The Strange Boys, Coathangers, Bad Sports

Between the haphazard hooks, ramshackle rhythm section, mumbled vocals and lo-fi lust for vintage psych, Black Lips comparisons are unavoidable for the former Dallas four-piece The Strange Boys. That doesn't mean there's not room for a few bands who plunder the 13th Floor Elevators with the kindergarten abandon of early Clean records.

Following 2007's little-heard Nothing EP, last year In the Red issued the now-Austin-based tinny two-minute single "Woe Is You and Me," setting the table for this past March's woolly full-length, The Strange Boys...And Girls Club. It's nothing revolutionary, but buried amid the reverb and loose ends on tunes like "Then" and "Who Needs Who More" is a decided country twang that ups the stakes a bit. As the band prepares to embark on a giant summer tour (including Europe), they're warming up with a few shows in the state that birthed them and, just maybe, holds the key to the Boys' twist on bleary barroom rock.

Also on the bill: Atlanta's Coathangers and Denton's Bad Sports.