The Waco Brothers began as nothing more than an excuse for a bunch of aging punk-rockers to scratch their itch for country music. A couple of England"s Mekons and members of the American Midwest bands Wreck and the Bottle Rockets got together in Chicago to romp through their favorite Johnny Cash and George Jones tunes. But as so often happens with country music, the more these musicians scratched, the more they itched. Soon it wasn"t enough to just do faithful covers; then they had to write their own songs and come up with distinctive arrangements that did justice to both their honky-tonk heroes and punk roots. The results have been 1995"s debut album, ... To the Last Dead Cowboy, and the even better, Cowboy in Flames. --Geoffrey Himes