Buckin' Tradition

So how does Womack justify flounderin' in the bubblin' mire of his own sinnin'?

"I pay for it now 'cause I'm in the music business," he says. "Kinda like being in the Mob past a certain point -- you cain't get out."

God's li'l wiseacre: Tommy Womack writes songs about fallen people, with a heaping dose of hard-luck humor.

Details

With Tommy Womack, the Honkytonk Hangovers, Marty Jones & the Pork Boilin' Poor Boys and DJ Doc Martin
8 p.m. Saturday, February 2, $6, 303-294-9281

Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street

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There are a few perks to living in Womack's personal hell, however. For one, he gets to take part in the upcoming Kinks tribute album on Praxis Records -- a project that finds him in the company of Matthew Sweet, Lambchop and Jonathan Richman, among others; Womack will cover "Picture Book" with his pal Bill Lloyd. Otherwise, he's a prisoner to the endless grind of singing panoramic songs of good and evil in a phony, bespangled town that doesn't embrace or understand him. That and juggling his own innate smartassedness in a post-9-11 world.

"The first night on the stage after the tragedy, I thought about it," Womack says. "I didn't feel like I was carrying on some kind of punk-ethic tradition of 'fuck the system' in any way at all. I went on that stage, and there wasn't nobody I wanted to make fun of. There wasn't nobody that I wanted to tell 'em go screw 'emselves. There wasn't nobody I felt like throwing my middle finger up to at all. And it's been that way ever since."