Bad Livers – Deconstruction of the labels
That makes it no less curious to hear Rubin’s seconding amens dotting the conversation. “It’s kind of an interesting question,” he says. “Why do you have to be Christian to sing, or be involved in, gospel music?”
“One of the things I really enjoy about gospel music is it’s just this incredible groove and vibe that’s just…so much of our music today doesn’t really help you out very much in terms of spirituality or philosophy, you know?” adds Barnes, and Rubin’s question never does get answered. “Gospel music has always interested me because it has a connection both lyrically and musically. If you ever read interviews with Bill Monroe and Ralph Stanley, even guys that weren’t necessarily particularly religious people, they certainly were well aware and quite respected the power of gospel music, in that it has levels of communication in it that are beyond mere music and lyric.”
“It also appeals to why I got interested in music in the first place,” Rubin says. “It’s because it seems to do things you can’t touch.”
One of my theories about live music is that when it works really well, it has the ability to disintegrate the existential solitude that most of us dwell within.
“Amen,” Rubin says. “Absolutely. I was a symphony musician for a long time, and I know that to be true. When you’re a member of a big 150-piece orchestra and you’re playing in front of 2,000 people, you can break down the walls to where it’s all just one.”
Another kind of beginning. We’re watching another generation of rock musicians re-examine hillbilly music. It’s a natural for aging punks, who respond to the shared sthetic demand for absolute honesty even if the standards of virtuosity are different. But the roots of the tree have spread far and wide by now, and the matter of authenticity (witness Gillian Welch, say) becomes murkier and murkier.
For the Bad Livers, who have to some extent done the post-modern thing and swept together a handful of seemingly unrelated musical notions, it hasn’t been much of a reach. Even Rubin’s tuba, which seems so natural a part of their music that it’s hard to remember what a novel approach it is in traditional bluegrass circles.
“When I was 10 years old, the first cat I saw that I really liked was Stringbean, who’s got a bad rap,” Barnes says. “He’s a really great banjo player. And I really liked his rhythm, he’s just got a super funked-out rhythm. He’s sort of like George Clinton in his rhythm. Obviously Earl Scruggs, Ralph Stanley and Don Reno, those are the big three. I really got into John Hartford’s playing, especially his music in the ’70s. All the clawhammer players I can get my hands on. So yeah, normally one would assume that I would be from Appalachia or something, based on the banjo playing, but I come by it honest in terms of my family.”
“I think there’s a danger of over-regionalization, too,” Rubin adds. “What with the great ’60s folk scare, and the fact that we have records, and we all have TV now, all that stuff gets pushed around.”
“I think it’s important to note,” Barnes says, “that there was a part of American music development where you could almost tell what part of the country someone was from, based on the style of music that they played. Mass communication has smeared that all around, where it’s hard to tell anymore where your influences are from. Also, you’re exposed to all the records at one time.
“Someone that was playing music in the ’30s, he was exposed to innovations in order. Right now if someone’s interested in bluegrass music they can go down and buy all the records at one time, which is a different thing.”
Likely because their peers were mostly in punk bands, the Bad Livers ended up on Quarterstick, the more experimental imprint of Chicago’s louder Touch & Go label (The Jesus Lizard, stuff like that). That’s where 1992’s Delusions of Banjer and 1994’s Horses in the Minds were released (Dust on the Bible is also available through Quarterstick, or was).
Still, it was a weird fit. “We’re all friends, you know, and they are the biggest fans. When we first started working with them, there was this discussion, I guess it was in ’91, where they kind of looked at us and said, ‘You know, we don’t do this kind of thing. It’s not what we do,'” Rubin recalls.
“He reminded us of that, after the second record kind of ran its life. And we all pretty much agreed, well, it’s been a great run, and we love each other, and we’re all good friends, but we need to attack a little differently, shift course just a little bit in our business.”
The process of finding a new label wore on, and Hogs went through various incarnations as they wrote songs and sharpened ideas. “It’s hard to really call it a bidding war for banjo records,” Barnes laughs. “We certainly have talked to a lot of different labels, probably 10 or 15, but it’s just hard to come together on it.
“We sort of got the sense that a lot of the people approaching us were coming to this only because they were trying to cover their ass, which seems to be the big affliction of the music industry. Not to really try to do quality work, but just to cover your ass. So, in other words, somebody was going to get in trouble if we signed to a different label and did well.”
Long story short, they ended up at Sugar Hill, which places them at the far edge of a pretty traditional bluegrass label, instead of the far edge of a pretty traditional punk rock label. And while their punk rock leanings may be a little less obvious this time out, that’s apt to be as much the ravages of maturity as anything.
“I knew we were in trouble when I went over to Dan’s house and he was going, ‘I just don’t have enough songs,'” Rubin laughs. “I realized when he wrote ’em all out that he had actually 26, all together. And then I looked over at what he had been listening to recently, and he had [Captain Beefheart’s legendary] Trout Mask Replica, and there are 29 tunes on it. He was just assuming that that’s what it took. That was a big slap in the face. We’d been down in the ditch for so long that we’d forgotten what the sunlight looked like up at the top, you know.”
And the songs that didn’t make the cut onto Hogs?
“Um, use ’em for the next record,” Danny laughs.
“It’s called recycling,” Mark finishes.
Grant Alden is co-editor of No Depression, senior editor at the deconstructivist Raygun magazine, and wrote this piece while planning to close his art gallery back in Seattle.