The Bowery Presents

The Mercury Lounge upcoming shows

Late Show

Split Lip Rayfield
10:30

Auctioneers (formerly Blood Street)
9:30

Venue:
The Mercury Lounge
Date:
Tue 3/09
Notes:
21+
Doors: 9:30 PM / Show: 9:30 PM
$10
Tickets
Split Lip Rayfield
official website
myspace
A funny thing happens when you grow up listening to Deep Purple and you pick up bluegrass instruments: you rock.

Split Lip Rayfield has been commendably rocking for more than a decade, and 9 times out of 10, leaving a path of destruction and happy fans in their wake. On first glance, the group’s instrumentation of acoustic guitar, banjo, mandolin, and gas-tank bass looks fit for quaint, aw-shucks songs about courting and poor little orphan girls. Well, what ensues is far more frightening. SLR’s brand of bluegrass is alight with aggression and speed, yet is tempered by sweet vocal harmonies and impeccable musicianship that goes deeper than thrash and flash. Imagine if the Bill Monroe and Earl Scruggs stayed up on an all-night meth bender watching “TWIN PEAKS” and spinning Black Sabbath records – something like that…

You see, there’s a reason Split Lip lays claim to a bonafide tribe of fans: and we’re not just talking about the heavily-dosed masses that blindly follow the trippy festival circuit. The people who attend every Split Lip show do so because they know the words to five album’s worth of songs about necromancy, trucks on blocks, cocaine, and a chilling thing called the “3.2 flu.” They still get a thrill out of seeing Wayne Gottstine go all Yngwie Malmsteen on his mandolin and witnessing Eric Mardis melt faces using techniques that are blasphemous to the conservative banjo world. Nothing gets the audience moving like seeing Split Lip’s Jeff Eaton whomp his homemade gas tank bass into a fury; acting as bass and percussion all at once and churning out the sickest punk-inspired bluegrass rhythms you’ll ever hear.

The decade-plus journey that’s brought Split Lip to the cusp of actually paying the bills with this infernal sound is fraught with the kind of peaks and valleys typically reserved for old men who get hopped up on pills and die in Branson. They lost their friend and guitarist Kirk Rundstrom to cancer in 2007, but not before he left every last bit he had onstage. They shared pints and accounting slips with Bloodshot Records before striking out on their own and sharing tours with fellow musical outlaws like Reverend Horton Heat and Nashville Pussy. They headlined the Wakarusa Music Festival and snuck in the back door to Telluride. They became the biggest draw at Kansas’s Walnut Valley Festival – despite never actually being invited to play. They even broke up a couple times along with way, but like great lovers do, they hopped right back into bed and didn’t skip a beat.

If Kansas ever builds a bluegrass hall of fame, it probably won’t invite Split Lip to the opening ceremonies. More likely, the group and its extended family will be partying on a makeshift stage in the parking lot, marveling at the fact that they’re still alive and loving every goddamn minute of it.
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