All The City Lights

Erik Berry, Ryan Young and Dave Carroll of Trampled By Turtles.

One of the things I like about Trampled By Turtles—aside from the reaction that band’s completely ridiculous name elicits—is that it gives me some hope as a mandolin player. Not to say that mandolinist Erik Berry isn’t a talented, accomplished and impressive musician—he is all those things, and a far better player than I. But compared to, say, Punch Brother’s Chris Thile—whose playing style produces notes that flit and waft through the ether like the delicate scents of a lemon-butter beurre blanc simmering on the stove—Berry doesn’t make me want to pack up my instrument and sell it on eBay out of the despair of realizing I’ll never be able to produce those sounds. He and the other boys from Duluth play a sort of blunt-force bluegrass, pounding out notes with all the brutal honesty of a garage band that has just discovered Ralph Stanley and Bill Monroe. There is nothing delicate, nuanced or overly reverent in their approach to traditional acoustic music, and that can be an inspiration to clumsy-fingered instrumentalists like myself. Continue reading →