 |
| |
|
There's a whole thing now where a lot of punk rock cats are way into square dancing up in Portland. I'd like to think we had something to do with that. We brought acoustic music to the attention of a lot of people who wouldn't listen to it. And we brought other kinds of music to people who were just into the acoustic part; we were bridging several different forms. -Danny Barnes on Bad Livers |
|
|
| |
|
"We lived in a van for ten years, did a lot of shows each year," Barnes explains. "We started over like three times depending on how you count it. It was really intense. Being in a band you are there all the time, this distance [he motions across the picnic table to me]. You go to eat, you go into the van, you go to the gig, you live like this all the time with passionate guys who are into their music and have a lot of ideas. But, I wouldn't trade the experience for the world. You learn so much just doing that. It's a real education."
 Danny Barnes |
The cruel irony of being hailed as a true pioneer is that it's usually after the fact, after your back has been thrown out by all the floors you slept on and your stomach churns at the sight of Ramen noodles. Now cited as an influential band by many, this spring, the Livers were inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame. It brings Barnes a sense of humble satisfaction.
"It makes you feel great," he grins. "We struggled. We felt like we were preaching this gospel of music to people because here's all these old folks that play everywhere, if you throw a dart at a map and it lands in some town in Iowa, somebody there plays the banjo, somebody there plays the fiddle, you can't get away from it. There's a whole thing now where a lot of punk rock cats are way into square dancing up in Portland. I'd like to think we had something to do with that. We brought acoustic music to the attention of a lot of people who wouldn't listen to it. And we brought other kinds of music to people who were just into the acoustic part; we were bridging several different forms."
The band will be reuniting later this year at Pickathon Roots Festival in Oregon and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco, featuring Barnes, Rubin and Bob Grant. We'll have to watch this development. "We haven't played in eight years," Barnes says. "We're just going to play and see what happens."
The Livers disbanded as the Internet was beginning to reshape how musicians operate. Barnes has embraced technology whole-heartedly. His website is frequently updated with musical freebies.
"I like to give stuff away," he declares. "If the idea is to get your music out there, boy you can really do it. On archive.org I have something like 30,000 downloads. I've never sold 30,000 records of any of my albums! But to have 30,000 downloads, that's really cool. And with those live shows, you get all that stage banter, so you get this other information."
 Danny Barnes by Dave Jackson |
A prolific writer, Barnes has released six records of solo material since 1999, as well as Things I Done Wrong (2000) with the Old Codgers (his trio with bassist Keith Lowe and fiddler Jon Parry), Duet for Clarinet and Goat (2001) with Pete Krebs, and collaborating on The Willies (Bill Frisell with Barnes and Lowe). Not to mention numerous guest appearances and supporting slots on various jazz, bluegrass and you-name-it albums.
"The records, you make 'em because you have to clear off the desk," says Barnes about his songwriting process. "Typically, you're always writing and you go, 'There is a thematic unity in this batch,' so you play around with it, like scenes in a movie. So, you think this scene would go with that one [and] you cobble it together from tiny pieces."
Pages could be written about these solo records but Barnes' latest material, as reflected on last year's self released Barnyard Electronics, is drawing upon his continued musical study - he constantly takes technical and theory lessons - as well as his gadgetry and sonic hardware know-how. He calls it "FolkTronics," but to describe it as a mash-up between electronic and acoustic music is shortchanging the idea.
"It started on the last Bad Livers record, Blood and Mood [2000]. I was really getting interested in found sound and electronic music, manipulating and recontexualizing things. When I first started doing it it was this song on Hogs on the Highway called 'Falling Down the Stairs With a Pistol In My Hand.' It's the whole idea of electronic music and sound being generated. So I started looking at the banjo as a tone generator, it just makes the raw sound and then you can make millions of sounds with it."
"I'm really into low-fi, using old radios and stuff like that to get sound, because the dials aren't digital," he delves further. "With a digital setup you can remember all your settings. When you go to a new venue everything can be the same, but with dials you are kind of going, 'Somewhere in here is the sound.' It's like making a stew, where you got too much salt in there so you put a little sugar and a little pepper to soften it up. What's really cool about it as a musician is it keeps you from getting worn out on your own music because every night is a little different. With the sampling technology, I'm playing along and if I do something I like I grab that, and then loop it and play it backwards. Maybe I'll shift it down and make a bass part out of it. Then you'll have these little textures with my pedals and effects, and then the atmospheric samples of people talking and the soundtracks from movies. I've been really interested in spoken word lately."
 Danny Barnes |
Although looping technology using acoustic instruments isn't new in and of itself, there is a greasy-frying-pan-upside-the-head originality about Barnes' approach. Instead of creating an effervescent boppy groove like Keller Williams, or simply sampling to create a full band sound, what Barnes is doing is alchemical. He isn't trying to use the switch flipping to overcome the perceived limitation of being a lone acoustic guitar (or banjo) onstage or to simply buffer up a live setting – he is using the technology to expand the language of the instrument itself.
Seeing his set the night before our interview at the Cactus Cafe was a lesson in organic musical chemistry as he set to work with his equipment alongside Steve Schwelling, an Austin-based drummer, grinning and thanking the cozy, rapt crowd between numbers that roamed from the chilling "Pretty Daughter" to the comical, yet strangely sweet "My Baby Works for the TSA." Barnes' voice can have the warmth of a cabin fireplace in a snowstorm or the unhinged mental shadows of the stalker outside, vocally embodying the outcasts he dignifies. From where I was sitting, I was simply trying to figure out where he was pulling those sounds from – the banjo sounded like a growling bass or a distorted guitar at points, far beyond the assumed tonal range of the instrument. But the technology is woven through the acoustic forms in such a way that the essential rural sound is not lost, only copper wires running through a rustic heart.
Citing everything from DJ Shadow's Entroducing to serial music as an influence, Barnes' excitement about what he's creating is infectious.
"I'm used to working where I'm the only one who's really into it. I'm okay with that, but if I'm going, man, I can't hardly sleep I'm so excited. If you make a set of parameters and if you start working in them, you think of other ways to set those parameters" he laughs. "I just hope I don't run out of life you know? Cuz it seems like I already have too many things in this life I'm hoping to get done, but just being able to access that and work with it on the banjo is really kind of cool."
For those of you attending this year's Northwest String Summit, you will have the fortune of seeing Barnes grace the Horning's stage again, as he sits in with YMSB, duets with Frisell and hosts the Superjam. "Those guys [YMSB] have been really good to me," Barnes says. "They do some of my songs. [Dave Johnston] comes and sees me about once a year. We sit around and play for three or four days. That's amazing. It feels great to think you've had an impact."
Speaking of Frisell as a musician and friend, Barnes has nothing but the highest praise and admiration. Frisell is indicative of the musical folks in the Northwest that helped spark Barnes' musical evolution.
Continue reading for more on Danny Barnes...
|
