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.