The Meat Purveyors

Setting the prairie afire Friday are the Meat Purveyors, those punkgrass pioneers from Austin, Texas, who — like those cousins of yours whose reckless drinking almost makes the holidays bearable — broke up real good and then got back together, only to grow into something tougher still. They respect the conventions of genre the way rivers respect state lines. Powered by Jo Stanli Walston's 190-proof pipes, Bill Anderson's barbed-wire songwriting and a harrying acoustic bass-and-guitar combo that's rock-and-roll loose instead of Prairie Home Companionuptight, TMP karang through mountain music and oddball covers (the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On") with a drunken, infectious brashness so potent that nobody who's ever caught their live show will be surprised when this crew is the last band standing after alt country collapses.