DYLAN COMPLEX

Austin maverick Butch Hancock has written some of country-rocker Joe Ely’s best songs, not to mention some of the best country songs of the last decade, period. But Hancock the performer is not on the same stellar level as Hancock the writer, at least at this point.

His Dylan complex got the best of him Friday at the Lingerie, and much as we hate to rain on any parade of communal spirit in the ‘80s, the arrangements that his Rolling Thunder-like eight-piece band offered up--in a hybrid of lolloping rock, folk, country and mariachi--were cluttered and repetitive. His harmonies with backup singer Marce Lacouture tended to stretch syllables in search of a key, Dylan-style, which can get old fast.

Singer Syd Straw (who’ll be with the Golden Palominos in their local shows this week) opened with a short but sweet set of goofy, brainy, pretty pop, accompanied only by Eric Amble of the Del-Lords on electric guitar.