What happened to The Ponys?

That's what I've been asking myself today. The last I heard from Chicago's finest garage rock outfit  was back in late 2007 when they released Turn The Lights Out on Matador Records. OK, so it wasn't their best album, but there was certainly no need for them to vanish off the face of the earth. Hmmm. Their previous two efforts, Laced With Romance and Celebration Castle are two of my all-time favorite indie/garage rock albums and absolutely essential listening.

The Ponys at the Tufnell Park Dome in early 2007

And Google has left me none the wiser. There seem to be nothing about them splitting up, but there is really nothing at all since late 2007. How confubbling. Anyway, whether they're still playing or not, they are great. Here are a few songs for you.

Get Black from Celebration Castle

I'm With You from Celebration Castle

Trouble Trouble from Laced With Romance

I Love You 'Cause (You Look Like Me) from Laced With Romance

Like it? Buy The Ponys' albums here

Summer podcast!!

Finally, summer came to London. Today was such a beautiful day! And, in the spirit of summery goodness I thought I would make a summer compilation. Here you go...16 songs, all with word summer in the title. 

1. Summer Games Opening Ceremony (C64 computer game sample)

2. Phoebe Kreutz - All Summer Long

3. Spaghetti Vabune! - My Summer Summery

4. Pavement - Summer Babe

5. Beat Happening - Indian Summer

6. Of Montreal - Oslo In The Summertime

7. Blonde Redhead - Spring And By Summer Fall

8. Tullycraft - Stay Cool I'll See You This Summer

9. Pelle Carlberg - Summer Of '69

10. The Decemberists - Summersong

11. Jeffrey & Jack Lewis - Summertime Called (A.K.A. Punxatawnie Phil)

12. Slow Club - Slow Club Summer Shakedown

13. Acid House Kings - Summer's On Its Way

14. Shonen Knife - Summertime Boogie

15. Bunnygrunt - Wild Summer, Wow!

16. Herman Dune - This Summer

Download Records Make Great Pets #3

There you go. It's full of summery goodness. Hope you enjoy it.

A sunny weekend? Please...

The weather was meant to be good, but as the clock ticks closer and closer to 5pm the clouds are descendig on Westminster like ants to a....err....lolly? Oh no, now it's sunny again. It's like whoever's in charge of the whole weather business is teasing us. Put on your coat, put it your bag, put it back on. I find it all very stressful. I would quite like to go away fro a day trip one of the days, but as usual the schedule is fully booked. Things to be done, people to see. The Moustache EP will be released next Saturday, so I really need to put my badge-making boots on if I'm ever gonna get them all ready in time. Saying that, I was very impressed with my myself last night, when I managed to make 78 badges!


There you go. 78 badges down, 82 to go.

The weekend, der Wochenende (or die/das? hmm), helgen....whatever it's called where you are...bring it on!

it's been a while

I'm not quite sure why. Just haven't had much to say or share. Still don't really. Apart from:

We're putting on another show! Woo. This time it's Allo, Darlin's single release party as well as the 2nd WeePOP! anniversary show. Line-up is Allo, Darlin, Moustache of Insanity and Swedish popsters Moofish Catfish. It should be rather awesometastic, so I suggest you put on your shiniest pop boots and join the fun. Tickets will be available online shortly. Yup.

A (still pretty pathetic) "staying off the booze" experiment

After a few weeks of fairly constant drinking I'm trying to "stay dry" for a while. Even if I'm only on day five it is proving quite difficult. It seems alcohol is present in almost every aspect of my social life. Saturday was day one and Allo, Darlin' were playing at The Luminaire. The world was really against me. There was free "band beer", parents willing to pay for drinks and even a friend who mistakenly bought two pints and thus had a spare one. But, I managed to stay away from the fire water and stuck to Red Bull and Diet Coke. Yes, I hate most sugary drinks apart from the most sugary of all. Then, on Sunday we were playing a show at The George Tavern in Whitechapel. Again, I would normally have a couple of drinks, just to kill time or for some "Dutch courage", but I stuck with the Red Bull/Diet Coke again. The gig? Well, I found myself even more nervous than usual and unfortunately there wasn't even any improvement in my keyboard skills. If anything I probably messed up more than usual. Monday was easy cause we had no plans to do anything. Yesterday I went over to Bill's house to record some vocals for the new Moustache EP. He offered me a beer and I DECLINED. Go me!

Then in the evening I watched a documentary on BBC3 called Drinking With The Girls. It basically involved presenter Cherry Chadwyck-Healy going for a night out with every female age demographic from 14-year olds to pensioners. It wasn't a particularly good documentary as such, even embarrassingly bad at times, but it had glimmers of interesting bits. It wasn't pretty.

Today is day five and I'm going to the cinema in the evening. I will have four hours to kill after work, time that would normally be spent in the pub. Hmmm. What to do?

Henry Rollins Don't Dance

Here's a video I took of Henry Rollins Don't Dance at Monday's Duke of Uke Easter show. The quality is a bit dodgy since it's from my old stills camera, but it'll have to do. I do wish Henry himself got to hear this song. I have a feeling he'd absolutely love it.



Amazing.

It's been a while...

So, chaotic re-cap of the past two weeks….GO!

Last week (3rd-7th April) we went to Berlin. It was AWESOME! Allo, Darlin' played an incredible set, Moustache played a reasonably coherent set and Mike and Paul played a couple of awesome stripped-down Hexicon songs. We drank a lot, walked a lot and ate a lot. Successful holidaying indeed. And we rented bikes! Woo! Some photos…

We drank some horrible green beer.

Did some sighseeing.

Elizabeth Darling

We started a Berlin biker gang.

Took over a playground.

Last Friday I went to Kingston all by myself. I'm not sure why, but I had this image of Kingston being a horrible, dirty, dangerous London suburb. In the end it was actually quite nice. I had one of the worst pizzas I have ever had the privilege of paying £10 for though. Hooray! Instead of cheese...or at least as well as cheese, they seemed to have put bechemel sauce or some other cheese sauce on top. It was not pleasant. Anyway, the reason I went was because my old friend and former bandmate Michael was playing with his new band, The Terrors. This was my first punk show for quite some time, so it was a bit of a nostalgia trip.

Finally...yesterday it was time for the Duke of Uke Easter all-dayer (or all-eveninger as it turned out). A bunch of awesome bands in an awesome little shop. It was an incredible evening. I only caught five bands, but from what I heard it was great all the way through. Great turn-out as well. It's a real shame that these kind of events don't happen that often in London.

It was really weird playing in daylight and being able to see the audience, but I think it went alright. People seemed to enjoy it (despite all the mistakes) and we sold a bunch of CDs. Woo.

Moustache of Insanity last night (photo by Anika)

Allo, Darlin' (with Monster Bobby)

OK, I think that's about it.