Chasman
04-19-2006, 06:37 PM
Updated: Thursday, April 6, 2006 3:36 PM CDT
'Newgrass'? Nickel Creek won't be constrained by any genre
By BEN WENER Knight Ridder Writer
Along with her guitar-playing older brother Sean and lifelong friend, mandolinist, banjo player and chief vocalist Chris Thile - with whom she formed Nickel Creek 17 years ago -24-year-old Sara Watkins is grateful for, but unfazed by, the band's steadily increasing success.
The trio performs Monday at Urbana's Foellinger Auditorium.
What's heartening is that Nickel Creek's progressive roots music - which can veer from CS&N terrain to starkly expressed ballads and rockers reminiscent of Toad the Wet Sprocket - hasn't landed the group in the bluegrass field, occupied instead by traditionalists like Rhonda Vincent and the Grascals.
The trio has nothing against bluegrass, of course; it's integral to their drum-free, finger-picked approach, inspired by weekly outings as children to a pizza parlor to see a local favorite called Bluegrass Etc. Indeed, members of that outfit would become crucial teachers once Thile and the Watkinses entered adolescence.
Yet bluegrass is merely one element in a stew that also draws upon folk, country, Celtic strains and plenty of rock 'n' roll. It is forward-thinking American music steeped in the traditions of the past.
Nickel Creek has developed a way (primarily through its inventive, covers-filled live sets) of winning over even the most cynical listeners who might be foolishly convinced the group is nothing more than a trendy outgrowth of the bluegrass revival begun by 2001's O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The reality, however, is that the band had been at this routine for a decade before O Brother came along. It just came to prominence at the same time, that's all.
From 1990 on, they operated as a kids novelty act, with Thile's father Scott on bass. (He stayed on until the band issued its self-titled Sugar Hill Records debut in 2000.) By the mid-'90s, they had garnered a number of bluegrass-showdown prizes, while the Watkinses nabbed titles on their respective instruments.
Before they broke out in 2000, they recorded two hard-to-find albums, neither of which the band is particularly fond.
Their most recent album, Why Should the Fire Die? perhaps comes the closest to realizing Nickel Creek's artistic ambition - at least for now.
There's an evident determination to forge ahead, remaining rootsy while busting boundaries. When any of the Creekers talk influences, in fact, they're more apt to effuse about Wilco and Radiohead than prattle on about The Band or Flatt & Scruggs.
They refuse to be reined in by genre parameters and are eager to explore ways of adapting their instrumentation - whether for Ray LaMontagne's dusky soul sides (Sara played on his Trouble disc) or on Thile's solo foray December or any other collaborations, including bits with Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and several stops at Largo to sit in with Jon Brion.
What they don't want to be known as are torchbearers for a new wave of bluegrass - or newgrass, as it's dubbed.
I think that if there's anything we would like to be part of, encouraging and promoting, it would be learning how to play instruments, Watkins says. That's really simple, I know, but that's what we enjoy. That's always the goal, and it's something we get excited about - when people come up to us and say they started playing because of our music.
'Newgrass'? Nickel Creek won't be constrained by any genre
By BEN WENER Knight Ridder Writer
Along with her guitar-playing older brother Sean and lifelong friend, mandolinist, banjo player and chief vocalist Chris Thile - with whom she formed Nickel Creek 17 years ago -24-year-old Sara Watkins is grateful for, but unfazed by, the band's steadily increasing success.
The trio performs Monday at Urbana's Foellinger Auditorium.
What's heartening is that Nickel Creek's progressive roots music - which can veer from CS&N terrain to starkly expressed ballads and rockers reminiscent of Toad the Wet Sprocket - hasn't landed the group in the bluegrass field, occupied instead by traditionalists like Rhonda Vincent and the Grascals.
The trio has nothing against bluegrass, of course; it's integral to their drum-free, finger-picked approach, inspired by weekly outings as children to a pizza parlor to see a local favorite called Bluegrass Etc. Indeed, members of that outfit would become crucial teachers once Thile and the Watkinses entered adolescence.
Yet bluegrass is merely one element in a stew that also draws upon folk, country, Celtic strains and plenty of rock 'n' roll. It is forward-thinking American music steeped in the traditions of the past.
Nickel Creek has developed a way (primarily through its inventive, covers-filled live sets) of winning over even the most cynical listeners who might be foolishly convinced the group is nothing more than a trendy outgrowth of the bluegrass revival begun by 2001's O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The reality, however, is that the band had been at this routine for a decade before O Brother came along. It just came to prominence at the same time, that's all.
From 1990 on, they operated as a kids novelty act, with Thile's father Scott on bass. (He stayed on until the band issued its self-titled Sugar Hill Records debut in 2000.) By the mid-'90s, they had garnered a number of bluegrass-showdown prizes, while the Watkinses nabbed titles on their respective instruments.
Before they broke out in 2000, they recorded two hard-to-find albums, neither of which the band is particularly fond.
Their most recent album, Why Should the Fire Die? perhaps comes the closest to realizing Nickel Creek's artistic ambition - at least for now.
There's an evident determination to forge ahead, remaining rootsy while busting boundaries. When any of the Creekers talk influences, in fact, they're more apt to effuse about Wilco and Radiohead than prattle on about The Band or Flatt & Scruggs.
They refuse to be reined in by genre parameters and are eager to explore ways of adapting their instrumentation - whether for Ray LaMontagne's dusky soul sides (Sara played on his Trouble disc) or on Thile's solo foray December or any other collaborations, including bits with Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and several stops at Largo to sit in with Jon Brion.
What they don't want to be known as are torchbearers for a new wave of bluegrass - or newgrass, as it's dubbed.
I think that if there's anything we would like to be part of, encouraging and promoting, it would be learning how to play instruments, Watkins says. That's really simple, I know, but that's what we enjoy. That's always the goal, and it's something we get excited about - when people come up to us and say they started playing because of our music.