Being a weeklie podcaste from Madison, Wisconsin featuring several remarkable curiosities therein occurring being a compendium of live music from divers artistes
Show #65: Bad Livers
April 17th, 2006
This week’s show is being posted a bit late as I spent the weekend in Chicago only to have some car trouble.
I chose today’s performance based on the fact that the Southern Wisconsin Bluegrass Music Association will be having their Bluegrass Jamboree & Fundraiser this weekend at the High Noon Saloon.
This week I feature Austin, TX’s Bad Livers. The band got its name in early 1990 when it was changed from the Danny Barnes Trio. The line-up was Danny Barnes on banjo & guitar, Mark Rubin on stand-up bass & tuba, and Ralph White on fiddle & accordion. They took bluegrass and added a bit of punk making a name for themselves with covers of Iggy Pop and Motorhead tunes. In one of the oddest concert pairings ever, the band opened up for the Butthole Surfers on one of their tours.
This aesthetic carried them through their first four albums but the seeds of change were evident in “Falling Down the Stairs” from 1996’s Hogs on the Highway. It looks away from Iggy Pop & Bill Monroe and towards Captain Beefheart. Danny Barnes had always been the songwriter and leader of the group and his desire to expand and experiment was evident on the band’s final releases, Industry and Theft & Blood and Mood, the latter drawing the ire of many a reviewer and fan. The Bad Livers finally broke up in 2000.
I had the pleasure of seeing the Bad Livers at Summerfest in 1998, methinks it was. They’d played O’Cayz here in Madison the night before and the guys looked really hungover (**** See Comments ****) as they opened the day’s proceedings at the Leine Lodge.
Today we have an early show by the Bad Livers. It is an in-studio performance at KUT 90.5FM in Austin, Texas and was recorded on 10 March 1991.
Setlist:
Intro
Instrumental
Crow Black Chicken
Uncle Lucius
I Know You’re Married
Better Times
Lust For Life
Fire
Keep It Clean
Old Old House
How Dark My Shadow’s Grown
Waiting For A Miracle
The Men In Black
Long Chain Charlie and Moundsville
Angeline d’Baker
Instrumental/Outro
(Photos by Dixon Coulbourn)
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We weren’t hungover.
We were sleep deprived.
Even the Pirogies had no effect.