The Deathray Davies hail from Texas, so you might think they'd be country bumpkins, but they're not. Nah, they play retro garage pop akin to The Kinks. Then there's central Pennsylvanian chanteuse Dawn Kinnard, whose first album was country in the Lucinda Williams sense of the word. But she's over that, and moving on to less twangy pastures.

What this all comes down to is that despite the prospect of a yee-haw or two at tonight's Roustabout!, the show's going to be less about the dusty West and more about indie rock.

The 21-and-over event kicks off at 11ish at The Darkhorse Tavern, 128 E. College Ave. Cover's $4.

The Deathray Davies was birthed in 1998, when group founder John Dufilho wrote a batch of songs that didn't quite fit the band he was swinging with at the time. So he recorded them, playing all the instruments by his lonesome, under the moniker of The Deathray Davies. The band (now with multiple members) has released four albums, with the fifth coming out in May.

Since the band's early days, they've gained and lost a bunch of members -- headcount is currently at five. But one dude who's not going away is Kevin Ingle, an original member who does crazy things with the tambourine, xylophone, maracas and more.

"Anything you can give to a second grader, I'll play it," Ingle said. "Somehow I've lasted; I don't know how. They keep trying to get rid of me, but I drive a lot and they respect my driving and loading skills."

The band's in the midst of an East Coast tour, which includes stops in Philly, New York, Cleveland and ... State College?

"We had a really good time when we played Roustbout! last year," Ingle said. "It's a beautiful time of the year so we couldn't stay away. Texas doesn't get a lot of winter-type action, and it's good to wear a coat sometimes."

Tonight's other performer, Dawn Kinnard, could probably use some of that coat-less Texas weather. The preacher's daughter has lived in central Pennsylvania her whole life but is getting out of the frigid valley this April with a move to Nashville. Kinnard actually recorded her upcoming album near Nashville, with the aid of some musicians who've backed artists like Bob Dylan, REM, Ryan Adams, Steve Earle and Mindy Smith, according to her manager, Britton Edwards.

"We took a totally different direction with this album. It's not country at all," Kinnard said. "I'm constantly learning new things and listening to new music and having different influences, so it's a natural evolution."

One of those influences is none other than experimental-pop group Broken Social Scene. Kinnard heard the ethereal "Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl" off the collective's current disc, and was inspired to write the song "Magic."

"With that song, it's less about every line making sense, and more about a feeling," Kinnard explained. "If I say a particular word, that means something to me and it connects with the subject and it works. But it's not like I'm Sigur Rós, making up my own language."

Kinnard's forthcoming album has "legit label interest," so there's no release date set yet, Edwards said. That shouldn't come as a surprise, though. From the beginning, Kinnard's been getting national attention at an unexpected rate. For instance, her 2003 debut was exalted in the pages of Paste, and a track was even included on one of the nationally distributed magazine's sampler albums.

"I was looking through Paste and saw they had a sampler and thought, hmm, maybe in three years," Kinnard said. "Then I got a call 20 minutes later that they were going to put me on a sampler. I barely even played outside of State College at that point, so it must have been some divine intervention."