User:Tdstone/BadLivers

Formed in Austin originally as the Danny Barnes Trio. Bad Livers played their first gig under that moniker March of 1990. The group included fiddler/accordionist Ralph White, who left the touring lineup in late 1996.

They played the stock "acoustic music" scene in Austin and the surrounding areas with little to no notice. In 1991 the local punk rock scene began to notice their wide ranging set lists, which included material from Thelonious Monk, Mississippi John Hurt, Roky Erikson and Merle Haggard. They were invited to tour as an opening act for their neighbors the Butthole Surfers. Their first commercial release was a respectfully somber Gospel cassette ("Dust On The Bible," re-issued on CD by Touch & Go.) They hit the road without a record on the shelves selling only T-shirts and their live show.

They played the 1991 SXSW conference, the obvious choice acoustic music labels all balked on a recording contract when they actually met the band. They signed with the Chicago-based Touch & Go label, releasing Delusions of Banjer (1992) and Horses in the Mines (1994).

In 1996 Ralph White left the band and old friend and one time part time Bad Liver Bob Grant stepped into to replace him. The Bad Livers moved to the North Carolina-based Sugar Hill label for Hogs on the Highway (1997)

In between tours in 1997, Mark was hired to be the Music Supervisor for Richard Linklater's film Newton Boys. With Mark conducted a 13 piece jazz band and Danny wrote the score for the Seattle Symphony. 1998's "Industry and Thrift," produced with the help of old friend Lloyd Maines, was the product of this new found confidence.

In 2000 they released the wide-ranging and ambitious CD, "Blood and Mood," to date the worst selling title in the catalog. The Austin Chronicle did a big cover story on the making of this CD, as well as in-depth interviews with both Danny and Mark.

The Bad Livers are currently planning a reunion gig at the Pickathon in Oregon Aug 1-3rd, 2008

The Bad Livers gained widespread attention from Austin clubgoers in 1991 and became the sensation of the SXSW music conference the following year. . Another recording, Dust on the Bible, was originally sold on cassette at the trio's live shows and was later issued on CD by Touch & Go under its Quarterstick imprint; it was a collection of bluegrass-gospel standards that showed that the group could play it straight when they so desired. and 1998's Industry and Thrift, the latter album produced by longtime Texas music gadfly Lloyd Maines. Each subsequent release broadened the trio's musical range, and Blood and Mood, which appeared in early 2000, was an unclassifiable mixture of bluegrass, punk, sampling of various kinds, and other electronic techniques. The album was alternately hailed as a masterpiece and denounced as the final step in a long betrayal of traditional bluegrass; the group's website dryly noted that it was "to date the worst selling title in the catalog." By that time Barnes and Rubin had both become involved with solo projects of their own; Rubin was the music supervisor for Richard Linklater's film The Newton Boys, and Barnes, who had moved to Washington state, had composed music for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. After Blood and Mood, though the Bad Livers never officially dissolved, the individual members' solo projects took precedence. Barnes released several left-of-center banjo albums somewhat reminiscent of the Bad Livers' early material, while Rubin remained a fixture of the Austin live-music and recording scene.