Bad Livers

Bad Livers has always been a trifle strange - a bluegrass band embraced in large part by independent rock fans - a bluegrass band that incorporates tuba and even allows for tuba solos - that cites as one of their influences "that fancy Russian dancer Nureyev" - that can use the verb "to kvetch" properly in a sentence...bemoaning America Online's service - that can describe a drunk lying in the middle of the road as a "Kafka-esque reference to the Everyman". Now with their most recent album 'Blood & Mood', they have upped the strangeness ante another notch - by including not just grindy electric guitar to their mix of banjo picking, pedal steel, and tuba, but also - I am not making this up - hip hop beats. I am totally confused but quite interested. Bad Livers seems to be on a hiatus at the moment, but you can find banjo master Danny Barns out on tour and bassist / tubist Mark Rubin at Violins, Etc. in Austin, TX.

Links of note:

Bad Livers homepage: http://www.badlivers.com.

Danny Barnes's homepage: http://www.dannybarnes.com.

Mark Rubin's homepage: http://www.markrubin.com.

My review, 4/19/97, Jack's Sugar Shack, LA.

If you'd like, you can email me here: richard@hearingmusic.com.

Oh, and all content on these pages is copyright Richard Lewis.