It’s like someone locked a badass gospel choir director in a room with the illegitimate road children of the Allman Brothers Band and handle of whiskey, a carton of cigarettes, and a plastic baggie of something rather, then said, “do whatever seems natural,” and they did.

Brian Wright and the Waco Tragedies and their extendedfamily of musicians are one of the reasons I actually love living in Los Angeles as an expatriated Southerner. Hollywood is about bullshit. And I don’t mean that in a bitter, holier-than-thou, sitcoms-with-laugh-tracks-suck, kind of way, but quite literally, Hollywood is about faking it. Film, TV and Radio are built on faking things in front of cameras and microphones for a few minutes at a time. It’s just the point. And I don’t need to explain to you how it trickles down— you’ve seen Entourage.

But Brian Wright and the Waco Tragedies are real, and they’ve carved out a really cool world of their own in Hollywood proper, far from the hoards of anorexic, scene-searching girls, two Vicodin and four Sea Breezes deep, in line outside of whatever club the Hills producers are desperately trying to wrangle a geeked-out Justin Bobby and convince him to read at least one line for every four he blasts. Hollywood is paradise fallen, but even after paradise falls, it leaves some pretty fucking awesome remnants.

Brian and the Tragedies are putting out another album soon, but in the mean time, if you don’t own Bluebird, it’s your loss. Really, it is. I’d be willing to say it’s one of the best albums you don’t have. And if you haven’t seen them live, well , you must be sadomasochistic, because, man, you’re really dicking yourself over for no good reason there. Jesus Christ— treat yourself right and go get the damn album