The Punch Brothers

Finally, some sweet tunes are coming to Santa Barbara. The music scene here on the edge of LA has left me with something to be desired, but every once in a while I'll turn up a nice little nugget of live music. This time, it's the Punch Brothers - a new effort featuring Chris Thile. Chris is fresh off the disbanding of Nickel Creek and has gotten together with some premier pickers from Nashville, including Noam Pikelny, acquaintance of yours truly, and a fellow Blockus player. Punch Brothers play some sweet bluegrass and folk music, but seem to have taken the effort in a new direction, by playing some long form compositions, that are more common to Bach than Bill Monroe. The virtuosity from this group is going to be fantastic and the new take on composition is sure to be interesting. But, don't take my word for it, check out a couple sources:

Punch Brothers on Myspace
Article on Billboard.com
Articles from our friends at the Bluegrass Blog 1, 2

The Punch Brothers have an album coming out February 26th simply titled Punch and will be playing at the Soho Restaurant & Music Club in downtown Santa Barbara, CA on March 1st. I'm sure looking forward to checking it out. In the meantime, here are a couple live clips to you can get an idea of their sound.

Live from the Station Inn!

AG