Late one night, in the beer sign light, I watched local record hound Kurt Wood gesticulating wildly as he related his admiration for Six String Drag. His squirmy body bobbed with emphasis as he raved over their ragged Silvertone twang. He shook a finger to punctuate their tight musicianship.

"They even do this really great cover of that James Brown song... what's that called?"

"'I Go Crazy'."

"Yeah! That's it. Wow, and they have this horn section, too. When they got the horns...."

So take it as a cue. Not many folks, especially folks with country music leanings, can cover the Godfather of Soul and pull it off with any aplomb.

But don't go getting any misconception that these Carolina boys can't bake up their own stuff, because they deliver the goods. Yes, indeed. Big old country biscuits of joy.

The last I saw of these guys, Six String Drag dished it out at the recent Bubbapalooza wingding. Even crusty old Steve Earle made the scene to check them out.

The following week, they played two consecutive nights at the High Hat Club here in town. A swell treat, cuz some of us folks are tired of traveling to the Star Bar for all the good shows. I'm pleased to see that the High Hat is latching onto stuff like Six String Drag.

And they'll be bringing their crafted songs and tight musicianship back to the aforementioned High Hat Club come Friday, July 19, and will play there again Saturday afternoon sometime between 4 and 7 p.m.

In a recent phone interview, band leader Kenny Roby talked about his material for Six String Drag.

"Our songs are not trying to prove something way out there," he said. "They're just like, this is the song and let's try to make it the best we can without screwing it up, which is a lot of times playing as little as possible. When you have five or six guys up there, you have to get that (idea) unless you just want to walk all over each other. Then there's no point in being up there.

"I take it really, really seriously, maybe more than I should," he said. "I get real worked up about stuff. I don't scream at people and throw knives at them, but they might think I'm going to.

"I take it seriously enough to where I can't not take it serious when it's not going good," he said. "It's really hard to toss it off and say, screw it."

Roby tends not to pay much attention to other bands. I had to ask, is he divesting self from his contemporaries?

Laughing, he said, "It's just whatever perks my ears up. I'd just soon go see hard rock or whatever. It doesn't have to be country."

He professes a like for the Backsliders from Raleigh, N.C., and Atlanta's Continentals: "They make you have fun when you see them, and that's a rare thing."

This rare thing is what Six String Drag tries to capture.

"Our favorite thing is when people dance," Roby said. "That's what I like about the Star Bar. Even more, I love the fact that people really get into it there. They seem not to just want to stand there and look at you like you're a freak. They'd rather just dance and be a freak, too."

But that's gonna change, right Athens? Are you greasy whiners going to let some chromium megalopolis beat our small town asses in the Let's-Show-'Em-How-To-Have-Fun department? God, I hope not! Git on out there and kick a little ass. Kick up yer heels. Burn a little dance floor, and for goodness sake, pay attention to them songs. Some shit kickin' navel-gazer worked really hard on them.

Gretchen LaBudde