Happy Thursday, Hoddlers. If you’ve been following my writing for any length of time, you probably know that, while my taste of music is eclectic and varied and I have an advanced degree in 18th century musicology, my first and primary musical love is folk music, bluegrass, and acoustic “newgrass.”
It’s the music I grew up listening to. The first band to really knock my socks off when I listened to them was Bela Fleck and the Flecktones’ album “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo,” which my uncle put into my hands when I was 14. It started a love of progressive acoustic music that continues to this day. I was even a folk/acoustic DJ for ten years, though I majored in flute performance in college and went on to grad school in musicology.
But the current band that to my mind most closely embodies this style of music that I fell in love with 25 years ago is the Punch Brothers. Led by virtuoso mandolinist, current A Prairie Home Companion (nee “Live from Here” ) radio host, and MacArthur Fellow, Chris Thile, this is a band that is improvisational, cosmopolitan, but also intensely technical, and grounded in a music education that stretches back to antiquity.
Today’s Song of the Day comes from the Punch Brothers’ new album All Ashore and is titled “Three Dots and a Dash.” I love this song not only because it’s exquisitely performed, but also because there’s a carefully thought out structure to it — it’s composed in what sounds to my ears like a modified sonata-allegro form, a type of musical organization that stretches all the way back to symphonic movements by Joseph Haydn in the 1780s. These guys are SMART, not just talented. It’s why I love them so much.
Thanks for letting me be a music theory geek on an English football blog. Go liberal arts!
Here are your daily links.
The City of Austin announced what the Columbus Crew will be named and will look like when they move to Texas from Ohio, and it’s gross on a number of levels.
Dele Alli has doubled-down on the Dele Cele and oh my god Dele fingers don’t bend like that stahp
A former head of Brazil’s football federation has been convicted of corruption after the 2015 sting that swept up a bunch of football cronies.
Manchester City have recalled their 19-year old keeper Aro Muric from his loan at NAC Breda in order to fill in for the injured Claudio Bravo. (Stupid reports had City possibly getting Keylor Navas on loan from Madrid, which would’ve made me throw things.)