Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs
Still Smokin’ After 20 Years, 2004

       Culled from Billy Bacon's 20-year odyssey with various Pigs lineups, this 21-song anthology provides the perfect introduction to a potent club act that has surprisingly stayed under the mainstream radar.

          Bacon possesses an appealing flair for imbuing every song - including rockabilly scorchers "Red Dress" and "Little Town Fool" - with a heartfelt dose of Tex-Mex and blues. Whether nicking the Fabulous Thunderbirds' vibe for party rockers "Battle with the Bottle" and "I'm a Fool" or latching onto Louis Prima style jump and swing during "When It's Cold Outside" and "Jump for Jive," he sounds timelessly authentic.

         Other influences are also given full Forbidden Pigs treatment as well. The Latin language tinged "Un Mas Cerveza" and "Hasta Manana Iguana" boast an effervescent Sir Douglas Quintet production sense while "Valley's and Peaks" smartly appropriates Creedence Clearwater Revival's sound. Moreover, "Clown" exhibits a passion for romantic 60s soul and Bruce Springsteen's working class irony neatly shadows "All I Really Want." Moreover, the snappy "While the Wife's Away" and mortality conscious "Clock on the Wall," proves that Bacon is a topnotch country singer capable of raising a smile or tear at will. Of all the compilations released in 2004, this one earns my highest recommendation.

 

 

 

Billboard | Billboard Picks Music | by RW – December 18, 2004

Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs

Still Smokin’ After 20 Years

Veteran genre-bending road hog Billy Bacon assembles some choice cuts of eight previous releases in a package that nicely captures the diverse Pigs sound.  Bacon and the boys are all over the musical meat market, offering infectious Mexican cantina treats (“Una Mas Cerveza,” “Hasta Manana Iguana”), rockabilly rave-ups (“Battle With the Bottle,” “Bon Ton”), Van Morrison-styled R&B (“Clown,” “Are You Going Back There Tonight”) and hard-charging swing (“[When It’s] Cold Outside,” “Jump for Jive”).  There’s also some barroom country in “While the Wife’s Away,” some CCR-esque rock in “Valleys and Peaks” and some loungey blues in “I’m a Fool.”  Bassist Bacon (born W. Seth Russell) is a seriously good songwriter, his dusky vocals are mighty fine, and his Pigs play with verve and skill.  So where have these guys been hiding for 20 years?  At a roadhouse smoke pit near you.  Distributed by Navarre.

 

 

 

Blogcritics | Blogcritics.org | by Duke De Mondo - November 30, 2004

The Duke Listens To "Still Smokin' After 20 Years" By Billy Bacon And The Forbidden Pigs 

         Rockabilly, man. Where might a fella go for to find any nowadays? For sure, Morrissey dabbled in it a while back, around the time of Your Arsenal, but he pretty much forgot all about it soon after. In fact, other than the odd album track here and there, the only place a man might encounter some of the rolling bass-lines and chopping chords would be in the "Classics" section of the CD emporium, or, more likely, in the 5 CD's For Sixpence corner.

         Turns out, though, that a buncha madmen by the name of Billy Bacon And The Forbidden Pigs have spent much of the past two decades indulging in just this sorta tomfoolery. Not only this, but in the course of the 21 tracks contained in Still Smokin' After 20 Years, The Duke was treated to some brilliant barroom boogie, some old-school country, a lashing of Latin jive and an embarrassment of sublime pop melodies, alongside all the teddy-boy malarkey.

         What it amounts to is just-over-an-hour's-worth of giddily infectious "Tex-Mex Bluesabilly", a collection of the band's finest three-minute slabs of Americana. The unswerving quality of the material, however, makes it all the more worrying when one considers that The Forbidden Pigs would need every music rag on the motherfucking globe to give them front-page coverage before they can even consider ascending to the "underrated" category.

         For sure, folks like Mojo Nixon and Jimmy Page have swung accolades in their direction, but the chances of seeing The Forbidden Pigs on the cover of Rolling Stone are about as likely as waking up one morning to find that your head has been replaced by some ravioli.

         This right here constitutes a "Damn shame, is what".

         If you didn't know better, you'd assume this to be a collection of cover versions of long-lost masterpieces. The Red Dress is pure Chuck Berry, You Don't Know is a beautiful sun-kissed alt. country ballad, Love Is Dead marries blues harp and sliding guitar to a stunning Gram Parsons-esque melody, Little Town Fool would have sat snugly amidst Johnny Cash's setlist for Folsom Prison, and all are delivered with Bacon's honey-sweet vocals and tight-as-a-vicars-arse musical accompaniment.

         Bacon knows a thing or two about Rock N' Roll and barnstorming country, is what, and he knows a thing or two about how little the purveyors of contemporary Nashville garbage have in common with the likes of Hank Williams or Merle Haggard. Not for him the overproduced dance music masquerading as New Country, nor the soulless ballads that owe more to Celine Dion than Loretta Lynn. What Still Smokin' strives to offer, is an alternative to the kindsa rotten, corporate muck blaring from the throats of your Shania Twains or Garth Brooks.

         Screw you, Garth Brooks, is the thinking. I don't care that you made that record about you were Eddie Vedder or some shit, you can fuck right off with your Red Strokes.

         Alas, it is the curse of the cult band to be loved psychotically by a minority, whilst the rest of the world carries on oblivious. It's a bit disheartening, though, when The Mavericks clog up CD racks the world over, and yet amazing, genre-defying constructions like Valley's And Peaks or Bon Ton remain encased in obscurity.

         By all accounts the live shows are awe-inspiring affairs, but since The Duke ain't laid a damn pupil on such an event, I can't comment. What I can announce, however, is that Still Smokin' is a stunning collection, each track building on the promise hinted at by the previous. The simple facts of the case are thus; Stuff like Battle With The Bottle or the beautiful You Make Me Feel Good, or any damn thing contained on this retrospective, deserve to be heard by as many folks as possible.

Pick it up, is what The Duke suggests. I mean come the fuck on, how many more Queen Best-Of's do you need?

 

 

 

Pioneer Press | Chicago, IL | by Myrna Petlicki - October 13, 2004

Billy’s bringin’ home the Bacon

You’ve got to love a guy named Billy Bacon who calls his band the Forbidden Pigs and has a cell phone number that ends in P-O-R-K.  Learn that he and his group are planning to convert the interior of the van in which they travel the country into a shrine to Elvis and the picture is complete.

Bacon is more than a headline-writer’s dream, though.  He has been traversing the United States for 20 years, doing more than 200 dates a year.  It takes talent – and energy – to maintain that kind of schedule.

The guy whose performance has been described by the San Diego Union Tribune as “truly possessed” will letting loose his manic energy at FitzGergald’s on Oct. 21.  It’s one stop on the musician/songwriter’s 20^th anniversary tour, promoting his latest CD – are you ready for this? – “Still Smokin’ After 20 Years.”  (Earlier albums include “Dressed to Swill,” “Pork Que?” and “Pig Latin.”)

He may be a dynamo onstage but during a cell phone interview between tour stops, Bacon was low-key and mellow – certainly no ham (sorry, couldn’t resist).

In response to the assessment of his performance style by his hometown paper, Bacon reported that he only acts possessed on stage “sometimes,” but can’t remember what it feels like when that happens.  Guess he’s truly possessed during those moments.

Bacon defines his band’s style as “Americana. It’s all the different styles of American music that make up rock’n’roll: blues and country, some jazz and swing, and we do a lot of Tex-Mex stuff.  We use the moniker that ‘We’re the most versatile band in the land.”

Over the years, different musicians have held the two Forbidden Pigs slots.  Prospective Pigs have to be “really familiar with all styles of music and they’ve got to be good showmen,” Bacon said.

Stamina is another requirement because the group maintains an exhausting travel schedule.  The current tour promoting the new album is typical.  “We’re going pretty much everywhere,” Bacon reported.  “We’re just back from the West Coast and we played Texas and Arizona on the way out.  Now we’re headed to the Midwest, then we’re going to Florida.  If it’s still there.”

The Midwest is one of his favorite destinations, Bacon diplomatically asserts.  He is particularly partial to Lincoln, Nebraska.  “It’s a great music audience,” Bacon explained.  “It gets really crazy at the shows.”

Bacon insists that he’s still not tired of all that traveling.  “It’s better than digging ditches,” he joked, although Bacon explained that his second choice of career would have been “brain surgeon.”

That vehicle in which they travel, soon to be a rolling Elvis memorial, is san old converted rental van.  Bacon affectionately refers to it as the “White Trash Winnebago.

Once they reach their destinations, the band primarily plays original Billy Bacon songs, with a smattering of classic covers.  Twenty-one Bacon tunes are on the new CD.

In planning the latest CD, Bacon and group considered about 40 songs, cutting the number nearly in half by figuring “which songs would segue together,” Bacon said.  “They’re all some of my favorite stuff. There’s Tex-Mex on there and swing.”  The song list includes the tune Bacon like’s best of all, “I Don’t Know.”

For the FitzGerald’s concert, Bacon and sides will be performing selections from the new album.  “It will be our usual show – a wide variety of stuff,” Bacon said.

The droll songwriter/musician attributes his group’s longevity to “a lot of perseverance and patience, and maybe a little bit of stupidity.”

 

 

 

The Reader | Omaha, NE | by Sean McCarthy - October 7-13, 2004

Bringing Home the Bacon

If you plan on paying rent on a musician’s salary, you typically have two options: Luck out with a hit single that gets picked up by McDonald’s or The Gap, or hit the road.

And hit it again.

And again.

For more than 20 years, San Diego native Billy Bacon has bought his raucous brand of Tex-Mex and rockabilly to clubs, gone through about a dozen band changes and made himself a mainstay in both the Omaha and Lincoln music communities.

This year marks the 20^th anniversary of his band, the Forbidden Pigs.  In addition to that milestone, 2004 has been particularly memorable for Bacon.  After living in san Diego the majority of his life, he moved to Austin, Texas.  He also adopted a daughter, Sophia, whom he visited in Germany this past summer.

Logging more than 200 performances a year, Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs are tireless road warriors.  So tireless that Bacon said he has not had a chance to unpack his boxes in his new home.

Moving to Austin meant proximity to the much-beloved bar The Hole in the Wall.  What CBGB in New York is to punk, The Hole in the Wall is to alt-country.  The bar closed its doors in 2002 due to financial difficulties but was purchased by new owners, and in 2003 it reopened its doors.

“We got our first record contract form the Hole in the Wall,” said Bacon in a phone interview before a performance in Tucson, Ariz.

The Forbidden Pigs have won converts from their peers in the rock and roots world.  The late Tex-Mex musician Doug Sahm, who inspired Bacon to form his own band, became friends with Bacon and collaborated with the Pigs before dying in 1999.  In New Orleans, where the band was playing at a festival, Jimmy Page caught the show.  Page’s rave is now posted on the band’s official website (forbiddenpigs.com): “this is a very ‘HIP’ band. Not many bands can do so many different styles and do them that well.”

Bacon and the Pigs are currently on the road, supporting Still Smokin’ After 20 Years.  The album is a 21-song highlight of the Forbidden Pigs’ past work.  Bacon refused to call the album a “greatest hits” collection; rather, it represents a handpicked collection of Bacon’s favorite tunes.

“We started out with about 40 song, …and we whittled it down,” Bacon said.

The latest lineup of the Pigs includes the return of guitarist Mario Moreno after a 12-year absence.  Drummer Justin Jones rounds out the trio.

In the summer The Forbidden Pigs toured Europe.  Bacon said he played a soccer stadium in Finland, but only about 100 people showed up due to a downpour.  Still, Bacon said he received a rapturous response to his music while touring that continent.

“The audience over there is really more appreciative,” he said.  “They’re really into Americana.”

His longevity of 20-plus years in the music world still has not fully sunk in for Bacon.  He rarely writes songs on the road, opting to use the post-tour downtime for songwriting.  Bacon said his approach to songwriting hasn’t drastically changed since his early days, “I’ll go months without writing any songs, then I’ll band out five.”

As for the future, Bacon said he wasn’t too sure about wanting to do another 20 years with the Forbidden Pigs, but had no plans to slow down in the near future.  Next year his band plans on another tour overseas, hitting Austria, Switzerland and Belgium.  Bacon joked he would like to branch out and try writing a song for Britney Spears.

“What rhymes with boobs?” Bacon said with a sly laugh,

The band has played numerous gigs at two blues-rock mainstays in Nebraska: McKenna’s Blues Booze & BBQ in Omaha and the Zoo Bar in Lincoln.  Returning to the Zoo Bar for a few shows Oct. 27-31, Bacon had some advice for the audience at McKenna’s:

“Tell some people to eat some barbeque and bring a designated driver because they’re going to need one after I’m through with them.”

 

 

 

El Paso Times | El Paso, TX | tiempo Weekend Entertainment Magazine

Cover Article | by Victor R. Martinez - September 24, 2004

Pig Power

Billy Bacon still defying labels after 20 years of making music

Record store owners don’t know where to put Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs.

When people ask bacon what type of music he plays he simply says Americana.

It’s a blend of Tex-Mex/blues with a rockabilly gospel sound that he’s been playing for 20 years.

And after those 20 years, Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs is still smokin’.

“It takes a lot of perseverance, a lot of patience and a lot of stubbornness,” Bacon said in a telephone interview from his home in Austin. “I don’t give up. If something happens, somebody quits, I replace them, find somebody else and keep it going. It’s still better than the other job I’m qualified to do, which is digging ditches. This is the lesser of the two evils.”

Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs will bring its 20^th anniversary tour to El Paso at 8 p.m. Sunday at the T-Lounge, 1218 Texas.

Bacon drew inspiration for his TexMexBluesaBilly from famed Texas musician Doug Sahm and the Sir Douglas Quintet.

“He did the Tex-Mex thing in the ‘60s,” Bacon said. “Throughout his whole career he did country albums and doo-wop albums, too. I wanted to do the same thing and have a big blend of Americana.”

Bacon has just released “Still Smokin’ After 20 Years” – a compilation of 21 of his favorite songs – to commemorate the band’s anniversary.

“All of my albums have been very diverse,” Bacon said. “I’ll usually have a couple of Tex-Mex tunes, a couple of country tunes and a couple of rock ‘n’ roll tunes, and that’s how this one is.”

Bacon had to narrow the song list from 40 for the album.  “It was going to be 20 songs for 20 years but we had a couple of minutes left on the CD, enough for another song,” he said.  “It was a pretty hard process. My manager and I picked out what we thought should be on there. Most of them are my favorites. They are not the ones that are most requested; it is the stuff that I enjoyed writing over the years.”

Bacon grew up in San Diego, where he eventually formed the Pigs in 1984.

“I grew up 15 minutes form Tijuana, and I grew up in a Mexican neighborhood,” he said. “All my friends were Mexican and I used to hang out at all their houses, so I listened to a lot of Mexican music.”

Bacon’s father was a fan of swing and would play records of bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Woody Herman.

“That’s where I got the swing influence,” he said. “I was surrounded by all types of music.”

Bacons’ refusal to be pigeon-holed has kept the band away from mainstream radio.

“My music is a little bit more real,” he said.

“Songwriting has always been real important to me. I have always loved to be able to sit down and be able write a country song or a pop song. This is one band that could do that. It could play a pop song and the next song is a country song, then the next song is a Tex-Mex song. There are not too many bands that can do that.”

Fans such as Hector Benavides admire musicians in Bacon’s mold.

“He performs because he loves it,” said Benavides, who attended a Pigs show at the old Wildhare’s Booze and Adventure.  “It’s good, fun music. He seems to have a good time entertaining.”

Bacon is content with being himself, writing and performing on his terms.

“It seems when one person comes out with something, there is always a bunch of cookie cutters right after that, no matter what it is,” he said. “I have always tried to be original and kept the same style all the time, hoping one day we would be popular. I’m not driving a limousine or anything like that, but I’m happy.”

 

 

3^rd Coast Music | San Antonio, TX | Featured Cover Article | by John Conquest - April 2004 #87/176

Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs Cloven Grooves

(Swine Song 4 Stars!)

Flavor of the Month is an expression I’m sure you’ve all come across being used to describe an emerging artist or band, and I hardly need elaborate on the derogatory undertones that imply a) that the subject doesn’t really merit the attention he, she or it is getting and b) so far from being The Next Big Thing, probably won’t be around very long.  The distinguishing feature of a Flavor of the Month is that for a while you keep hearing about whoever it is over and over, without ever really getting a firm grasp on what it is that’s supposed to be so special, and down the road, if something reminds you of whoever, you can’t for the life of you remember what became of them or if they’re still playing.  A typically ephemeral FotM would be, oh you know, that Austin alt country band with the two cute sisters that wasn’t much good but was all over the papers a couple three years ago, what the hell were they called?

The flip side to Flavor of the Month is the band that can’t get any press no matter how good it is, how long it’s been around or how well it does in clubs across the country, and if you want poster children for neglected road warriors, you could hardly do better than Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs.  The trio tours virtually non-stop, playing to capacity crowds, but you rarely come across any mention of them in print. 

I do not exempt myself from fault in this regard, but there are mitigating factors.  After Seth Russell formed the group in San Diego in 1984, his unique brand of ‘Tex-Mex-bluesabilly’ attracted the attention of Mojo Nixon, who organized a deal with Triple X Records (and is credited as ‘spiritual advisor’ on their first release).  This, however, turned out to be a somewhat mixed blessing.  While the punk label has put out five albums, Una Mas Cerveza! (1991), Dressed to Swill (1992), The Other White Meat (1995), 13 Years of Bad Road (1999) and Pig Latin (2000), The Forbidden Pigs were always the redheaded stepchild to acts like Jane’s Addiction and the label did little to promote them.  And while the Pig infrastructure works astoundingly well in some ways—a band doesn’t play over 200 paying gigs a year, as The Pigs have done since 1989, if it doesn’t have its act together—Swine Song, Russell’s own label, which released Pork Que, Pigs at the Zoo and Cloven Grooves, is primarily intended to provide the band with its own product to sell at gigs and has not exactly distinguished itself at promotion either.

The upshot is that, while I’ve wanted to do a piece on Bacon, who I think is seriously neglected and underestimated as a singer, songwriter, performer and bandleader, by the time I learn about any new album, it’s been out for months.  The timing just always seemed to be off, case in point, Cloven Grooves was released in September 2003, though I doubt if many writers or DJs outside San Diego have ever seen a copy.  However, the band celebrates its 20^th birthday this year and who knows when, or, more to the point, if I’ll ever see a copy of Triple X’s official retrospective album, due later this year?

Obviously the trio, Bacon on upright bass, guitarist Jerry ‘Hot Rod’ DeMink and drummer Justin Jones, is not the original lineup, though given the rigors of the group’s touring schedule, there’s been surprisingly little turnover, DeMink has been with Bacon for eight years, Jones for two.  Incidentally, Bacon recently moved (post-divorce) to Austin, while DeMink is still in San Diego and Jones lives in Lincoln, Nebraska, a spread that says ‘touring act’ louder than words.

However, it would have been more appropriate if Bacon had moved to San Antonio because his greatest inspiration was Doug Sahm.  “The reason I idolized him musically was the guy could do everything.  He did really great country albums, he did really good blues albums, he did great rock albums, he did doo-wop.  He did everything.  The Pigs were based upon the Quintet, but we didn’t do it as good as them.  It was based on those guys because they did everything.”  In fact Pig Latin, featuring Chris Gaffney on accordion, is Bacon’s tribute to Sahm.

In turn, Sahm recorded Una Mas Cerveza, making him one of the few people to cover one of Bacon’s songs, which is curious because all his albums are goldmines of original songs with far more substance than might be expected given the trio’s reputation as the premier roots music party band—if you can’t catch a whole Pigs show, go late rather than early, the finales are always spectacular.  To some extent, the over the top showmanship and tightness of the group distracts attention from the strength of the material and Bacon’s considerable abilities as a vocalist.

If you don’t have any of their albums, I’d have to recommend Pigs at the Zoo, recorded live at the Zoo Bar, Lincoln, because live is what they do, otherwise, this is as good a place to start as any.  It includes an extraordinarily silly Quicktime movie, featuring FAR reporter Lynne Greenmyre in her Lurlene (The Trailer Court Queen) persona, but, like I said, this is a product basically meant to be sold at the gigs to existing fans.  In fact, if you want to get a hold of any of the albums, you pretty much have to go see them, coming soon to a nearby venue, and how painful is that?  These guys put on a great show, but don’t let that fool you, because underneath the sombreros and acrobatic clowning, it’s a really cool show too.             

   

Aversion | Aversion.com | by Matt Schild - Aug. 28, 2000

Frying Up Some Bacon
[Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs]

     Whether they’ll admit it or not, anyone playing anything with a roots influence—rockabilly, alt-country, No Depression or indie roots—has to hold some kind of soft space in their hearts for country music. After all, don’t hillbilly sounds play a huge role in anything with any roots appeal? Names like

Hank Williams, George Will and Johnny Cash may be more hallowed in the halls of rock’n’roll than in the glitz of Nashville.           There’s more than a subtle division between the heart-wrenching sounds of classic country and the tunes cranked out by today’s top-sellers like Faith Hill    or Tim McGraw, as any self-respecting roots rocker will step on his grandma’s fake hip in haste to tell point out. Gone are the days of backwoods agony, whiskey-soaked heartbreak and gritty loneliness, replaced by a flashy, Broadway style pop form of the music.   

Billy Bacon, who’s led his Forbidden Pigs through the annals of Americana music since 1984, knows the sickening state of modern country as well as anyone else. While his band plays everything from classic country to pop to blues, Bacon’s sat and watched as polished, pretty-boy acts with a greater love of the studio than music history lured generation after generation of fans away from his troupe’s more traditional fare. There’s a very, very obvious rift between anything that comes from the heart of Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs and what’s shipped to country radio stations across the nation, as both anyone with a set of ears and Bacon himself will point out.

"If I watch TNN I don’t see any country music at all. It’s very terrible," he moaned. "It’s very pop. It’s making a lot of money. Those guys are selling a lot of records, and bully for them, but it’s not country music."          

If anyone could pass a judgment about modern country’s sad state of affairs, it’d be Bacon. References to classic country pepper his conversation, showing his strong familiarity with things past—an appreciation for Americana that, evidently, stretches farther than simple musical tastes. A ’55 panel truck driving by his front window is enough to make Bacon stop mid-sentence and gawk in appreciation for a second or two.

It’s that very admiration for his country’s pop history that separates Bacon from hosts of other songwriters. Authenticity is key, at least when the Forbidden Pigs are concerned, as Bacon goes to lengths to ensure his work’s spirit matches up with its predecessors.         

When I do a country song, I want it to be authentic," he said. "I want it to be real country. I want it to be something that if Merle Haggard or George Jones or Buck Owens would walk in they’d say ‘That’s country music.’ That’s how I approach country music. I take it very seriously."     

Taking roots seriously isn’t too common in today’s world of slicked-up pop country. Where Bacon’s songs stick true to the country mold, modern fare slides around with a confusing number of external influences. Everything from Southern rock to Top 40 shapes the modern country radio set, giving today’s country a sheen never before seen in the genre. Needless to say, a traditionalist such as Bacon doesn’t have a lot of favorable things to say about the style.

"I think as people have gotten older, all the people who have listened to Lynyrd Skynyrd when they were younger now want to be able to identify with something now that they’re a few years older, and that’s what Nashville is putting out," he said. "It’s pretty much Lynnrd Skynnrd, only worse. It’s not country music at all. They have to identify with that. It sounds familiar to them, so they drive around in their pickup trucks thinking its country music."  

There’s more to the Forbidden Pigs than simple roots country, however much Bacon bemoans the current state of Nashville’s output. In addition to golden-age country, the band draws on a breadth of American music, from Tex-Mex to pop to rockabilly; the band’s latest, Pig Latin (2000, Triple X) even collects a handful of Latin-tinged tracks by the band. Nailing Billy Bacon and the Forbidden Pigs down to a single genre, just like Bacon hopes. In fact, Bacon chose the Forbidden Pigs moniker in order to help cross genres easily.  

"That’s why we came up with that stupid name," he laughs. "It wouldn’t put us in any genre. I could do an all tex-mex record and the next record could be all blues or all pop."           

The band’s lack of consistent format is a format all unto itself. Bacon traces the idea of the Forbidden Pigs back to his early inspiration coming from the Sir Douglas Quintet, and later the solo work of front man Doug Sahm. With styles that could swing from country to pop in a heartbeat, Sahm’s musical destiny was as scattered as Bacon’s.  

"The reason I idolized him musically was the guy could do everything. He did really great country albums, he did really good blues albums, he did great rock albums, he did do-wop," Bacon remembered fondly. "He did everything. The Pigs were based upon the quintet, but we didn’t do it as good as them. It was based on those guys because they did everything." 

Sahm wouldn’t only be an inspiration to Bacon, their musical paths would eventually cross and the pair would build a friendship; Sahm’s Texas Tornadoes even showcased the two’s friendship by recording a version of Bacon’s "Una Mas Cerveza." When Sahm died in 1999, Bacon decided to dedicate Pig Latin to his memory. While Sahm’s inspiration on Bacon is unmistakable, Bacon’s dedication comes not from artistic reasons, but purely personal motivations.       

"He was my friend," Bacon simply stated, discussing the dedication.          

Though those firmly in tune with music history should be able to easily grasp Bacon’s songs for what they are, a nearly iconoclastic tribute to American music, the general public doesn’t even attempt to make the connection. Few Joe Sixpacks even know of Sahm, let alone want to hear a band inspired by his music. Respect, it seems, comes tough when chasing authenticity.

"This has been going on for years," Bacon said, reflecting on the uphill road his band continues to climb. "I can remember 10 years ago, as far back as that, people trying to clog dance. They’d say ‘Play some country!’ and we’d play a Buck Owens song and they couldn’t dance to it, because they learned to clog dance listening to a 4:4 beat listening to Alabama. They didn’t really know country music at all, and they didn’t know what country music was. They just wanted to clog dance. When they said play country music, we did, but they couldn’t dance to it."         

Making things even more difficult for the average listener, the band’s fun style—Bacon describes his fare as party music—doesn’t fit into the fun-loving mold of bands with roots influences, such as the Cramps or the Reverend Horton Heat. Though some of the spirit is the same, the Pigs lack the steel of that type of band. Bacon doesn’t seem too concerned about his lack of harshness.        

"It’s fun, but it’s fun without being hard edged," he said, reflecting on how his band stacks up to psychobilly and tight-wound cowpunk bands. "We could be hard edged. I used to be hard edged, like 20 years ago, but I’ve mellowed out and want to play real music."

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