If Rev. Jerry Falwell thought those little pastel cartoon TeleTubbies were a threat to the moral fiber of our nation's innocent youth, wait until the good reverend finds out about Split Lip Rayfield.

Don't let the Buddy Holly eye glasses or the Porter Wagoner suits in the official press photo fool you, Falwell, these boys are B-A-D, bad.

Split Lip Rayfield is a four-piece acoustic band out of Kansas, but they sound as if they'd been born about five miles up the "holler" from Loretta Lynn's family homestead and gone to graduate school at the Bill Monroe Conservatory of Fast Pickin' and High Harmony Singin'. If you need a category, call them bluegrass or newgrass, but trust me, that doesn't even begin to cover it (cdnow.com is so confused about these guys, they list them as Category: Country; Genre: Rock/Pop).

Call it what you like, these unamplified kamikazes can play with the best. And they sing like a bunch of hard cases who were standouts in the prison choir, paroled just in time to sing their way through the worst years of the Dust Bowl. Split Lip Rayfield can belt out high-lonesome hillbilly bluegrass as well as anyone out there right now, but they also have a certain 1940's Django Reinhardt jazz swing at times. At other times, they are a full speed, head-on collision between Bela Fleck and The Clash.

"Never Make It Home," their third and latest effort on Chicago's alterna-country label Bloodshot Records, is one of the freshest, most fun records I've heard in a long while. The songs are full of bad women and worse men, hopped-up truckers, junker cars, broken marriages, broken hearts, broken dreams, broken promises and broken heads. Whole towns go up in flames. Trains derail. Much whiskey is consumed. The voice in the title cut is a young man on his way to the gallows (which is why he'll 'Never Make It Home').

And then there's their little love ditty, 'Thief'. We'll just call it the song that Jerry Springer would sing in the shower and leave it at that.

Given that there are no drums or percussionists and only one string on "the bass," a homemade musical BattleBots contraption known as "The Stitchgiver" assembled from a Ford gas tank and the neck of a standup bass (like Jerry Lee Lewis said to Chuck Berry after setting fire to his piano, "Let's see you follow that, son!"), the intensity of this acoustic band is incredible. Several of the banjo-mandolin-guitar battles sound like an amphetamine-charged hamster circling a musical squirrel cage. And these guys (Kirk Rundstrom on guitar, Eric Mardis on banjo, Wayne Gottstine on mandolin, and Jeff Eaton on "The Stitchgiver") just never miss a lick.

While some of Split Lip Rayfield's lyrics may be too abrasive or caustic (alright, then, too off-the-wall) for some, there are also tracks fit for even the most traditional bluegrass records. It doesn't get much better or sadder than 'Used to Call Me Baby.'

Night time drives me crazy, bang my fist on the wall
Used to call me baby but now she don't call at all

But Split Lip Rayfield can only play the straight man for a few bars before their musical inventiveness and lyrical cleverness leads their train to jump the tracks into some of the most bizarre and surreal song situations in the history of bluegrass. 'Mister' could pass for a Woodie Guthrie/Pete Seeger number - as long as you don't pay too close attention to the lyrics.

Oh, Mister, Oh, Mister, can you help me sing clear?
I need another lady, I need another beer
The barmaid's done turned queer
And I still need that damned beer.

'Kiss of Death', a sordid historical tale of auto-mechanical woe, is another breakdown (pun intended), the sad saga of one man's life expressed in his used car catastrophes (a '77 Honda, an '81 Accord, an '88 Mazda, and '80 Cutlass Supreme, and an '85 Buick Skylark) as he progressed through the 80's and 90's in search of reliable transportation.

With my Honda dead I was in a big fix, oh, woe is me
So I signed me the title to an '81 Accord with fine upholstery
Well that damn thing only lasted two months, two carburetors and a whole lot more
And even though Rush sounded good on the stereo, I had killed that car.

For I am the kiss of death
To cars, the kiss of death
Give me the key and see
That car is history

After listening to 'Dime Store Cowboy,' which Rundstrom says was written "for those perfectly dressed, big city, fake cowboys that are always coming up to us at shows in places like L.A.," you get the feeling you might not want to be seated at the front table at a Split Lip Rayfield show, or that if you do have that front and center table you'll want to do a lot of smiling and clapping and just generally play the part of an amiable, well behaved music appreciator.

Don't say you're my friend, hell, if you say it again
I'm gonna come at you with my fist, cocked gun in my boot
Dime store cowboy, you look so good
Bet you run at the first sign of trouble in Hollywood

No, after listening to "Never Make It Home" a few times, I'm grabbing a seat at the back, because there just is no telling what kind of mayhem might emanate from a bluegrass band that makes up lines like "I'll jump feet first into the fire and I'll do it alone" or "Heads up, get out of my way, I'm on a bout of self-destruction and I'm heading your way."

But having that front seat may not really be anything to worry about the way their February gigs with regular traveling buddies Slobberbone at the Continental Clubs in Austin and Houston and at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas have sold out.

"We love playing Texas," Rundstrom said. "It's crazy down there."

Contact William Michael Smith at: wms-at-rockzilla.net

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