The vibrant music of Freddie "Steady" Krc - the creative force behind Austin's Shakin' Apostles - can give you just as heavy a hit of Texas mojo as sipping a bottle of Shiner Bock while waiting out a Hill Country rainstorm from the screened porch of a BBQ joint in Dripping Springs. But it's more than that, too.

It's easy to see that Freddie's finely chiseled original material - Too Hot For Snakes skims the best from the first three Apostles' albums - is mesmerizing stuff. But it's the live covers here that give the game away, going straight to the heart of the man's artistic vision. This 14-track compendium finds Krc bouncing around his musical passions - from Moby Grape's hi-octane classic "Fall On You" and "Levitation," the signature incantation from Roky Erickson's 13th Floor Elevators, to Gene Clark's weather-beaten opus "Long Time" and a multi-layered gem like Buffalo Springfield's "Rock & Roll Woman" - as if he were a steel ball on the flipper of one of those ancient Bally pinball games. And then creating his own songs, able to stand toe-to-toe with those of his heroes.

Rolling up his sleeves over the years with such musical icons as Roky Erickson, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Doug Sahm and Butch Hancock has forged Krc's muse. And, since the release of the first Apostles' album in 1993 through Tucson, his western rock opera through last year's Medicine Show, he's shown a blacksmith's skill at ratcheting things up a notch. "I'm trying to create my own brand of Americana," he says. When I was a kid, the bands I loved - the Byrds, Moby Grape and Buffalo Springfield - took all these influences and mixed I 'em up into something uniquely their own. And since I grew up with all sorts of music - Cajun, blues, rock, country, conjunto and psychedelic - that's what I'm trying to do today."

To bring his blueprint to life, Krc - who got his feet wet two decades ago alongside pals Cam King and Waller Collie in Austin power/punk combo the Explosives - recruited this current edition of the Shakin' Apostles from Waco, one hundred miles up the Interstate. "I bumped into Waco Jack McVey at the Saxon Pub a couple of years ago," says Krc, "and asked him to audition on drums. Jack's band back in Waco, the Java Heads, had just lost their singer, so he brought along Bryan Jaska, his bass player, and his guitar player, Pat Kelly, too. And it's worked out just great."

Let's get one thing straight. The Shakin' Apostles are Texas music without being self-consciously "Texas Music." You don't have to own a tape vault containing every performance of Austin City Limits to understand where they're coming from. "No matter how many different spices we stir into the pot," chuckles Krc, "it'll always be rock and roll. You don't need a Ph.D. in Musicology to figure that out. But we like to change things up. Our next studio album will have some raga/psychedelic stuff on it"

Cranking up the Shakin' Apostles in the dead of winter might just melt the snow off your shingles. It's the kind of experience that, no matter what the season, will have you moaning like a cat on a hot tin roof: "It's too hot for snakes."