Roadkill

"Well, I was drunk and trying to hit people with bottles," Chesnutt recalls of his Waterloo Ice House show about two years ago. "I like to get drunk in Austin."

But what would one expect of a man touring in support of his LP Drunk, a title which is also his nickname? One could say that theatrics and reality blended a little too well to be distinguished from one another that night.

Chesnutt has straightened out somewhat since that infamous performance. Not long afterward, he married Tina, the bassist for his band, the Scared Skiffle Group.

Chesnutt has also been too busy to live-up to the old diminutive. He has just released Is the Actor Happy? on the California Indie, Texas Hotel, and is preparing to do his next LP for Capitol where he will be "the poorest artist on a major label." He has also been hard at work on a Sweet Relief LP which will feature the likes of Meat Puppets, REM, et al., doing his songs.

Is the Actor Happy? is Chesnutt's most appealing assemblage of his self-described "pseudo-symbolist folk music" to date. It's pop, but it's still true to Chesnutt's strange vision. Dogs named Bubbles inspire choruses, history dissipates into fractal lines, and phrases such as "and her freakish nipples were akimbo" keep the LP from getting too far into the realm of MTV. Still, the whole thing flows with a smooth Southern literary grace. Look out, Faulkner.

Chesnutt makes this pledge for his shows two Electric Lounge shows: "I will be good. I will not be an ass. I will sing real purty."

I think the actor is happy.

Friends of Dean Martinez, a band made up of former members of Tucson supergroup Giant Sand, opens for Chesnutt. - Joe Mitchell