble experienced turnover among mandolin players, bassists, and fiddlers, the central trio of Pittman, Deisler, and Card endured, supported by extended tenures from bassist Boo Resnick, drummer Paul Pearcy, and multi-instrumentalist Richard Bowden. Across changing configurations, the Austin Lounge Lizards earned recognition for their Texas-sized twisted tales and humorous songs, delighting audiences for more than two decades. As they put it, “Our accents are the drawliest, our howdies are the y’allest/Our Lone Star flag’s the waviest, our fried steak’s the cream graviest.”
Their debut album, Creatures From the Black Saloon, appeared in 1984. Subsequent releases included The Highway Cafe of the Damned in 1988, the live recording Lizard Vision in 1991, Paint Me on Velvet in 1993, Small Minds in 1995, and Employee of the Month in 1998. Never an Adult Moment followed in late summer 2000. Strange Noises in the Dark came out in 2003, succeeded the next year by the DVD Lizards Times Twenty: Live at Antone’s, which marked the group’s twentieth anniversary. Drugs I Need arrived in 2006.
Albums