Tensions Mountain Boys Archives

Punch Brothers on YouTube

We had posted back in August when Chris Thile and his merry band of super pickers announced a three day string of shows at Nashville’s fabled Station Inn. They were, at the time of that posting, billed as The Tensions Mountain Boys, but within a few weeks their rebirth as The Punch Brothers had been disclosed.

The Station Inn dates were scheduled in large part as a live rehearsal before the band headed into the studio to start work on their debut CD for Nonesuch Records. Some preliminary recording was done in late September in Nashville, with the bulk being completed in New York City.

A number of YouTube videos have surfaced from the Station Inn shows. These were shot by audience members, so video and audio isn’t pro quality.

The performances are nevertheless inspired, and range from bluegrass classics like Don’t Give Your Heart To A Rambler and Ocean Of Diamonds to banjo picker Noam Pikelny’s Manchicken. Songs from Thile’s How To Grow A Woman From The Ground are also represented with The Beekeeper, and one from a Thile solo project in Song For A Young Queen – with Jerry Douglas providing comic relief.

Birth of The Punch Brothers

Regular readers of Bluegrass Today will have noted our unrestrained enthusiasm for mandolin prodigy Chris Thile’s return to a more bluegrass-like vehicle for his creative energies. We not only cheered his re-embrace of the Bill Monroe bluegrass band format, we welcomed the opportunity to watch and hear him interact musically with artists that are his instrumental peers.

When the breakup of Nickel Creek was announced in 2006 – as an indefinite hiatus – Thile released his solo project for Sugar Hill, How To Grow A Woman From The Ground, with a group of young acoustic superpickers. He toured in support of the CD with this same band (Noam Pikelny on banjo, Greg Garrison on bass, Gabe Witcher on fiddle, Chris Eldridge on guitar) as How To Grow A Band.

That group was morphed into The Tensions Mountain Boys for the live debut in March 2007 of Thile’s long form composition, The Blind Leaving The Blind, a change in name only. A deal was announced just last month for Thile and The Tensions Mountain Boys to record a new project for Nonesuch Records, and recording for that project started this past weekend.

In tandem with the start of the recording process, Thile has yet another new band – accomplished once again with no change in personnel. Punch Brothers has been unveiled on Chris’ MySpace page, along with a witty, tongue-in-cheek description of how it came to be.

They will perform this coming weekend in Nashville at The Station Inn, performing Friday-Sunday (9/21-23). Once Nickel Creek’s Farewell Tour has concluded in November, Punch Brothers will begin touring in earnest.

Tensions Mountain Boys in Nashville

Chris Thile and The Tensions Mountain Boys have announced a string of three dates at the fabled Station Inn in Nashville next month. They will be there September 21-23, starting at 9:00 p.m. (CT) each night, with an admission charge of $20.

Tickets will go on sale August 28, and can be purchased online from the Nickel Creek web site at that time.

For those who haven’t been following Thile’s work of late outside of Nickel Creek, The Tensions Mountain Boys is the band that evolved from the group who recorded his recent How To Grow A Woman From The Ground CD, and who toured with him in support. Members include Noam Pikelny on banjo, Chris Eldridge on guitar, Greg Garrison on bass, Gabe Witcher on fiddle and Chris Thile on mandolin. All sing, but Thile takes the bulk of the lead singing.

We are trying to find out what Chris has planned for this group once the Nickel Creek Farewell, For Now tour concludes in November of 2007, and we’ll post back with what we discover.

Speaking of the Nickel Creek tour, bluegrass fans might want to note that Bela Fleck will be performing with them for three shows in mid-October. These dates are 10/12 in Atlanta 10/13 in Asheville and 10/14 in Chattanooga.

Full details on the Nickel Creek tour page.

Chris Thile & The Tensions Mountain Boys

During the course or our interview back in September of 2006, Chris Thile indicated that the How To Grow A Band would eventually become The Tensions Mountain Boys. That metamorphasis is about to occur. Tomorrow, March 17, 2007 The Tensions Mountain Boys will perform live at Carnegie Hall.

This won’t be your ordinary band performance though. Chris and group will be unveiling a 40 minute composition called The Blind Leaving The Blind. The piece consists of four movements and contains intricate instrumental arrangements as well as vocal passages. Don’t be mistaken though, this is no medley of tunes strung together, this is a 40 minute composition. The article on the Carnegie Hall website quotes Chris’ thoughts on The Blind Leaving The Blind.

Musically, I’m just trying to write what I want to hear, and this time I wanted to try my hand at keeping a set of related ideas interesting for 40 minutes

The band has been playing the first movement of the piece during some of the How To Grow A Band performances, but tomorrow night will be the first live performance of the entire composition. In typical Chris Thile fashion, this is sure to be a musical experience that pushes the boundaries of what anyone expects, himself included.

There is a Myspace page in existence for The Tension Mountain Boys, and it contains a link to tensionsmountainboys.com. At the moment though, there is nothing more than a default placeholder page provided by the hosting company. Will we see a new website soon? We’ll just have to wait and find out…