From the Bad Livers Archive: Live review, Cleveland OH 1999

Live review, Cleveland, OH October 21, 1999

Dirty Linen Magazine, Feb/Mar 2000 issue

Those bad boys of bluegrass, the Bad Livers, made an impromptu stop in Cleveland in October for a sparsely attended but well-received show. The Austin-based duo of Mark Rubin (bass and tuba) and Danny Barnes (banjo and fiddle) laid down a loose-limbed but driving 90 minutes of down-and- dirty, mildly subversive grass. They played a lively, fresh set despite coming straight from a nine-hour drive from Philly (where they recounted getting caught in the “Amish vortex" off the Pennsylvania Turnpike.) Barnes is a formidable banjo player, making the fast rolls look effortless. He has an ideal bluegrass voice, high and lonesome, but with a bluesy elasticity. Rubin put a solid bottom on everything and pumped the rhythm along nicely. 

The pair has a sharp, intelligent sense of humor. Unfortunately, their cryptic references to the work of Hovhannes and bajo sexto music floated over the heads of the bemused blue-collar Cleveland audience. They bantered with people shouting out requests, rejecting most in no uncertain terms. One obnoxiously overzealous fan's repeated request for “Chainsaw Therapy” was met with a shout of “Shut the fuck up!” by an exasperated Barnes. They closed out the concert with a languid, trippy rendition of Thelonious Monk's

“Blue Monk.” confidence. Unfortunately, only about a half-dozen earlybirds heard their set.

— Peggy J. Latkovich (Cleveland Heights, OH)

From the Bad Livers Archives: "Bad Livers cross the line between Bluegrass and Punk"

Matty Karras, Longbranch Press, Longbranch NJ, 1995

As you might expect of a band that finds it appropriate to link a Johnny Cash (“Ring of Fire'') and a Motorhead song (“Jailbait”) in a medley simply because they're in the same key, the banjo-bearing, fiddle-flying, tattoo-toting Bad Livers sometimes find themselves on stage in rustic folk halls and other times in raucous punk clubs.

It's all a question of what club booked them first in any given town, according to upright bass and tuba player Mark Rubin.

“In a town like Denver, we played this little folk club the first time we played there, and from here on out we'll play that little folk club,” Rubin said.

At the Jersey Shore, on the other hand, the Livers debuted a few years back at the Fast Lane, a punk-rock cave, opening for the Butthole Surfers. Their gigs since then have all been at the Brighton Bar, the Long Branch punk haven where they will return Monday night.

“Have you ever been backstage (at a punk club)?” Rubin asked. “You know how there's graffiti all over the walls? This is the new thing we're gonna do now. We're gonna take a bucket of Lysol, we're gonna paint all the walls white and leave a potted plant. That's how punk-rock Bad Livers are."

But no matter who or what they're playing for, the Bad Livers sound and smell the same: like a banjo-and-fiddle based bluegrass band that writes sad ballads and happy banjo blitzkriegs with old-time Appalachian mountain flavors, and plays them with the virtuosity of great bluegrass musicians and the devil-may-care attitude of punk rockers. The fast songs on the band's most recent album, "Horses in the Mines,” are jumping testimonials to fingers flying on strings and blizzards of words sung lovingly through singer Danny Barnes' nose; the slow ones have a fervor that recalls gospel music.

The three Bad Livers are by now used to the sideways looks they get from new audiences, but those looks usually turn to foot-shuffling smiles once they start playing. “We're really happy about what we're playing, and I think the audience can see that," Rubin said. And now that the Austin, Texas, band has spent several years crisscrossing the country in their van, playing whatever small town would have them, he said, “We've got it down to where people know us and we don't have to explain ourselves every time”

Not that there should be that much to explain. Despite the Appalachian flavor, Rubin's basic explanation for the Livers is: We're from Texas. (Or, in his case: "I'm from Oklahoma. And everyone from Oklahoma moves to Texas as soon as they can.") In the Lone Star State, he said, “We speak a particular language, and it's the kind of environment we fit in. We're students of history and students of music. And you can devote yourself to Texas music and spend your whole life and never get tired.

"Look. We're playing the Old Settler's Bluegrass and Fiddler's Convention in Red Rock, Texas (at the end of the current tour), and once a month we're at Emo's (Austin's reigning punk-rock joint). We are the house band. You can't get more disparate than that."

The band's records and live reputation have won it some prestigious spots on its current tour - opening for Los Lobos in Detroit and for the Band at the legendary Wolf Trap in Virginia – but it has remained loyal to tiny Quarterstick Records, where its label mates include punk's veteran commercial failures the Mekons.

“In Detroit, a good quarter of the the audience was already familiar with us, and the other three-quarters was exceptionally receptive," Rubin said. “That validated a concept I've had for a long time: Our music could compete on a much higher level, on a commercial level, without changing anything."

But he said he doubts any major record label is ready to agree. There have been offers, he said, “but it's business, and in business you make someone the sucker deal right off the bat."

For now the Livers are all working part-time day jobs - Rubin is a computer systems operator for Ticketmaster (but thinks Pearl Jam is right on the mark" in its crusade against the ticket agency's high prices) — and collecting ideas for future records and side projects, such as a third Bad Livers album, due about a year from now.

"It takes time,” Rubin said, “when you've gotta go work 20 hours a week, and then you've got fishing. For every hour of work, you've gotta fish at least 20 minutes."

Rubin, the band's resident gabber, who has played bass and other rhythm instruments ever since picking up a sousaphone when a marching band coach pointed to a pile of instruments and said, "Pick up the biggest instrument you can,” hardly has to explain what he's usually after when he casts his rod.

Largemouth bass, of course.

From the Bad Livers Archive: Telluride Bluegrass Festival Program 1994

Bad Livers : Expect a Full Meal

David Owen, Telluride Bluegrass Festival Program 1994

A lot of different terms have been used to describe Bad Livers – everything from acoustic, speed-metal, bluegrass, thrash to cowpunk. All these terms, however, mean little to the Livers, whose focus is on just playing what comes naturally and relying on the principle that good music cannot be kept down for long.

Born from the Austin, Texas, gig scene, Bad Livers came together in 1990 as much out of attrition as out of any master plan. Banjo player Danny Barnes began booking himself as the “Danny Barnes Trio” around the town. The established sound of this title was misleading, because the trio consisted of whomever Barnes could scrape together to play that night. Over time, Ralph White and Mark Rubin fell into place to round out the group, as the three discovered their mutual influences and interest in musical history.

While all three have backgrounds that include forays into the punk, reggae and Cajun scenes, Rubin says it is their collective interest in history and their respect for their instruments that keeps the music pure.

“Some musicians who play the traditional instruments play almost as if they are apologizing for them,” Rubin said while pumping nickels into a Lake Tahoe slot machine. “We like and respect the instruments and the music we play. We don't feel any need to lose any of that."

The other thing that stands out about Bad Livers is that they are committed, above all, to making the music that feels right to them with no concessions to those who would try to pigeonhole them into one industry slot or another. Whether paying homage to Flatt and Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Metallica or the Stooges, the band is true to its roots and will not adjust its musical focus at the expense of . any of its other foundations. As one journalist once put it, “Listening to Bad Livers is like entering a parallel universe, where bluegrass is the only musical language. But it's expansive enough to accomodate everything from Johnny Cash to Jimi Hendrix.”

“We have had all sorts of temptations dangled in front of us by people who wanted us to become something we are not,” Rubin said. “The compromises have been too great.

We have a friend who is a blues player and record companies are always asking him to ‘put on the blues suit.' Those are allowances I just can't make. I am absolutely incapable of putting on the suit."

Fortunately for the band, they have found a record company, Touch & Go – the label for bands like Therapy? and Pegboy – that is willing to take them for what they are and make no demands.

“They give us just enough rope to hang ourselves with,” said Rubin. “We send them a tape and they put it out backed by whatever resources they have available."

Despite the frustrations of classification and the occasional novelty act tag that follows them, Rubin said the band knows what is most important is the music, and ultimately, that is what makes the difficult times worth it. “The only reason the greats like Bill Monroe ever made it, was because they were bullheaded and stayed in the ballgame," said Rubin. “They realized that you can't keep good music down. Our one accomplishment is that we are still here after three records and over 1,000 shows."

Their latest album, Horses in the Mines, was recorded in a wood shed on an old analog 8-track. “We didn't do it that way because we thought it would sound special or to be cool; it was because it was all we could afford," Rubin said. "But, the end result is something we are really proud of. I think it captured more of our live feel than our last album. It sounds a little like we set up in your living room."Bad Livers will also continue to tour as long as it remains feasible, knowing that the stage is their most powerful ally.

"We have had a range of experiences few can boast, from playing established folk rooms to premier punk clubs — and that has allowed us to touch a lot of different types," Rubin said. “It has also given us the opportunity to turn younger audiences on to the older artists who we respect and admire, turn them on to what turns us on."

"No matter what draws people in or what preconceived notion they have of us, it will not change how we act on stage. They are still going to get two full hours of Bad Livers," Rubin concluded. "We have never had an audience we didn't like, regardless of how they showed up. Good music cannot be denied."

Bad Livers will be performing at 12:30 p.m. Saturday..

From the Bad Livers Archive : fRoots UK Review of Industry & Thrift, 12/1998

BAD LIVERS Industry & Thrift,  Sugar Hill The nucleus the Bad Livers may now just be two guys, Danny Barnes and Mark Rubin, but with the aid of producer Lloyd Maines they're finally producing a mighty, full and cohesive sound. Working on the fringes of old-time and bluegrass, but crossing over with all sorts of raw roots from klezmer to country blues and honky tonk, they've finally got away from their earlier lo-fi fetish and do full justice to their singular vision. Whether it's driven by tuba and banjo (Lumpy, Beanpole & Dirt) or totally manic flat-pick guitar and slapped string bass (Brand New Hat, or the Doc Watson-on-uppers Cannonball Rag), they've now worked out how to capture the energy and fertile imagination that previously seemed to be the wishful thinking of the press release. Elsewhere, mandolins, clarinets, fiddles, squeezeboxes, bottleneck and pedal steel guitars layer in and out, and the only regret in the whole package is the complete lack of who-plays-what credits. Oh, and there's the obligatory uncredited extra track on the end, where banjo and bass go wiggy.

An important, landmark album from a band long admired more for their absence of rules than what they actually achieved.

"Southern Discomfort" Radio Documentary, now in English!

Producer Paul Brody of Berlin has graciously provided me with an all English version of the WDR Feature on yours truly called "Southern Discomfort," not coincidently the title of my debut release. 

We travelled from New Orleans and Austin and back, listen to KBON, played at a bluegrass jam at the Hi-Ho Lounge, remember life changing nights at an Einstunzende Neubauten gig, my recent diagnosis with BiPolar 2 (and the ugly public scenes that lead up to it,) hit the road with the Hot Nut Riveters, record my new CD, and talk extensively about my life growing up Jewish in small town Oklahoma. Fun times.

Follow THIS LINK to listen in, and then after that if you would be so kind, maybe order the new CD (info below) as well!

Thanks!


MR

"Free Jazz"

....or whatever that meant to Bad Livers

Maestro

I've worked with many many wonderful jazz musicians over the years, in many many wonderful situations. But for some reason, none of these cats ever once considered me a "jazz" man nor ever hired me to play improvisational or spontaneously composed musics.* I was always "the bluegrass guy" or the "klezmer guy" or the "polka guy" or worst of all "the Trad guy." Was I incapable or that level of craft? Maybe so. But please understand however that even I realize that I was entirely responsible for that opinion of me and must take full responsibility for. I sure went out of my way to let folks know what opinion I held the "self expressive" free jazz and jam band musics I had encountered. Talked my way into a box I reckon. Hell, I take exception to the very term "jazz," but that's another blog post entirely.

But recently I was reminded of my short lesson with Buell Neidlinger, (this gets its own story soon)  who I met in Pt. Townsend Washington at a Bad Livers show. And from that recollection I was led to remember the dreamlike state and entirely unspoken level of total creative "freedom" that I felt and expressed onstage musically for a great many years with my Bad Livers musical partner Danny Barnes. Only now through the filter of time can I get a good picture on what a gift it was to share music in that way. Damn glad I left myself kvell a bit about it. It's good to give yourself a break, if you can.

I present the attached video for your consideration. For contexts sake, bear this in mind. This was videoed in 2009. Aside from a single 45 minute set at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival the year before, this was the first time we stepped onstage in 9 years. 8 of those with no communication of any kind, at all. When we last worked with each other, Bad Liver shows had evolved into a 2 hour stream of consciousness presentation of musical dexterity and humor, anti-academic alternative histories and narrative delivered unironically entirely informed by the deep traditions of Southern elocution and storytelling and a really great stand up act, honed by a decade of 200+ dates a year on the road in front of mostly confused, sometimes charmed but oft unpleasant audiences. 

For our 2nd set this night in SF. We just walked out, looked each other in the eye and started. It starts with Monk and ends with Narciso Martinez, much like one of our mix tapes in the rental car, usually board tapes from my "Overnight" shift on KUT Radio for a decade.  Nobody ever trusted me more than Barnes. I'd take a bullet for him, even today. For reals.

Years earlier, we tried to capture that live show vibe on tape by setting up a couple mics in my old wooden house in Austin (nestled in the Ridgetop neighborhood, hence the name.) My little pal Lance the Wonder Korgi wrapped himself around the mic stand at my feet and we hit record on a DAT machine. Got a call from my old pal Dan Foster, and Lance speaks up a few times, but other wise it's just exactly what we presented live for at least the prior 3 years. We called it "The Ridgetop Sessions," and it's still available today on CD Baby. (yeah, the Mad Cat Trio CD got re-issued too!) :

 

 

 

 

 

 

* I make the notable exception of composer/percussionist Aaron Alexander, who did in fact put his trust in me and made a member of his "Midrash Mish Mosh" ensemble in 2004. He and his compositions loom large in my psyche and I am forever grateful.

Personal confusion over the term "Folk."

(I wrote this essay in January or 2011. Not sure why I didn't publish, but whatever, here ya go:)

I was recalling when I was a last minute replacement speaker on a panel at the Folk Alliance conference was held in Austin in 2006. The panel was called "What is Folk" and it was the opening session. When it came around to my turn after hearing all the music professionals; artists, presenters, writers and a DJ, my definition was greeted with quite a bit less enthusiasm as I had hoped.

Brian Marshall at the Houston Polish Fest

I proffered the opinion that the definition of "folk music" was music played by people who didn't want to be left out of the party going on. Music of community functions and families traditions. Its a voice of a living culture, often times filtered and some times entirely drowned out by the consumerist narrative. It's a concept my pal Tex-Polish fiddler Brian Marshall laid on me years ago, and ultimately it's as good a definition as I have yet encountered: "I didn't want to be left out of the fun, so I joined in."
There was an audible and awkward silence amongst the assembled. From the best I can gather, this description didn't sit too well with many "performing songwriters" in attendance, who I have since come to find hold a much different opinion from a vastly different world view. What I came to find that day was that we are talking about two very different narratives and concepts that today share the same public moniker. Confusion and hurt feelings can mount up quite a bit when you realize that you use the same term to describe different things, especially when they exist at such odds with one another.
 
From my possibly limited experience, a "folk" artist is in fact a cultural craftsman who's only attachment to music is serving a function of his/her culture as a whole, music only being a slight fraction of the equation; language, faith, dance, cuisine are all intertwined and carried along by music which is definitely not the myopic focus. It appears that the narrative a great many people who describe themselves as "Folk" artists as if "Folk" was simply a slot they hope to fill in a record shop, or a radio format. For short hand we can use the brilliant parody film "A Mighty Wind" as an example of this perspective.

The "Folk singer" in the consumer narrative is in many respects no different that a Pop singer, save for their setting and instrumentation which appears to "acoustic." Ironically it is

always a guitar made to look like an acoustic model, but in fact must be plugged in electronically to function, much the same way that the "folk" aspects of the presentation (costume, instrumentation, etc.)  is simply a conceit to give the visual image of "traditional" folk craftsmen. Often time what you in fact encounter in this milieu is a pop songwriter who is not yet financially prosperous to field a rock band onstage, and uses the "folk" niche to simply mark time until they can climb the ladder of the music business and "make it big." They embark on a commercial career and if they don't make their dreams come true, they eventually stop and go back to whatever "Plan B" they have in their back pocket, no harm no foul back into the warm comfy waters of the dominant narrative. 

Conversely, the traditional folk musician is way too busy living a life inside a culture, and just happens to play music and most likely will for all of their lives, whether or not they are every examined outside of their community. They couldn't care less in most cases. I learned this by shepherding tradition bearer fiddlers up from Texas to the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes. Rather than help curate and teach with the instructors, I spent most of my time out of class sitting on the porches of our housing trying to explain the motivations of the our students to the confused fiddlers. "Um, again tell me why it is these people want to know this music? Are they Catholic? Do they play dances where they'll need to learn this stuff?" Time and time again we encountered students who desperately wanted to learn a new tune, but seemed entirely uninterested, oft even hostile to the suggestion, that the fiddle tune went with a dance, which went with a party which went with a Church that went with pirogi's and vodka that went with conservative political values, etc... It got ugly on more than one occasion, as these misunderstandings tend to get. In the search for "authenticity," you must take the baby with the bathwater however, weather or not it suits your personal views. The people who taught me Bluegrass in Oklahoma were oft times Klansmen, but that didn't stop me from enjoining in a jam session. You take what you find and do the best you can with it.

In my most jaundiced moments I've felt that when you scratch a "Folk" performer, you tend  to find someone who has either wittingly (or unwittingly) rejected their own culture's narratives and traditions only to then cleave to a some bubbling proto-culture that doesn't challenge their personal values and shares their world view to fill the void. The Jam band scene, bluegrass clubs and the communities that spring up around Festivals are good examples of this expression for culture and traditions. And to be sure, over time this eventually creates it's own "culture," of a sort. For many, it becomes how the define themselves every day and contributes their self image. Far be it for me to rain on anybodies parade. As I go further down this track, I get a lot my forgiving and compassionate for what I find distasteful. I do draw a line pretty clearly however.

It's my feeling that all too often we encounter what are essentially crude burlesques of other peoples cultures. Really no different from a Coon Show in intent, uniformly populated by by the advantaged playfully adopting only the music of the disadvantaged without any understanding or even interest in what makes the music that way in the first place. George Carlin famously noted about why white men had no right in his opinion to play blues "not because its about what are the right notes to play. Its WHY those are the right notes." Time and again it seems and the participants of such imitation versions cheerfully identify themselves as dilettantes, which not a pejorative to the dominant consumer culture with its impenetrable bubble of privilege. As I know from experience, if you presented working traditional musician to this tribe, they uniformly recoil in terror. Possibly recognizing that deep down they actually do not much care for the culture from which the music was born and is a part of, they're far more interested in supporting fellow dilettantes, keeping the savage at arms length.  Danny Barnes' essay on "I know why you're not into music" points out that there's "plenty of music for people who hate music, books for people who hate books, etc." I realize for a great many people my own band Bad Livers fulfilled this same role. While we were trying to get people to check out Stanley Bros. or Don Stover, time and again the kids said they liked us better than the people who inspired us. I recall an interview with Jerry Garcia bemoaning his fans not ever picking up on the great American songbook they were simply trying to expose to a new audience, relating only instead to his clumsy renditions. Could drive a sensitive person to heroin, no?

Danny also told me years ago in reference to the explosion of "we started as a punk band but now we're traditional C &W" bands that overran Austin in the late 80's:

 "All these cats are all hot to play "country music," but none of 'em would dare go out into the country have to deal with the people who like country music. They do alright with the hipsters in town, but I'd like to see them deal with the drunks at the Satin Sabre in LaGrange for instance." 

Truthfully, all they ever really did was create a self referential "scene" where out-of-work musicians play for other out-of-work musicians and the waitresses who support them. I should know, as I've participated tangentially performing in the local "blues" and "country" clubs that African American and blue collar WASP's can scarcely be found.  If anyone describes a "scene," this is most likely what they are talking about; a fully inward looking proto-culture, with it's own customs and code of conduct. "Scenes." Like "Rock-a-Billy," or "jazz" or whatever self imposed social club a group of people tend to create for themselves. And it's important to note that if you gather any group together long enough, and they share enough of a world view and "viola'!" you have a safely contained, consumer manufactured proto-culture, no less as genuine as any other. The Juggalos come to mind, as do other cult-like followers of bands and even habitual music festival attendees. No less authentic, truly, they are however more akin to GMO and hydroponic vegetables removed from Mother Earth and natural world.
To further confuse the matter, there have been periods of American history where authentic culture as also been "popular" and thus

commercially successful. Flatt and Scruggs were chart toppers in the wake the "Bonnie and Clyde" soundtrack and Beverly Hillbillies. Ever since "Bluegrass" music, the musical innovation of a single artist, has waxed and waned in the American public consciousness between a vocational and avocational pursuit . 

There was the sweet yet brief moment when Jewish "klezmer" music was elevated by
violinist Itzak Perelman's single album and subsequent tour, which was forgotten as easily as it came on the radar, dashing the aspirations of a whole generation of artists who thought they had finally broke through to be counted as a American culture and not simply a marginalized corner of an even more marginalized community. Any folk musician likes to be appreciated and "hitting the big time" (whatever that means to every individual) is certainly understandable and even laudable, especially when it exposes the musicians greater culture in hopes of not just financial, but hopefully some measure of acceptance by the dominant narrative. But then again, they may only dress you up in Klan outfit when you sing your signature song....

I had this whole conversation with a fellow who's been trying to force fit an instrument from one tradition into another tradition's dance music for decades now with only an embarrassing admixture to show for it. As a "folkie,"and lets be honest here we are talking about people with white skin who speak English almost entirely, he's fully empowered by his wealth and his privilege to see culture as a smorgasbord; where he can pick and choose what elements suit his personal musical vision. How could he see it any way really, having had only consumerism and advertising as a cultural legacy? It is often argued that it's just these sort of people that propel traditions forward and there is indeed some truth in that line of thinking.

However, the important element, missing in this performers thesis,  is how does this change come to a tradition? From within a community with its own internal standards? Is there a community of like minded, language, custom and faith connected people who within their own experience accepted change from within? Or is it the outlander who imposes their concept onto a culture he stumbles across, or is the natural curiosity of the tradition bearer feuling the innovation? The steel guitar entered French speaking "Cajun" music many years ago, as did the accordion before it, naturally and from internal experimentation. Same for the arrival of the Greek bouzouki in Ireland and the button accordion to the Spanish speaking south west US. Revolutionary as their introductions may have been, they arose as a reaction of a community well versed in their own traditions and as a community welcome to internal innovations. I'm a traditionalist personally, but even I must accept the adoption of American instrumentation in Yiddish music and I foresee a lexicon of authentic Yiddish guitar in my lifetime. That's a conversation from inside our community, and thus is nobodies business but ours.

Done their homework

My pal Henry Sapoznik has a litmus test for who's coming from inside the music and who haven't done their homework. It's really easy: walk up to a band playing "klezmer-punk" or "klezmer-jazz" or some other clumsy fusion, hold a Colt 1911 .45 up against the band leaders temple and say "Play me an old fashioned Yiddish Bulgar, one my zayde would recognize." 9 times out of 10, sadly, the test doesn't end well. But within communities there are indeed master musicians who have imbibed the totality of their own cultures, assuming a collective voice and then and only then are capable of making truly revolutionary music that would in fact speak to the aspirations of a people while propelling them forward. 

To reach back to the opening paragraph, there was an earnest young Folk singer who responded to my definition at that Folk Alliance panel with the plea, "But I'm a white middle class American, raised without attachment to any of the heritages that make up my family's story. What am I to do with your definition then?" That knocked me back on my heels. I didn't have an answer for him, nor did I have one. Maybe I'm lucky that my identity was clearly identified for me so early on that I possibly don't even possess the tools to understand why folks don't see it my way. Just as I can't understand why they treat culture and it's byproducts as nothing more than a commodity. I'll allow further that I may be the only human on the face of the Earth that these issues seem to bother, and I'll be working to let it bother me less, seeing as I am in the great minority in these views. 

Rolf & Beate Sieker

But even my thesis falls apart in the complexities of everyday life it seems. There's a really great banjo player living in Texas named Rolf Sieker. When I say really good, I mean you have maybe heard different, but you won't hear better. I met Rolf in 1991 when he drove down from Hamburg to see Bad Livers play in a club in what formerly housed the Gestapo HQ in Berlin. Many years later we reconnected when he moved to the US, naturalized and set out to play bluegrass professionally with his wife Beate as the Seiker Band. (Check 'em out, I love them.) Rolf is so good, playing American music from the inside, not like a tourist but with real old school feel, I had to ask a) why did he play banjo and b) why not German music? I'm not going to bore you with the details, because Rolf's story should be his own, but he really couldn't enjoin with his family's long tradition of music making. Rolf told me that his father, and his father before him were all Bards from the Thurnigen Forest, singing songs passed down generation to generation, accompanied upon the Waldzither. 

But by 1933 the National Socialists had co-opted these songs and traditions and had perverted them for their own purposes. After the war, simply whistling the melodies was an indication that you preferred the Third Reich. Papa put his instrument under the bed and never sang those songs again. But Rolf was lucky. His mother listened to Armed Forced Radio and became (like many post war Germans strangely) a HUGE Johnny Cash fan. In hopes of hearing the Man in Black, Momma Sieker kept the radio on, and that's when Flatt & Scruggs came blaring through the ether. Young Sieker was entranced, so much so that he eventually founded arguably Germany's only decent Bluegrass band, going on to tour with Bill Monroe (even sleeping in the same bed, but like I said Rolf should tell these tales himself!) Brutally disconnected from his own traditions, he cleaved to this foreign one and made it fully his own, following his passions from Hamburg to Nashville and eventually Texas today. Is it any coincidence that his father's instrument, has five courses and is tuned to an open G chord? I think not.

To close, let me share this one anecdote from my childhood. My family was very close with a group of young Native American artists who were engaged in complete re-examination about what was "Native" art? They took all the tools of classical western art and focused it back onto their own cultural narrative in a bold and exciting new way, unbound by what outsiders considered "traditional." My family would host shows form them when the non-Native owed galleries pronounced their output at "not Indian" enough. They established themselves by word of mouth and hard work driving all over the country showing their canvases to whoever would look at them. The "Indian" Art  world came around to accept them finally, we would go to their showings quite a bit, sometimes all the way out to Santa Fe the big art fair. I saw my buddy Ben Harjo Jr. setting up a few new prints.

Ben Harjo, Jr. at work

I was struck with one, a figure of a woman enveloped in a swarm of yellow honey bees. I knew that Ben's art almost always related to a story of a legend. He said "It's a story about a spirit who wants to visit the world, so she becomes a beautiful woman. But men come upon her and rape her. Confused and angry, she turns herself into a swarm of bees and kills the men. It's a story about medicine and women and how you should always honor them." "But Ben, " I inquired, "what is medicine. I hear you talk about it all the time, but what is it?" He gave me a big smile, patted me on the head and said "Oh, this is our medicine, it is not meant for you. You have your own medicine, with your people. Go and study that."

What am I getting at? All I recommend is that when you enter some ones home, you try and do like your parents taught you to and be respectful. Every human on Earth has their own medicine. Go and study yours. It could very well be staring you in the face right now. You may be surprised what treasures you will find.

PS:

Oh, I guess I should make a pitch for Hank Bradley's ground breaking essay on this very subject called "Counterfeiting, Stealing, and Cultural Plundering: a manual for applied ethnomusicologists with 12 tunes for fiddle composed by the author" 1989. Available from the author. It was very helpful me in understanding motivations when I was just starting out searching and engaging in cultures other than my own.

Now available: a handy Mark Rubin FAQ's

In all the years of my public life as a performer, a radio and television host, music supervisor for motion pictures and television or even as a journalist for print and web, not once had anyone asked me to share my basic philosophies about music and culture. Sure, I get a good jab in once and a while, like my quotes in Barry Mazor's "Meeting Jimmie Rodgers" or in the odd print article like Josh Alan's profile of me for the Dallas Observer. But ultimately, there's some kind of editor or agenda at play that somehow muddles the point I hoped to make. (Most notably the "Rubin v. Jimmy Sturr" non-controversy of several years ago.)

What a gift it is then to be allowed a platform, outside of this little blog here, to let folks in on some of the concepts that I have been working with, struggling with and trying to make sense of for the entirety of my professional life. They are the ideas that have defined me and, by extension, all the things I create.

Writer Sarah Hagerman of the Steam Powered Preservation Society web site sat down with me last month, asked some really great questions and let the cassette recorder roll. (Yes, a glorious Radio Shack cassette machine!) In essence, she has provided me with a handy FAQ for me and I am very grateful for the opportunity.

If you are even mildly curious about what motivates my work, then read this two part interview and know quite a bit about me. Probably more than you'd like, I reckon.

Part One: A wide ranging talk including growing up Jewish in small town Oklahoma, the real purpose of music in culture and how the legacy of the Bad Livers was so misunderstood.

Part Two: The power of nomenclature, language and how it effects music and culture, why Bluegrass Nashville is a closed shop (for Jews at least,) my travels across Europe with Rroma musicians and the story of Fat Man & Little Boy.

Bad Livers w/ Darol Anger @ Pickathon X

Two High String Band Article

Evidently I "ravage" their material.
I'm gonna take that as a compliment.

Read on here.

Bad Livers @ Pickathon X

The tune "Dallas TX," with Bad Livers, just outside Portland OR.

..


Listen to the whole set here, simply click on a tune and listen in.
(Fiddler Darol Anger sits in on the last 2 numbers.

..

The drive from Denver to Aspen and back for Andy Statman

So my pal Andy Statman calls and offers me a date with his amazing trio. Just so happens it's a day before I head to Pickathon to play with Bad Livers, and on the map Colorado is half way there from home.

After some frantic Skype phone calls from Kracow to the Southwest Airlines customer service desk, I make it happen. All I have to do is snag a rental car in Denver and head the short 156 miles to Aspen, right?

Ok, I travel quite a bit and thus really I should have known better. What Mapquest neglects to mention on the route map it prints out for you is that you have to CROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS to get there. That's a 15 MPH crawl for the last quarter of the journey.


Look ma, no guardrails!

The mountain top in the center of this pic is the pass at the GREAT DIVIDE.


I had to split Aspen right after the gig at midnight to make the 6am flight to Portland and a highly anticipated Bad Livers gig, so the original plan was to retrace my steps back to the Denver Airport. After making the white knuckle trip in a wonderly sunny day, I decide to drive 140 miles out of my way to avoid doing these cliff hugging turns on the way home.....

Notes From a "Jewish" Europe

You may have noticed that I have been mighty quiet on this blog thing here.

It’s not like there hasn’t been a lot to tell you about. For instance a vicious car wreck nearly a month ago that I have been advised by counsel not to discuss. Then there’s the upcoming Bad Livers show, the first in nearly 8 years, which surprises me as much as the next guy. Then there’s a one-off date in Aspen CO with Andy Statman coming up the day before which I’m really looking forward to. Next month finds me involved in major events in London and Toronto, so the ball is getting moved down the field as we say back home.

But the real reason I haven’t written anything is simply because I have not had the time. For the first time in a very great while, I am actually being utilized to my capacity with nary a free moment to reflect. And boy, does it feel good.

Many months ago, Alan Bern, who among a great many other things is the artistic director of Klezmer Summer Weimar (that’s Germany, not the town of the same name just down the road from Columbus TX, BTW) asked me to participate in a two year project funded by the European Union and several European Jewish music festivals (Festival of Jewish Culture Krakow and Klezmore Vienna along with Weimar) dedicated to the sticky topic of the similarities and differences between the “klezmer” and “lautari” communities of musicians that once lived, worked and very often partied together for many generations prior to WW2. To be clear we’re talking about Jews and Rroma (ne “gypsies’,) both hot topics with confusing histories in Europe, both east and West. I came into the project with my own cloudy conceptions of just what it is that makes Jewish music “Jewish,” and as it turns out, the same questions get asked among the Rroma as well.

The conceit is to form two groups, one Jewish (“klezmer” well call it,) and the other Rroma (“lautari” for our purposes here.) Each group is made up of musicians from wildly divergent back rounds and locations sharing only their professional proficiency in the culture they work in. Thus, the “Jewish” band features a Sephardic Jew from London, a couple goys, one named Christian, a Jewish confirmed atheist, an apikoros-in-training Texan, and a Lubbovich Chasid from Ukraine. The Rroms have Hungarians, Moldavians, the greatest living accordionist from Bulgaria and a gadjo Romanian living in France to contend with. The klezmers were given a mammoth amount of recordings and transcriptions, mostly of the earliest recordings of Abe Schwartz, Harry Kandel and the Bobriker Kapelye, attempting to divine just what is it in these recordings that a) makes these performances Jewish and b) why has nobody in the entire span of the “klezmer revival” been able to come close to that sound. As anybody who has followed my writings on this topic will tell you, I have some pretty clear ideas on the subject (see “There is no Klezmer Music” for instance.) But I guess simply because of that stance and my willingness to dive into these questions with an open mind (and get to hang out with some of the finest living Lautari to boot,) I was the right guy for the job.

(For the record, the "Jews" were Alan Bern (project leader,) Stas Royko, Paul Brody, Matt Dariau, Christian Dawid, Dan Blacksberg, Guy Schalom and yours truly. The Rroma were Kalman Balogh, Czaba Novak, Peter Ralchev, Marian Bunea, Adam Stinga and Adrian Receanu.)

Here's video snippets from the first day's rehearsal of each group:

We gathered in Krakow for 4 days of intensive separate rehearsals, culminating with a performance at the Festival and a joint appearance at the big Shalom on Szeroka party that concludes the event. From there, we traveled by bus to Vienna to do the same there, only with one day to rehearse. Then it was off to Weimar for two weeks of symposium, performances and workshops (the later of which we are right in the middle of.) These weeks of close quarters and twelve-hour bus trips have done much to bring the two groups into a single outfit joined with a common purpose. Language has been a bit of a stumbling block, with French, Russian and Hungarian translations running nearly constantly at all times.

And then for the week of intensive workshops we’re all teaching the Germans in English. (Can you imagine Germans coming to America and pulling that off the other way around?) For your edification Alan noted that there was only one continuous complaint during the four symposium days. He told me many people had a common complaint, “we’re certain Mark is an very interesting person. But what is he saying? No one can understand a word he says.” Evidently Texan English is an unknown dialect here in the Eastern part of Germany…. To that point, I am going to have to become bilingual, by hook or by crook, if I am going to continue these dialogs. I’m with Obama on this point: it’s a crying shame we Americans are so language deprived.

Did I mention we were followed the entire time by a film crew documenting the whole thing, all the time? That's a whole other blog posting....


Hanging out, drinking vodka in the street and sitting down for a few meals in Weimar with Bob Cohen remains the highlight of the trip for me. He’s one of the last real Human Beings; unafraid and fully empowered in beauty and light, 24/7. He's a bit like that crazy uncle who your father likes well enough to have come visit for a little bit, but is so honest and fearless that everyone seems just a little embarrassed by. (I'm talk about you Fred...) We even got about 20 minutes of old-time picking in. One day I predict Hungary will put up a statue of him, but only after he is safely long dead and not available to call them on their bullshit fakelore. He headed back to Budapest all too soon, but returns with his mighty ensemble, Di naye Kapele, to be the house band for the Dance Week, sadly after I split for the states. (Why is dance separated from music workshops? There’s a long debate in the making…)

The symposium itself was mighty damn interesting, even if the palaver was a mite high falutin’. I met and hung out a bit with Bulgarian Rroma rights activist Ivan Ivanov who is a complete hoot. But my favorite parts came from the juxtaposition of Yale Strom and his work, followed that by Bob Cohen and his. One fine example; Bob screaming out “BULLSHIT” at the top of his lungs at several moments during the screening of Yale’s movie. And folks, that was just the tip of that iceberg. There is so much to say about Mr. Strom and his version of anthropology, but I just can’t bring myself to even take the time to type it out. He’s about the nicest fellow you ever met. And mores the pity. Buy me a beer when you see me I guess and I'll spill all the beans.

By incredibly great contrast, the next night I saw possibly the finest documentary I have seen yet, and even got to meet the director. It’s called “Who’se is this song?” by Adela Peeva, and it’s a humble little film asking simple question and getting a series of complex answers. She’s a Bulgarian married to a Serb with a son living in Romania, so she considers herself Pan-Balkan. She was at a dinner party at Greek restaurant one night when the little folk band struck up a familiar tune form her childhood, (“Uskurara” in fact.) Everyone at the table, all from different nations, claimed the tune to be strictly theirs. Curious about a simple song and peoples attachment to identity and culture, she then travels all through the Balkans playing the tune for people and listening to their reactions. Not to be missed is the scene where this very gutsy lady plays a Bosnian version for a room full of drunken Serbs. It’s an amazing document that I heartily suggest you find (it is on DVD I’m told.) She will be screening the film in my old hometown of Norman Oklahoma in the fall, so you Okies don’t miss it.

It’s been completely gratifying work on all levels, musically, socially and spiritually if I don’t mind saying so. I have come to know nearly all the members of both ensembles quite well, and Mr. Bern is to be commended for pulling together what appear to be the nicest guys I’ve ever met in all my years in the music business, no foolin’.

This is some mighty deep work we are into, but it’s not all seriousness. In fact, this has been a tour of non-stop joke telling. We have come to find that it is yet another character Jews and Rroma musicians share. Nearly everyday, in every situation, someone in this project has told a joke, most of them terrible. The Black Belt Champeen Joke Teller belt goes to violinist Stas Royko, who translates all his jokes from Russian moments before he tells them and really deserves his own website. He has told so many tall tales and funny stories that I literally cannot keep track of them.

First up, Bob Cohen:
3 people are sitting in the dreary rain at a bus stop in Berlin; a Polish laborer, a former school teacher from Dresden (in the former DDR,) and a native born West Berliner. One of them notices what looks like a little bottle sticking up from the ground, and all three reach down to dig it up. When they pop the cork on the ancient glass, a Genie magically appears and announces: ‘for releasing me from my bondage, I will grant you each a wish. What is your command?”

The Pole thinks to himself, life is not what I expected here in Germany. I was much happier back home, so he says “I wish to go home!” POOF, he finds himself in downtown Gdansk, happy as a clam.

The East German thinks ‘this reunification has been a crappy deal for me. Under the Commies, I was a professor; I had a great apartment, and assured wage and security. In this new Europe, I have to hustle for a living and toil as a bricklayer. It’s just awful. He says, “I want the wall back up, I want my old life in the DDR.” POOF, the wall is back up and he finds himself in front of a class of students.

The Berliner watches all this go by. He thinks, “Let me get this straight. The Pole is back in Poland. And the Wall is back up.”

He tells the Genie, “I think I’ll have a cappuccino….”

Now, here’s one from Kalman Balogh:
When a man starts to age, he begins to loose a bit of his virility. For him, he becomes very sad the first time there isn’t a second time.

For his wife however, she becomes even sadder the second time there isn’t a first time….