The shufflers: Chris Thile and Noam
Pikelny, who cover mandolin and banjo duties, respectively, in the
progressive-bluegrass outfit Punch Brothers. Singer-composer Thile has been
recording on his own and with neo-bluegrass trio Nickel Creek (now on hiatus)
since 1993, but the 27-year-old mandolin virtuoso recently teamed up with
Pikelny and three other young bluegrass/acoustic-music notables (Gabe Witcher,
Chris Eldridge, and Gregg Garrison) to record as Punch Brothers. Their recently
released debut, Punch, melds bluegrass instrumentation, jazz improvisation, and
classical composition, and features a tour-de-force 40-minute suite in four
movements called "The Blind Leaving The Blind." The bandmates took turns
shuffling through their iPods, revealing the amalgam of influences packed into Punch.
"Song For A Young Queen (Live)," Punch Brothers
[Chris Thile's iPod]
Chris Thile: Uh-oh, this is bad. This is a live
recording of us playing a song I wrote when I was like, 17. It's from us
playing live at one of our first shows at a place called the Living Room in New
York, and I remember we were struggling to come up with a whole set. It was one
of the first things we ever did, we were doing it to help pay for the whole
trip. We had just started rehearsing "The Blind Leaving The Blind" from our new
record. I guess Noam, you had learned some of "Young Queen" from the record,
and I think Gabe, our fiddle player, knew it pretty well 'cause he's a big
Stuart Duncan fan, who's on the original track. So three of us knew it already,
so it was a prime candidate for that set. Sadly, that's what comes up first,
I'm embarrassed. [Laughs.]
"Faded Love," Vassar Clements [Noam Pikelny's
iPod]
Noam Pikelny: "Faded Love" is one of the
most over-overplayed fiddle tunes; I think it might be a Bob Wills composition,
and it became a showpiece for almost all violinists. Vassar Clements is a
fiddle player who has played with all kinds of people—John Hartford, Earl
Scruggs, Béla Fleck—and one of the real amazing progressive minds in
bluegrass and acoustic music. Probably out of all the musicians that have come
through acoustic music, Vassar Clements is the most singular sound. The tone of
his fiddle and his phrasing, if you put on his records for one second, it's
obvious immediately that it's Vassar Clements. I think this album, I got off
iTunes. It was one of those albums they only released digitally, and I picked
it up to check it out, and he's really a monster. A lot of people call him the
Miles Davis of the fiddle, and we sadly lost him about two years ago to cancer.
"Voltaic Crusher," Of Montreal [Thile's iPod]
CT: This is the second track off Of Montreal's EP
that's associated with Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?, called Icons,
Abstract Thee.
"Voltaic Crusher," in which he says, "Please, please, please, God, don't be a
bastard." [Both laugh.] "She could use someone nice for a change," and I guess
he's referring to his lost love, and he hopes next time, she gets someone a
little more together than he is. [Laughs.]
The A.V. Club: You seem to find that humorous.
CT: I just love the guy's song titles, and that he'll
say things like that. I've tried playing it in the van, to little or no avail.
Nobody else really enjoys it. I actually eat a lot of shit for my Of Montreal
fanship.
"The Snow Is Dancing," Debussy [Pikelny's iPod]
CT: Oh, that's a good piece.
NP: Yeah, it's an amazing Debussy piano work. A lot
of these pieces are very, very famous, and you can't grow up without hearing
them. Unfortunately, they're played at a lot of restaurants or even elevators,
even though they're some of the most amazing works, the most beautiful pieces
of music. There was an album called Perpetual Motion, which was a Béla Fleck classical
album produced by Edgar Meyer, and there was a track on there, a kind of
rearrangement of a tune from Debussy's Children's Corner called "Doctor Gradus Ad
Parnassum." I was just blown away, and it's one of my favorite recordings of Béla
Fleck, so I started searching into some of these solo piano works. Unbelievable
music.
"Nothing, Then/It'll Happen (Studio Mix),"
Punch Brothers [Thile's iPod]
CT: This is a mix the boys sent me from New York of
the last two songs on our record. We went over our budgeted time and everyone
else met in New York to put the finishing touches on the mix, and I was not
there and mighty lonesome about it, so the boys sent me the latest versions of
the mix. I remember being very happy with this one; I'd imagine it's the final
mix.
"Beaumont Rag," Bryan Sutton [Pikelny's iPod]
NP: Bryan Sutton actually played on tour with us for
about a year while our current guitarist, Chris Eldridge, was finishing up his
duties with his band, The Infamous Stringdusters. Bryan Sutton is kind of the
tour-de-force of flatpicking these days. He's pretty much been given the torch
from Tony Rice, the previous king of flatpicking, and Bryan Sutton is just an
incredible, incredible guitar player, playing with all types of bands. He won a
Grammy last year for his album; he actually beat us. We were on tour with him
the night we were going up against each other for the best country instrumental
Grammy, and he took it; it was a come-from-behind victory, we think.
CT: We pulled up lame, I'm afraid.
"Loomer," My Bloody Valentine [Thile's iPod]
CT: I love the first song on this record [Loveless], which is called "Only
Shallow." The rest of it, I could kind of take or leave. I like the overall
feeling of the record, but I guess I just feel they're a little too heavy on
the subtle use of the whammy bar. I actually mean that in all seriousness,
they're not whaling on the whammy bar; they'll be holding the chord and they'll
press it just a little bit, and the guy will overdub like, 10, 15 guitars on
each of these tracks, and when all of them do that, it sounds like the tape is
warped or something. It's a cool sound, but—
NP: Hey man, don't knock it till you've tried it. You
gotta get your mandolin outfitted with one of them.
CT: You're absolutely right. I was in an indie-rock
record store in Athens, and I said, "All right, tell me what record in here you
can't believe I don't have, 'cause I don't have any of them." And they said,
"Oh my God, how do you live without My Bloody Valentine?" And I really did like
the first song, it just gets old.
AVC: Did you pick up any more My Bloody
Valentine after that?
CT: No, I can't say I was compelled to pick up more
of their records. I love me some good rock, and I felt like this was pretty
good, but this gave me an idea of what it was, and that was all I needed.
"Goldbrickin'," The Del McCoury Band [Pikelny's
iPod]
NP: This is a mandolin instrumental written by Ronnie
McCoury, and it's a fast number. It's a pretty amazing song. Del McCoury Band
is definitely one of the greatest bands out there, period. I'd put them up
against a lot of rock bands. They are a bluegrass band, but they really rock,
they're incredible. They go onstage and just use a couple of mics and dance
around the two of them, they mix themselves, and it's the most amazing playing
and singing. And of course the vocals are ridiculously good because they're
family members, so they sound almost identical, and the harmonies are
incredible.
"Goldberg Variations: Aria," Glen Gould [Thile's
iPod]
CT: One of my very favorite things in the world just
popped up, Glen Gould playing Bach: The Goldberg Variations. This is the early
version, the one he cut when he was 23 years old. It's an absolutely
spectacular performance, and the piece of music couldn't really be better.
AVC: Some of Punch's arrangements seem to
be influenced by classical music. Were you listening to a lot of classical
while you were writing it?
CT: Oh yeah. Most of what I've been listening to
lately is classical music, mostly just because I've been having to play
catch-up with it. I didn't really grow up with a lot of classical, and I've
become obsessed with the whole world of "the great composer." Those guys are my
heroes right now, I find them infinitely interesting. And Bach, he's the
granddaddy of them all.