Listening to the debut album from Pronto, the quartet fronted by Wilco keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, the inescapable reference point is the singer/songwriter genre from the 1970s -- warm, organic, a little hazy, and mostly ready for AM radio. One can't avoid, for instance, Randy Newman's influence on "What Do You Know About You?"

Jorgensen, in a recent phone interview promoting his band's September 18 show at RIBCO, sounded tired of the comparison -- "We didn't set out ... [to] make a record that everybody's going to say sounds like the '70s," he said -- but he didn't deny its accuracy.

All Is Golden is not all soft-focus AM-radio fare. "Monster" has the muscle of power pop, while "I Think So" belies Jorgensen's love of experimental music as it devolves into a coda of sax and electronics and noise. But even when the songs themselves don't fit the decade, there's still a pervasive vibe.

The surprise is that Jorgensen is a relatively recent convert, for a long time not being a fan of the era's musical giants -- Neil Young and the Rolling Stones, for example -- or even the premise that lyrics are a meaningful vehicle for musical expression. He and his collaborators on previous experimental, instrumental music projects dismissed lyrics as merely "a vehicle for the melody."

As we began a recent phone interview, Jim Heath was filing and dealing with music-publishing paperwork. You can be certain this is nothing that his alter ego, the Reverend Horton Heat, would ever do.

"The reason I joined a band is 'cause I wouldn't have to do this crap," he said. "I end up spending all day filing and talking to accountants."

That's the price of being a successful, long-running purveyor of lighthearted, Texas-scorched rockabilly, nearly impervious to the fickle trends of popular music. Appearing at RIBCO on August 22, the Reverend Horton Heat has a new album - the country-flavored Laughin' & Cryin' with the Reverend Horton Heat - due out September 1, and the band will be celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2010. Heath turned 50 this year, and bassist Jimbo Wallace has been with the group for 20 years.

But Heath would prefer that information not get out. "In the world or rock and roll," he said, "telling people that you've been around a long time isn't necessarily the best thing."

When Those Darlins play RIBCO on Monday in a Daytrotter.com show, be prepared for things to get a little crazy. And if they don't, expect some good-natured hectoring from the Tennessee-based band.

Nikki Darlin -- they go by that fake family name, even though the three singing and songwriting leaders aren't sisters -- described the scene at a recent Nashville show celebrating the release of the group's self-titled debut:

"Jessi [Those Darlins' guitarist] and I had built a giant chicken piñata that was destroyed during 'The Whole Damn Thing' song. And my friend ... had made me a dress that night, and he ripped it off of me in the middle of the set. So I was playing the rest of the show in my underwear. And then everyone started taking their clothes off and got up on stage. Everyone's spitting beer all over everyone else. People were making out, and it was just fucking awesome."

The piñata, by the way, was filled with feathers.

The Meat Puppets have a name that all self-respecting rock fans recognize - even if many have only heard Kurt Cobain sing the band's songs - and a hell of a history.

But singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Curt Kirkwood didn't want a big comeback record or tour when he reunited with his bassist brother Cris.

"Let's just pretend like we're a brand-new band - just forget about it all," he said in a phone interview last week to promote the band's June 24 Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO. "I don't have to meet anybody's expectations. ...

"Can we just do this on a real level - make records and not be an anachronism or a re-formation, a tribute to the '80s or '90s or whatever?"

Kirkwood, who turned 50 this year, isn't dumb, though, and recognizes that the ideal is unattainable. The most important thing, he said, is to make progress, to not merely exploit the past: "There is the anachronism involved, there is a heritage, there is a history in all this stuff. And yet, you move it on. ... It's on you to not rest on your laurels."

You expect similar pronouncements from any long-running band, and you'd be smart to be skeptical. But the closer you look at the Meat Puppets' history, the more weight Kirkwood's words carry.