On Remember the Alimony, San Francisco-based alt.country band Joe Buck remembers the irony, which helps their urbanite audience digest their "thundering tonk" with a shit-eating grin. Case in point: at their record release party a few months back, the Joe Buck boys hired the UC Berkeley marching band to open the show with the national anthem, and then accompany them in a cover of the theme song from Midnight Cowboy, "Everybody's Talkin." In your living room, you'll pine along with front-man Dave Munro for his lost, wheezing love on "Asthma Inhaler": "An asthma inhaler / and an empty bottle of rye / that's all that I got / now that you've left my side / If ever up in that Great White North / you get short of breath / come on back for the asthma inhaler / that you left."

Michael Sippey