The Punch Brothers "Movement And Location"

I'm sure, no matter what job you do, the work invades your subconscious in weird ways.

I was excited to check out this new Punch Brothers track from the up-and-coming "Who's Feeling Young Now?" release.

I was pretty struck by how much a "bluegrass" band (in quotes, because they are so much more than bluegrass) can absorb Radiohead's sound.

Check out "Movement And Location":


Hear the song on Youtube.

They also do a cover of "Kid A" on the new album.

So I had Radiohead on the brain.

Now let me admit something that I know lowers any semblance of Cool that I might possess---I'm just not that into Radiohead.

It's a terribly unhip thing to say, I know.

And in some circles, I am surely a Philistine.

But I just didn't go with them down "The Paranoid Android" road, into chorus-less songs, droning stylistics, deep atmospherics.

I can't say that I think of Radiohead that often, but they must've been rattling around in the attic up there, because that night . . .

We were on stage in a small theatre, like a high school auditorium, but smaller. Tighter. With the audience practically on top of us. Thom Yorke was nodding at me, encouragingly. I had an acoustic guitar in my hand, but one quick strum revealed that the pickups were run through several distortion pedals, producing a loud, clanging sound.

I don't know how to play guitar.

But that didn't matter. Radiohead needed me.

Instead of this being some kind of anxiety dream, it turned out to be some kind of Rock N Roll wish fulfillment. Because what I was playing, randomly banging on the guitar, producing feedback and atonal noise, sounded fucking great!

The band was doing the real work, of course, creating an actual song. But I was helping build the sonic palette, and the crowd loved it.

It was like a dream come true!

Well, it was like a dream, anyway.

But hey, I like Radiohead much better since they invited me to join the band.

Steve Martin "Atheists Don't Have No Songs"

In the days before "Blog" was a word, the first radio station I worked for had a really beautiful website, that had a whole section devoted to articles that the staffers wrote, about music and culture and comedy and such.

I remember writing this piece about the incredibly diverse talents of Steve Martin.

Can't remember if I mentioned the banjo playing.

Martin is up for a Grammy in the Bluegrass category, against such perennial stalwarts of the genre as Del McCoury and Ralph Stanley, and maybe your first thought is, is this a joke? Does Martin really compare.

Well, yeah, you could listen to this song and call it a joke---because it IS frickin' hilarious.

But listen again, and ignore the words. Listen only to analyze the composition, the voice parts, the construction of the song.

It's actually a very impressive example of the genre.

So yeah, the song is jokey, but the nomination is no joke.


Hear the song on Youtube.

mvyradio will be watching The Grammys this Sunday, and tweeting our thoughts. Join us!