I’m listening tonight to the Bad Livers, and am always amazed that they haven’t got their due, even with the bluegrass revival. The Bad Livers are incredible musicians, able to do straight bluegrass, but they integrated bluegrass with punk elements early on in the 90’s, playing that full force, with banjo and fiddle, as true American melding. Before the vogue of bluegrass, played impeccably true to roots, with modern lyrics.
Barne’s newer recordings have integrated bluegrass with rap style and pastiche of voiceovers, yet it’s still about the best example of true progression of folk bluegrass as an expression of life in modern times I’ve had grace to listen to. He’s impeccable in his playing of traditional American instruments, and wonderful in pushing that envelope way beyond the comfy cozy Banjo Thang.
Anyone else think he’s just the BeJeezus great musician I see?
I would LOVE to hear some Bad Livers. I only know them from their soundtrack to the forgettable Richard Linklater western The Newton Boys, of which the soundtrack was the only decent part of the movie. What do you recommend? I love alt-country, cowpunk, and rootsy rockin’ Americana, and I can take good bluegrass in small doses.
I’d get their first, Delusions of Banjer. It’s their closest thing to a straight-up bluegrass album (well, there is that Butthole Surfers song), but I think it’s the best recorded and contains the most good songs. If you’d rather something more adventurous, then perhaps go with Industry & Thrift, which mixes it up with more electronics, drums, and a bit of klezmer.
I spent a good chunk of the 90s in Austin and saw the Livers play all the time. (I saw the full NewtonBoys band play in the Tower Records on Guadaloupe, and that was pretty great, too.) I haven’t really kept up with Danny Barnes’ later permutations. I know he’s played a bunch with Bill Frizzell, which must be interesting.
BBVoodooLou
You won’t be disappointed by any of the Bad Liver’s albums, though you will wonder how they escaped your radar when they were actively playing. I’ve seen them many times, and they were so ahead of the curve. As said, they integrate bluegrass with modern licks and lyrics. The album I was listening to at the time of posting was “Blood and Mood”, foreshadowing Barnes’ later independent recordings, heavy on some pretty wild adventuresome mixing of his brilliant playing with odder vocal technique. I think he’s a genius, and overlooked.
“Hogs on the Highway”, Bad Livers, is one of my favorites; beyond the fast-playing punk phase, well-recorded, including some amazing string band playing, which hasn’t had the same renaissance as other old- time music. This would be one of my ten Desert Island discs, it’s that good.
lMark Rubin, the bass and tuba player for the Bad Livers, is a musician who has a wide ethnomusicological interest, and has played with Texas musicians, from country to Tex-Czech and Yiddish, any of his recordings are well worth a listen.