Cowboy Mouth

Since its inception in 1990, New Orleans-based Cowboy Mouth — named after Sam Shepard and Patti Smith’s play about misfits musing on the foibles of the American Dream — has produced the kind of eclectic sound that defines most of the music coming out of that town. The group delivers the kind of pop rock that would have fallen under the umbrella of “alternative rock” a couple of decades ago, when similar acts like the Tubes and NRBQ could be stamped with the same title. Like those two acts, Cowboy Mouth takes a lighthearted approach to its songwriting, subsuming the technical ability of its musicians to a more playful sensibility.