There's an old adage in country music that's been around maybe since the first documented live performances in the 1920s and '30s by the likes of Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills. It basically states that if you have a country band, and the best song in your show is a Judas Priest cover, it's time to hang up the fake Southern drawl and the cowboy hat.

        Supersuckers, do you copy?

        The veteran Seattle group, known for its “comical” hybrid of country music and hard rock, as well as its “wild” live shows, moseyed into Bogart's Sunday for a Mother's Day night concert before a crowd of about 150.

        The turnout felt about right. This is a bar band deserving no more than a small fan base. The Supersuckers' shtick is meshing country's outlaw and white-trash legacies with rock attitude. It worked a little. The four-man band, augmented by a second guitarist and a pedal steel player, would let loose with revved-up honky tonk worthy of their cartoonish tales of drugging and loving.

        But they couldn't stick to it. Singer Eddie Spaghetti, a Tucsonnative whose idea of country vocals is something like a flat hillbilly mumble, has aspirations beyond satire and twang, so the crowd was presented with a handful of second-rate singer-songwriterish, jangle-pop songs. Call it the Steve Earle effect. Hanging out with Mr. Earle has even turned the alleged devil-may-care group into political sloganeers. At one point in the show, Mr. Spaghetti yelled, “Free the West Memphis Three!,” a nod to one of Mr. Earle's many causes.

        There was no such gravity in the encore though, when they busted out songs by Jerry Reed, Thelonious Monster and “Breaking the Law” by Judas Priest.

        Opener Jesse Dayton's set was also highlighted by unexpected choices. The Texas honky tonk singer/guitarslinger's original songs fell flat, but his 50-minute set was dominated by covers. Mr. Spaghetti came out to join him on a country version of the Cars' “Just What I Needed.”

        Mr. Dayton told the crowd he once played in Waylon Jennings' band and proceeded to honor the late singer with a version of “Lonesome, On'ry and Mean.”

        He strongly finished his set with a medley that included Billy Joe Shaver's “Georgia on a Fast Train,” Willie Nelson's “Me and Paul” and Townes Van Zandt's “White Freightliner Blues.”

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