Unknown Hinson

If you can get into a grave diggin’, gun-slinin’, psychobilly rockin’, 400 year old troubadour whose into vampirism and likes girls that eat cheeseburgers, then you really fell in love with this gimmick who just tore it up at The Social.  The cross between Count Chocula, Elvis, and Hank Williams wore a costume-like country-western garb: rhinestone jacket, Colonel Sanders like bow tie, fake lamb-chop sideburns and turpentine slicked hair that you could see a mile away.

Only because of a projector at stage left before his set,  and a hint from a friend, did I put two and two together that Unknown Hinson is the voice of Early Cuyler (aka: “Billy Ray for Ellijay”), the main character on Comedy Central’s Squidbillies.  That show has helped his cult following grow, but if you’ve never seen the animated series or Unknown’s previous cable access show up in North Carolina earlier this decade, then you might not get a lot of the humor in Unknown’s lyrics; nonetheless his performance was priceless.

His style of psychobilly teetered on the edge of metal madness in certain guitar solos and the band was pretty slick about interlacing a cover of “I fought the Law” into the set.  Most of his original songs were well received w/ fans singing along, giving and receiving “nuggies” on each other’s heads and even though the subject matter in “Ugly Things” will make one chuckle and cringe at the same time, it was a slow one and he almost lost the audience.  

Realizing this before he even played “I cleared out a room”, he came back strong with the all-American, “Alkyhol Withdrawl”, “Lingere”, and “Foggy Windows”.  But kinda like beer goggles (something that started out ugly, dirty and naughty, but was oh-so enticing after a few more beers) everyone had been swooned and wanted him back bad enough for an encore - that like a one night stand…I had to dip out on and head over to the next gig.