Mark Rubin (musician)
Mark Rubin is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer of music for television and motion pictures, published critic, educator.
Today he lives and works in the musical community of South Louisiana based in New Orleans and tours frequently performing his own original material as "Jew of Oklahoma".
The Stranger credited them with "revitalizing roots music", and, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "The Bad Livers helped open the way for old-time and bluegrass bands of today".
The Austin American-Statesman agreed that Barnes was "an entirely underrated songwriter" as well as a "banjo wizard", while The Washington Post lauded his "timeless, deadpan voice".
The Bad Livers' second album for Sugar Hill, Industry and Thrift, was released in September 1998 with only Barnes and Rubin credited as members of the band, though the album features various guest musicians, including members of Rubin's side project, Rubinchik's Orkestyr, who are featured on the track "A Yid Ist Geboren inz Oklahoma".
Industry and Thrift did not receive as much attention from the press as Hogs on the Highway had, however, and as Barnes lamented, the album "fell off the face of the earth".
The Bad Livers' final album, Blood and Mood, was released in February 2000 and featured, as The Austin Chronicle noted with astonishment: "Electric punk rock, sample-based tunes with drum tracks, and a shocking scarcity of juiced-up banjo playing".
His credits in the Jewish music world include long time collaborations with Frank London’s Klezmer Brass All-Stars, The Other Europeans, and Andy Statman, as well as two decades on faculty at KlezKamp.
In 1992, Rubin began working with Eastern European immigrant musicians from in and around the Houston area from the Polish and Czech speaking communities.
Rubin was tapped by Director Richard Linklater to provide period music to his film the "Newton Boys" in 1996 for 20th Century Fox.
Closely associated with roots music, Rockabilly and Americana, literally a generation of musicians cite their video "The Ungentle Art" as their introduction and lexicon to the style.
[6] Rubin was featured along with three other principals in German documentary film "Der Zerbrochene Klang" ("The Broken Sound") about his participation in the Other Europeans Project; a collective of Jewish and Roma musicians from 9 different countries.
[4] In 2017 he released his first truly "solo" effort, "Songs for the Hangman's Daughter," recording 11 original compositions accompanied by either guitar, banjo or mandolin.
Folk Alley said "Mark Rubin is a legend from back in the alt country days, known for his pioneering work in the 90s with his band The Bad Livers in Austin.
While he’s never left behind his earlier punk bonafides, his new work in recent years, billed as Mark Rubin - Jew of Oklahoma, has been more focused on the complexity of his identity as a Jewish person of Southern descent.
With his new album, The Triumph of Assimilation, he masterfully melds old-school roots music with Yiddish protest songs and brutally acerbic ruminations on the long history of American antisemitism."
