Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

KPBS Midday Edition

Chris Thile Brings 'A Prairie Home Companion' To San Diego

"A Prairie Home Companion" host Chris Thile in an undated photo.
American Public Media
"A Prairie Home Companion" host Chris Thile in an undated photo.
Chris Thile Brings 'A Prairie Home Companion' To San Diego
Chris Thile Brings 'A Prairie Home Companion' To San Diego GUEST: Chris Thile, host, "A Prairie Home Companion"

Chris Thile started his new band when he was seven playing Mandalay for his blue glass -- grass grew. He received the MacArthur genius grant and took over hosting the public radio mainstay a Prairie home companion from Garrison Keillor. This Saturday, Keeley is returning to San Diego where he will broadcast the latest episode of the show from the Civic Theatre. He spoke with Mid-Day producer Michael Lipkin.Last season on a Prairie home companion, you brought more music to the show. In the first couple of episodes in the second season how is the show evolving.I think we are all getting more comfortable. If feels like family at this point. There is the crackling energy at the beginning of the season that I loved that can course through you in the middle of the show even at the point of oral convulsion of excitement. While I am still getting butterflies I love, of someone who puts on shows and has put on show since I was seven when I started putting on shows, I love that. I never wanted that to go away. If it goes away it's time to do something else. I do think that there is a comfort that we are starting to feel. This is what we do. This is what we do on Saturdays. I love that feeling.One of the additions you brought to the show is the song of the week. They are not songs that have stock music that you put new lyrics on every week. They are complex. One is the instrumental that was a great title for music for leaves that are changing colors and not making me think about my own mortality. I guess this is a close a deadline that when you are used to.This is the thing that Garrison told me. He said Chris are going to love [inaudible]. And boy was he right about that. There is the sense when you're working on a record, that you could work on it and keep improving it forever. The more time you put into it, the better it gets. Of body -- a buddy of mine told me a long time ago when I was super green gummy said don't worry so much about this. Records are never finished. Never finish a record you abandon it. I have always had trouble with that as a perfectionist. Never using that as an excuse to put out something that you are not satisfied with, but just know that come 5 PM central on Saturdays, this has to be ready to go. I think about a bunch of musicians that I respect. A lot of musicians used to have deadlines like this. Perhaps working on something like this, here you will have Sebastian Bach not to ever by the way dear listener ever compared myself to that man whose sandals I am on worthy to untie. He wrote a cantata every week. If I could write a cantata every week, man I need to be able to write a song. You collected a number of the songs from last year show is a number that is coming out in December call thanks for listening.[ Singing ].Why would you record them in the studio instead of the recordings you get on the show are great also.Here it's a chance to go back in there and get your hands dirty on material. Maybe you have till Saturday afternoon and it's like well it is what it is. This has happened multiple times were like a day or two later a problem a song presents, not be fully resolved by the time we go to air. So the song of the week record was a chance for me to get in there and reopen some cans of worms and sort some things out. Also to go in there and get an intimacy. Life performance is intimate and its own way -- in its own way. Know that you are part of that performance and that goes for people sitting at home or in their cars or walking to the grocery store listening to it through earbuds. We can fill you. I hope that does not sound too weird or touchy-feely. But we actually can. When the red light comes on, the whole energy of the performance changes. But in the studio you have to create fantasy worlds. You can do things that are impossible to do live. I've done things are more weird. Listen to that is always suggested to me like this little world that would take 50 people will to do live. Now it's just a test over dubbing ourselves. Now shows us in this little world.You will broadcast live this Saturday at the Civic Theatre in downtown San Diego. One of your guests will be nickel Creek. It is a band you formed when you were a kid living in Oceanside. How old were you back then?I was seven years old when the Coal Creek started. By that point I moved from Oceanside to Idlewild California. But I still lived in Vista. We had this band with just three of us.What else is in store.We are going to hunker down in an hour or two and start thinking about what we will do. Also San Diego for me there is always the steeply nostalgic part of being in San Diego for me. That city sparkles with a certain kind of beautiful I want to say escapism. I hope that does not rub anyone the wrong way. The beauty of San Diego. Wherever you are in San Diego, you're never far from the beach. I know the Beach boys were making their music here in LA. Which is where I am talking to you from right now. But my childhood, my grandparents always put the Beach boys on. I land in San Diego and the feeling of that air to me feels like that is the air I was born in right there. there is always this weird feeling of it. At the Shangri-La aspect of San Diego, this gorgeous town built on the beach, the wildlife, the Torrey Pines, there's going to be a fanciful aspect to the show. I'm sure I want to pick out a Beach boys song. I want to talk about my grandparents come I loss both of my grandparents a month ago. I want to talk about them. They are lifers in San Diego's. Their parents are born there. at least my grandfather's parents were born there. my family has deep ties in San Diego.That was a Prairie home companion host Chris Feely. A Prairie home companion is broadcasting live Saturday from the Civic Theatre.

Mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile only has himself to blame for his recent deadline pressures.

After he took over hosting “A Prairie Home Companion” from its founder Garrison Keillor, one of Thile’s major additions was a new song each week, pledging to write an original fully-realized composition for every show. But while he’s often still tinkering until just before broadcast, Thile said he often thinks about Johann Sebastian Bach’s weekly cantatas.

“If that guy could write a cantata every week, well man, I need to be able to write a song,” Thile said.

Advertisement

“A Prairie Home Companion” broadcasts from San Diego on Saturday, Nov. 4, featuring comedian Maria Bamford, blues musician Fantastic Negrito, and Nickel Creek, a bluegrass band Thile founded with Sean and Sara Watkins when they were kids growing up in North County. Thile, who is teaming up with the Watkins for this week’s song, said the deadline brings a sense of relief, too.

“There’s this sense, when you’re working on a record for instance, that you could work on it and keep improving it forever. That the more time you put into it, the better it could get,” Thile said. “And a buddy of mine told me long ago when I was still super green, ‘Don’t worry so much about this. You never finish a record. You abandon it.’”

Thile joins KPBS Midday Edition on Tuesday to discuss his upcoming album collecting last season’s songs of the week and what’s in store for Saturday’s show.