There's no arguing that ace rockabilly/sleaze-roots/twang-punk outfit The Reverend Horton Heat's days of high-profile pop-cultural relevance are long behind them. But the trio continues to pack theaters (and bigger venues) worldwide, and Jim Heath and company seem to have secured the sort of enduring underground-icon status reserved for the innovators and the eternally cool - like X and Social Distortion before them. Why? Because they were among the first to do something so singularly well that they've come to define it, and because they're pretty much incapable of playing a bad show.
Rising roots-punk upstarts Th' Legendary Shack Shakers might be counted among The Reverend's acolytes by some, but they do a much more raw, Appalachia-gone-wrong sort of backwoods sermonizing. This double bill should win the Shack Shakers a bunch of the new fans they deserve; go see why we've been not-so-subtly prodding you to go see them live for about a year now.
The Reverend Horton Heat w/Th' Legendary Shack Shakers @ The State Theatre, 687 Central Ave., St. Petersburg. 7 p.m. Saturday, July 2; $17 adv./$20 d.o.s.
-SCOTT HARRELL
