HAPPY DOING WHAT WE'RE DOING
Elizabeth McQueen and the Firebrands

Who even remembers the group Brinsley Schwarz these days, much less covers one of their songs and names an album after it? "Happy Doing What We're Doing," a bouncy singalong by the seminal '70s roots rock band (young Nick Lowe played bass and guitar), is a homage to the music known as British pub rock. Funny this new version comes from an Austin transplant who was raised in Columbia, but in truth the songs on Elizabeth McQueen's promising debut disc, 2003's "The Fresh Up Club," were as much London pub as Texas honky-tonk. Call it country music from another country.

McQueen has gone all-English for this one -- apparently there's quite a scene in Austin for this retro rock -- and she pledges her allegiance to the flags of Squeeze ("Annie Get Your Gun"), Rockpile ("You Ain't Nothing but Fine," combining that band's take with the Fabulous Thunderbirds'), Dave Edmunds ("A1 on the Jukebox") and Graham Parker ("Local Girls").

She goes all the way back to Eggs Over Easy, the group usually identified as the originator of pub rock, for "Home to You," a bluesy track highlighted by Eggs original Austin de Lone on keyboards. Dr. Feelgood's moderate '70s hit "All I Need Is Money" (written by Lowe) and Henry Glover's "Seven Nights to Rock" (also covered by Lowe) let the Firebrands shake off their reverential timidity and rip it up.

If that set list sets your heart aflutter, and you typically sing along to Rockpile's "When I Write the Book" (included here), this album is just the thing for you.

- Buzz McClain