NRBQ: The Best American Band You Might Not Know About

FOR DECADES, critics, musicians, and a slew of civilian devotees have testified to the idiosyncratic brilliance of NRBQ, and yet they've had to endure endless interviews and think pieces – including by this writer – where the underlying question is: if you're so damned exceptional, why aren't you more famous?

That has to be annoying, the constant drumbeating about the relative lack of commercial success, the rolling out of endorsements from cultural icons as diverse as Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Paul Westerberg, Elvis Costello, Zooey Deschanel, and Homer Simpson.