Punch Brothers are back in California, headlining at LA's El Rey Theater with Jon Brion, the producer of their album Antifogmatic, opening. LAist spoke with fiddler Gabe Witcher and says: "Punch Brothers' music is the sound of synapses firing. The band's mix of unpredictability and virtuosity means there's always something new to uncover in their original pieces." Mother Jones spoke with Chris Thile and says: "What the Punch Brothers are doing musically blows the pants off most of their contemporaries."
Punch Brothers are back in California just over a week after they joined T Bone Burnett and friends on stage at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. This time, they're headlining at the El Rey Theater in Los Angeles, with another friend, Jon Brion, the producer of their latest Nonesuch album, Antifogmatic, opening for them.
LAist recently spoke with the band's fiddler, Gabe Witcher, an LA native who now lives in New York, as do his band mates. The interview touches on a number of topics, including what to expect from tonight's show, what it was like recording Antifogmatic with Brion in LA, and the band's ability to cover a song and make it their own.
"Punch Brothers' music is the sound of synapses firing," writes LAist's Michele Reverte in the introduction to the interview. "The band's mix of unpredictability and virtuosity means there's always something new to uncover in their original pieces. And upon listening to one of their covers, you'll be hard-pressed to imagine Bach's Brandenburg (Concerto #3) without banjo or Of Montreal's 'Gronlandic Edit' without mandolin."
Read the interview at laist.com.
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While Punch Brothers were in San Francisco for Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, Chris Thile spoke with the Bay Area-based institution Mother Jones.
"On top of all their revelry, what the Punch Brothers are doing musically blows the pants off most of their contemporaries," writes Mother Jones's Maddie Oatman. "Thile and his Brothers have bridged classical and bluegrass traditions, melded them with pop-infused songwriting, and come up with a sound both experimental and tightly woven."
Read the article at motherjones.com.
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Following tonight's show, the band heads back up the California coast to perform at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz on Thursday and at Stanford's Dinkelspiel Auditorium on Friday. On Saturday, the quintet heads back to the East Coast for more music making with T Bone Burnett, as his Speaking Clock Revue—also featuring Elton John & Leon Russell, John Mellencamp, Elvis Costello, Gregg Allman, Ralph Stanley, Jeff Bridges, Karen Elson, The Secret Sisters, and Neko Case—gets under way at the Wang Center in Boston. For complete tour information, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
To pick up a copy of Antifogmatic with 320 kbps of the album included at checkout, head to the Nonesuch Store.
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