Straight No Chaser and Punch Brothers

Straight No Chaser aren’t so titled for nothing; they’re an a cappella group, meaning that there’s no instrumentation to their music - just the sound of their voices. Originally, there were ten members in the group, students who met at Indiana University - Steve Morgan, Jerome Collins, Dave Roberts, Dan Ponce, Randy Stine, Walter Chase, Mike Itkoff, Patrick Hachey, Kevin Carroll and Charlie Mechling. They took their name from ‘Straight, No Chaser’, the Thelonious Monk record from 1967.

They made their debut at a 36 hour dance marathon - a baptism of fire, by anybody’s standards - and went on to attract national attention, performing at such venues as Wrigley Field in Chicago and Carnegie Hall in New York, the latter as part of a national tour of their own. In 1999, the original lineup graduated and were replaced, although they would go on to reform in 2006 - a little while afterwards, the collegiate group, still in existence, would change their name, although the alcohol theme was retained - they are now Another Round.

The original group continue to perform together today, and have recorded four records - the first two, 2008’s ‘Holiday Spirits’ and 2009’s ‘Christmas Cheers’ being festive efforts. Their frequent national tours in the U.S. serve as testament to their enduring popularity.

With a band name taking from a Mark Twain short book entitled “A Literary Nightmare”, where the chorus is “Punch, brother, punch with care, punch in the presence of the passenjare”. The band released their debut album “Punch” on February 26th 2008. The trademark of the album being a four-movement suite entitled “The Blind Leaving the Blind”. The inspiration behind the piece was that of divorce. The follow up album came in the form of “Antifogmatic” on June 15th 2010. With an album what is dubbed as progressive bluegrass. The title comes from a 19th century alcoholic beverage that featured natural remedies. At the Bonnaroo Music Festival, the gathering were entitled to purchase the album three days before it’s release date.

Punch Brothers released a documentary called “How to Grow a Band”. It was directed by Mark Meatto, documenting two years of the bands existence. It premiered at the Nashville Film Festival on April 15th 2011. It also made it to the silver screen of the Annual Telluride Bluegrass Festival the same month.

“Who’s Feeling Young Now?” is the third instalment from Punch Brothers. It was released on Valentines Day 2012, and featured indie rock tendencies throughout the album. It was defined as more accessible than the band’s previous worked with the album featuring more simplicity. It maintained a little obscurity with the song “Movement and Location”, which is a song that was written by Chris Thile, who is a huge fan of the Chicago Cubs, and claimed that he was inspired by Greg Maddux’s obsession over the movement and location of his pitches.