Punch BrothersPunch, brothers! punch with care!
Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

So goes the annoying jingle from Mark Twain’s amusing story of an early ear worm that spawned the name for virtuoso mandolinist/composer/singer and Grammy winning Nickel Creek-er Chris Thile’s latest project: Punch Brothers (formerly the How to Grow a Band), where Thile on mandolin and vocals is joined by Greg Garrison (Leftover Salmon, Ron Miles, Tony Trischka) on bass, Gabe Witcher (Willie Nelson, Randy Newman, Beck, Jerry Douglas) on fiddle, Chris Eldridge (Infamous Stringdusters, and son of the Seldom Scene’s Ben Eldridge) on guitar and Noam Pickelny (Leftover Salmon) on banjo. The project is an ambitious one, with the group’s debut release Punch (Nonesuch) a song cycle featuring at it’s core a 40-minute four-movement chamber bluegrass suite called The Blind Leaving the Blind, chronicling the story of Thile’s marital breakup and its aftermath through impressionistic lyrics that fall somewhere between a confession (directed, variously, to his listeners, to his ex, and to God), and an impassioned, late night, barstool soliloquy. Together, these performers helped Thile to realize the most conceptually daring, emotionally cathartic work of an already impressive career. Bluegrass, jazz, chamber and pop—all come together in a complex, but highly rewarding work that lead the New York Times to proclaim “expands the frontier of an emerging style of what might be called American country-classical chamber music.”

Twain’s story finishes with a dire warning: “if you should came across those merciless rhymes, [to] avoid them—avoid them as you would a pestilence.” And that’s where the story and the band part company: if you get a chance to hear the band, don’t squander it--lest someone else beat you to the Punch!

Tickets on sale noon Fri June 27 from Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets, and online at Ticketweb.

$20 advance / $23 day of show

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