Welcome Nickel Creek

Given the current state of the music industry, very few releases are truly making a profit, I find it amazing that the album This Side by Nickel Creek is available locally. Off-hand I can think of only two reasons why. One is that there is always a market out there for good music, no matter what the kind and they honestly think this is a good album. Second is that Warner Music Philippines was ordered by the mother company out there in the US of A to release This Side into the local market because it is a good album and because it won the Grammy as Best Contemporary Folk Album.

That category Folk is what will make or break Nickel Creek hereabouts. When the Grammy says Folk, it does not mean the folk music of James Taylor or Bob Dylan. The music of those guys lean more towards pop. American folk music is at its simplest is Stephen Foster. At its best in contemporary mode with large swatches of rock and soul, I think of the Indigo Girls. Nickel Creek, it turns out, is of course a great deal more. Like most music these days, the sound that the group produces is actually a mix but it is clear that Nickel Creek leans more towards Blue Grass than Folk.

I do not have the know-how to go into the intricacies of what makes Folk different from Blue Grass. Best example of the latter is the also Grammy winning soundtrack of the George Clooney movie Brother, Where Thou Art? Come to think of it I do not even recall if that picture was ever shown in local theaters at all! The soundtrack probably scared the distributor. The way I tell the difference is that Blue Grass has a livelier sound with fiddles and banjos that hark back to Eastern Europe than to Spain with its passionate guitar-based laments which I think is the base for American and also Filipino folk music.

Nickel Creek is made up of Sean Watkins on guitars and vocals, his sister Sarah Watkins on fiddle and vocals and Chris Thile on the mandolin, bouzouki and vocals. Fiddle? Mandolin? Bouzouki! This is more Blue Grass than Folk. Imagine merrymakers dancing a lively round with a string trio providing the music. But then, whether Blue Grass or Folk, what really matters here is how these kids use those old instruments to come up with a sound rooted in the traditional but also accessible to everybody. And when the word accessibility comes to mind, the only kind of music that matters is pop.

Pop it is then, with its pretty harmonies, intelligent writing and sweet melodies, but because of its refusal to be pigeon-holed, also bold and challenging of boundaries. A Time review described their sound as "something like Dueling Banjos remixed by Fatboy Slim." The Rolling Stone praised it for its "fiery instrumental sound" while the UK’s BBC called the band "experimental without being pretentious, respectful of traditions yet contemporary and mature but still bags of fun."

All that is true and Nickel Creek makes one wish that more kids around will take time to listen to its music and learn to appreciate the nuanced expression, the subtle unconventional approach and the daring to mix everything together because what comes out will be new and different. The musicality of this group is just amazing. And take note, the producer of This Side is Alison Kraus. She is the star of Blue Grass music who successfully crossed over to pop with When You Say Nothing at All which was later successfully covered by Ronan Keating of Boyzone.

I particularly like the instrumental intro to the Smoothie Song which opens the album and which effectively segues to Spit on a Stranger. The old folk song House Carpenter is nicely reworked by the group and they also introduce folk tunes for the future like Thile’s Green and Gray and Brand New Sidewalk. Other cuts are Speak, Hanging by a Thread, I Should Have Known Better, This Side, Seven Wonders, Beauty and the Mess, Sabra Girl and Young. You will enjoy this one.

20 years of Madonna

Just a thought. Nothing to do with Nickel Creek or blue grass music. I was scanning an old magazine the other day when I came across an item about a new artist named Madonna and her hit song Holiday. This was from 1983. We have now had 20 years of Madonna. Not bad at all for somebody they thought was just another disco singer.