Hogg Maulies

At the junction between 19th street and Texas Ave in Lubbock.... the music never dies. For the past 4 years, The Hogg Maulies have meshed their dreams of the future and the homage to the past while holding down a 12 hours at Texas Tech University. None of them are music majors, as they do not offer to teach Texan. It seems to be a degree achieved best by birth in Fisher County. The boys from Rotan can play!

I asked, "What are you going to do when you graduate?" Rode Morrow, lead singer for the Hogg Maulies replied, "I don't know, just keep playing I guess." Rode looked worried that this gig might not draw a crowd. 30 minutes later as he approached the stage to start the show, and the Texas Tech senior was greeted by a crowd of yells and cat calls. The place was packed, he wasn't worried anymore and the Hogg Maulies just kept playing.

The Hogg Maulies aren't just Texas Country's version of "Generation next". The crowd mix of college coeds and frat boys, Texas plowboys and middle aged crazies prove there is more here than generation. These guys are different. The prerecorded music before the show belts out everything from The Killers to Johnny Cash. You know these guys are more than just cold beer country rock and pickup ballads. In downtown Lubbock there is always the hint of Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, Mac Davis, and Pat Green in the atmosphere. These boys are just surfing the clouds of time in this place, and their music reflects it.

Hogg Maulie music is also something unique. It is the best of where they come from and who they are. This isn't Texas music; it is West Texas small town struggle to pay the crop note soul. They are trying to find something deeper in the soil, wishing for rain, and hoping to get a good price. They can't control it and they know it. It is perhaps ingrained in their being from generations of toil. They just keep playing.

The beer flows, as the crowd gets worked up from the sounds of guitar, bass, and fiddle. They end their last line of the first song in this chorus, "I roll on." They do. The Maulies entertain the crowd and themselves by playing a mixture of tracks from their 2006 release Here to Stay, and a few cover tune standards. My favorite song of the entire night is a song called Fall Back. It is by far the best song lyric I have heard in quite a while. Believe me when I state this, Rode Morrow can write. I mean that to say that in the vastness of Texas Music, I haven't listened to lyrics as superior to this. Jerod Foster (lead guitar), Parker Morrow (bass guitar), David Mullins (drums) can also play. Songs Goodnight and Here to Stay are their best fusions of talent.

Rode says that Jerod Foster “looks like Jesus." It is fitting. He is the lone member outside of Fisher County and is ironically from Paradise, Texas. I can't say for sure if he looks like Jesus, but the boy sure can play a guitar. As for the rest of the band and their looks, well they look like they should be delivering feed and hauling hey. But the way they play, I'm guessing that the junction of 19th and Lubbock, Texas is about to once again invade the airwaves of country. Like the many that came before, they know its all about truth of where you come from and where you’re going. Just keep on playing Hogg Maulies!

“I hope I don’t have to spend my whole life pickin, those cotton bolls from dusk til dawn.”-Pickin Time

If you want to know what a Hogg Maulie is, what one looks like, or purchase one for yourself; please check out these links.

www.hoggmaulies.com

Hogg Maulies Myspace page.