Split Lip Rayfield

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Genres: Bluegrass / Roots, Country / Rockabilly

Sound description: With the loss of their friend and bandmate Kirk Rundstrom to cancer, Split Lip Rayfield was hardly thinking about music during much of last year. But eventually they came to a resounding conclusion: Kirk would’ve wanted Split Lip to live on. An emotional return to the stage marked the beginning of the insurgent bluegrass trio’s next chapter—one marked by sadness but also by the celebration of Kirk’s legacy and the ever-growing tribe that coalesces ’round every SLR hootenanny.

RIYL: BR549, Rico Bell, Rex Hobart and the Misery Boys, Scud Mountain Boys, Old 97's, The Waco Brothers

Web site: http://www.myspace.com/splitliprayfield

E-mail: splitliprayfield@yahoo.com

History:

An outgrowth of the group Scroat Belly, the trio debuted in 1998 and is the band that asks the musical question: "O Brother, Where Art Thou Conjones?" Bluegrass worthy of being blasted out of the windows of a Plymouth Barracuda with 451 Hemi engine. Their live shows are the stuff of legend. They will whip crowds into a sweaty frenzy -- Jeff hunched over his homemade, gas-tank bass, Wayne, the Kirk Hammond of the mandolin, Kirk breaking guitar strings at a furious pace, and Eric, looking the part of a Civil War re-enactor, doing things to a banjo that Eddie Van Halen WISHES he'd thought of. Sadly, because their show are so good, they don't get the credit they should for their songwriting -- time-honored themes of bad cars, bad jobs, bad women, loss and longing, taken off the dusty shelves of the old-timey circuit and updated to make sense for those who don’t have shitty farming or mining jobs, but do have shitty jobs at Wal-Mart or Home Depot. They've got four part harmonies and wear their big hearts on their greasy sleeves. You will be surprised at how good they are.

If these guys weren't so nice we'd all be very afraid of them. They have more tattoos, break more strings, and drink more beer (almost) than any of our other bands. According to SLR, the Garden of Eden is in some muddy Winfield, Kansas field--except it only surfaces for a few weeks each September. They are the only Bloodshot band with attractive groupies. Early live shows featured a real chicken, but we guess they got hungry. Speaking of hunger, Jeff knows, like, 87 recipes for gar.

Get hip to the Lip.

Musicians:

Eric Mardis: Banjo, Vocals
Jeff Eaton: Bass (upright), Kazoo, Vocals
Wayne Gottstine: Mandolin

Former members:

Kirk Rundstrom: Guitar, Vocals

Formed:

1998 in Wichita, KS

Audio interviews:

His days in Scroatbelly (Kirk Rundstrom)
His duct-taped '84 BMW (Kirk Rundstrom)
How he taught himself to play banjo (Eric Mardis)
Rebuilding his heavy metal collection (Eric Mardis)
Split Lip's trip to Alaska (Eric Mardis)
The cloud that follows the band everywhere they go (Kirk Rundstrom)
Why Split Lip has never played the main stage at Winfield (Eric Mardis)

Discography:

Name	Year	Label
Split Lip Rayfield	1999	Bloodshot
In The Mud	2000	Bloodshot
Never Make It Home	2001	Bloodshot
Should Have Seen It Coming	2004	Bloodshot

These Are Powers / Coat Party / Boo and Boo Too :: Dissonant, arty, hard-edged punk reminiscent of early-era Sonic Youth. Or, as the Brooklyn trio puts it: "music like cashmere lightning" ... More info

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Split Lip Rayfield

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