The Biggest Badass

I would like to point everyones attention toward a very good friend and teacher of mine, Mario Cipollina. He is the former bassist of Huey Lewis and the News and has been in various other bands recently but is working on his solo bass album. Mario has been immersed in music all his life, with his mother refusing to let him play in one of his brothers, Johnny Cipollina (of Quicksilver Messenger Service) growing band. He recently finished his website, www.mariocipollina.com
His website includes some samples of his soon (hopefully) to be released solo album and also some videos. This post is titled The Biggest Badass because honestly, Mario is one big badass, sporting a leather suit, slicked back hair, shades, and a cigarette for every performance. If you don't believe me, just watch the video below.

Newspapers+ More at the Interstate/Brass Monkey + Winter Relocation

Last Saturday the Newspapers played at the Brass Monkey (or is it the Interstate?) along with a couple of other bands.

First off was Please Step Out of the Vehicle, a fun little poppish/almost ska-ish (without the horns etc) band that played fun pop songs to move your ass to. Their myspace says they're a psychedelic pop group, but the pop was way more apparent than the psychedelia. They had a strong political slant, which was refreshing to see in a small band like them.

Next up was Sukey Tawdry, a great synth-pop, riot grrl-esque band. I know its lame, but the fact that the guitarist + bassist were girls just made me think of girl bands to compare them to, so here we go! I felt a strong Stereolab vibe coming with the soft vocals and synths, but the strong rhythm section rose above Stereolab's straight-forward 1-2 beats. They had a great dynamic, building swelling soundscapes with the voice and synth, and then rocking out straight-ahead with the six string. They're playing a show at Backspace, where the Pony caught The Thermals & Yacht a few weeks ago, on January 17th. I would go see them, not only are they a great band but Backspace is a fun place to go, but I'm going to be out of town(more on that later). I recommend seeing these guys live, real firecrackers. Also, they are mighty fine girls.

Then Pony-faves The Newspapers took the stage, playing their usual amazing pop-punk-dance-funk-ass-fuck that got the crowd to moving. I was impressed by the fact there was a gaggle of high-school looking girls jumping and singing along with every single line of each song. Sorry, guys, I took pictures, but like an idiot(again), I left my camera in Portland with the memory card inside. Well, I guess there will be a post-Christmas present waiting for you readers at the end of January.

Although I didn't see Reporter, I heard they were flat out amazing, and now that I'm listening to their myspace page, I'm wishing I hadn't left. Goddamn bus leaving so early. They opened for The Thermals on tour earlier this year. Mark your calendars, they're playing January 21st at The Tube and the 31st at Holocene. I'll try and squeeze a full live review of them out of John, who was there.


Please Step Out of the Vehicle
Sukey Tawdry
The Newspapers
Reporter

ALSO:

Dear Portland, we will miss you. For the next month the Pony will be relocated to the beautiful Bay Area, which I can't say is better than the PDX but is amazing in its own way. We've got year-end lists comin' atcha, to pass the time, and a New-Years planner for any Yay-Area Pomegranates looking for something to do.

TT2: Muslces, The Avlanches, Diplo

Contrary to popular belief, Australia has some awesome music acts. Lets take the recent hit by the newly established electronic Muscles- Guns Babes and Lemonade. I really can't say enough about this album. It is sure to a) make you happy b) make you dance and there's nothing wrong with that. Another group hailing from Melbourne that has an incredible, and incredibly overlooked, debut record is The Avalanches. Since I Left You is comprised of thousands of record and movie samples. The album hit at the dawn of the willennium, but I think most need to take a step back and appreciate this fantastic pieces of work. Last up is the dj god Diplo. He has collaborated with artists, namely M.I.A., all across the globe and has a plethora of stunning mash-ups and dance sets. I'll possibly post some of his more lengthy efforts in the future, but in the mean time here are two superb mixes of the Black Lips and Peter Bjorn and John. I just broke my toe, so I can't dance, so dance for me please-Enjoy:

I need to escape~

Sometimes I really wish I could just live on my own in nature. I want to move out into the middle of a prairie or forest and be able to live on my own for an extended period of time. I feel there is so much I could learn from that experience-- maybe I will be able to experience that one of these summers. In the mean time, I wrote another poem yesterday -- actually I wrote seven, but this one I actually really like. I hope you enjoy it as well.

That day was beautiful
As the snow glided down from the clouds
Like a leaf meanders to the ground.

It built up until the clouds ran dry,
And a new coating replaced the cement and the grass.
Daydreaming into the olden days,
To an uninhabited region
Where everything is of nature
And everything can change your perspective,
Your mood,
Your soul.

And everything is all your need,
Because all you need is to remember.

Weihnachtsmann

I wrote a silly Christmas poem in German~

Die Kinder sind sehr gut
Weihnachtsmann besucht
Weihnachtsmann ist sehr hungrig
Und isst meinen Kekse
Mein Milch ist leer
Und Weihnachtsmann tret mich met den Schuhen ein
Ich bin Traurig
Und gibt Weihnachtsmann in einen Kafig.

***

The kids are very good
Santa visits
Santa is very hungry
And eats my cookies
My milk is empty
And Santa kicks me with his shoes
I am sad
And put Santa in a cage

EDIT
**Also: There is a show at the Co-op on Wednesday night (at 9 (or 9:30)) that you should attend! Yeah!

Tripple Threat- Annuals, Alaska in Winter, Sta

The Annuals have been lying around in the depths of my music library for some time. A friend finally spun some tracks for me the other day and I was damn impressed. The Annuals, hailing from North Carolina, dropped a new EP as a follow up to their Be He Me LP titled Big Zeus in the UK only. I was able to get my paws on a copy, which contains some solid songs.

If you’re a fan of Beirut’s style then you should be very pleased with the Alaska in Winter’s debut Dance Party in the Balkans. Zach Condon of Beirut lends his skills to Alaska’s rep. with horns and ukulele. This overlooked cd has been out for quite a while, and yes, Pitchfork just so happened to recently review the record a couple of days back. Anyways, the cd is a hit among my circle of friends so with no further ado here are some of the highlight tracks.

On the frontier of party music madness remixer Sta is making a big splash on the dance floor. The Toronto based dj cuts up pop and dance hits with chopped vocals and fiery base/synth that are each a treat to hear. You can also check them out at http://www.myspace.com/stafree. Here are three of my favorites if you’re in the mood to get down.

Silhouette

I found a silhouette cut out of my Grandmother in a photo album after her funeral this past weekend. This is my best attempt of recreating it with a really neat background. (although the silhouette is on a transparency in this pic)

Just a new logo I made, should be a T soon once I redraw it. I've also recently realized how popular Pomegranates are becoming, which is pretty darn cool.

"Don't break off a piece of my kit-kat heart" - - KLC Show

I'm beginning to fall in love with Portland. Last night was the big KLC Show, with a fat line-up of 5 LC bands. First off was Laps I Swim, a noise-folk duo (or rather, trio?) consisting of a drummer/percussionist, singer/percussionist, and a karaoke machine with pre-taped guitar/keys. With the bare-bones set up of a few drums, a few glockenspiels, a tambourine and various liquor bottles to hit, these guys had to work pretty hard to keep it interesting -- and they did. Their myspace says they're a blend of Jaymee Martin (upon further investigation I found nothing about Jaymee Martin--is this the singer?), Microphones and Pavement, which sounds like an excellent mix to me. Their shambling liquor-bottle gamelan orchestra proved to be more than a gimmick, and something I recommend seeing if you have the chance.

After a blue-grass-ish trio that I didnt catch much of, Cream-of-Wheatasaurus Rex (nee Bloom) came on, the recently-birthed project of Pomegranate friends Owen, Wyatt and Ben. With two guitars, drums and no bassist, they simply turned the distortion up real loud, creating a wall of sound with layered melodies and impressive texture. And then they played "Pizza Day, Fuck Yeah!". Hopefully they'll take this project past its infancy into something full-borne, I'd pay to see them.

The last band I saw, Booze Howl was something special. Before the show, I had heard rumblings of the name around campus, but nothing really substantial, and nothing hinting on what I was about to see. When they took the stage (space? there wasn't really a stage, just an area where the band played) they let the guitars feedback, filling the room with a single ominous tone, only an inkling of what was next. Then, the lights went out, and they proceeded to gouge the room with the most piercing noise of any live band I have ever seen. It was majestic, pure unabashed fucking sound, consuming the body and working its way past your ears into your head. On stage they had guitars in their hands and they were projecting their voices, but these weren't the sounds that we were hearing. They twisted and fucked their six-strings through an array of pedals, making sounds you couldn't imagine and wouldn't want to. The sound was violent, cathartic, and the best part was, they got the crowd moving. They truly were howling into the microphones, translating their physical energy into noise. It was amazing to see such an atonal, harsh, ugly sound move the people in the audience so much.

After further inquiry, I couldn't find any recordings of actual Booze Howl online, but there is Ghosts & Mysteries on myspace, the side project of the second, noisier guitarist. He creates poppish psychedelia more reminiscent of 60's bands warped through effects pedals, barely hinting at the spectacle that was Booze Howl.

Although the guitarist for Booze Howl said if I didn't stay for Snake Plissken, I'd die, but I could only hear one song and I'm just fine right now. Owen stayed for more and he ended up bleeding from the head, if that's any indication of how good they were.

Here's songs from Ghosts and Laps, if you guys are too lazy to go over to their myspaces and check them out.




Laps I Swim

Ghosts & Mysteries

p.s. Sorry for the lack of pictures, like a dumbshit I brought my camera but not the memory card.

hardly art/hardly garbage -- Thermals and YACHT at Backspace

The Thermals and YACHT played a free show at Backspace last night. With effort and courage I forced my way into the previously-at-capacity show and proceeded to see one of the better shows of my time. I didn't get in time to see all of YACHT, but Jonas Bechtolt had a bumping set while I was in there. He had some odd multimedia set-up with a projector that he controlled with a little Apple remote control.
While I've never really dug the Blow, Jonas on his own knows how to play. His cut-up and reworked hand-drums and guitars work well in the live setting, although he didn't do much more than just play over recorded versions of the songs.
After YACHT left, a dance-freak-out started on the stage, and the crowd didn't even notice the Thermals had taken the stage until Hutch asked kids nicely to get off. What followed was a rush of power-chords and one-two drum beats, their raw power translating perfectly from the record. Without a second guitarist, some of the solos proved a little thin, but their breakneck momentum made up for it. There was little time between songs, and the songs were short and plenty -- they often only played half a song to maintain their speed and squeeze as many hooks into their time.

Shouting along about a future fascist-Christian America gone wrong was never so fun.

Greetings, Traveler!

Dear Reader,

Before you delve into the vast array of posts (13 at time of writing), we'd like to formally introduce ourselves. This is an outlet for all of the art that we have come across, and will come across in our various journeys and exploits. The Pony is meant to be a communal experience, drawing from the cultures we have taken part of, and the cultures we are part of now. No one can predict where we are headed, but for now we want to bring to you:

OUR Art
OUR Music
and
OUR Culture

But the Pony is not a one-way medium. This is a dialog, a forum where the readers can write, and we respond. You can submit your own works, works that you have come across in your ventures, or simply ideas you have for us. Through this interaction we hope to create a cultural hub for everyone involved. We hope you enjoy what we have so far, and that you will enjoy future works; now take our hands and we can venture forth, into the blue (again).

Sincerely
The Pomegranate Pony

Lets take a trip with Larry Carlson

I was just chillin' on the interweb yesterday and came across www.larrycarlson.com, a really cool and trippy website. His mixed media and collage artwork is very interesting and fun to look at, and most, if not all, of the collages have a distinct color, like the one pictured here. If you have a shitty desktop background, this is a cool place to get one from. The rest of the stuff on the site gets even weirder, and his videos and interactive videos can get really hard to look at, if only drugs were in my system.

On another note, I recently realized I wrote a poem the day before my Grandmothers death about the fall and mortality, coincidence? Written subconsciously? hmm.

Sestina: Fall
11/11/07
The heat of the days end abruptly
As the sun falls across the horizon
The cold air sinks to the ground
Growing thicker with leaves aplenty
The skyline ever changing
The curtain being opened again this year

Stop looking back as if it’s the end of a year
The days are still aplenty
Live as if your life will stop abruptly
There is still room for your lives to be changing
So pull your eyes up from the ground
And keep them on the horizon

The further we progress the darker the horizon
The further we progress the more days are changing
The sky withered and torn from another year
The season came all too abruptly
As the leaves once hung aplenty
Now they flutter to the ground

Don’t follow the cluttered leaves, the ground
They skewer it aplenty
From a skyline lost all too abruptly
It’s almost the three hundredth day of the year
Where the flocks smother the horizon
In their lives that are ever changing

In this time of year leaves are greatly changing
They litter the earth to color the ground
Reflecting the silhouetted horizon
It’s the telltale sign of the year
When the leaves are colored aplenty
And life is ever changing so abruptly

The night comes in a blink, abruptly
Quicker than the leaves themselves are changing
Clouds floating over the horizon
At this moment, this time of year
Soon we all will be grounded
Together, feasting aplenty

Like the times of year
We ourselves are changing
No matter how abruptly

straight outta southwest

hey dear reader, so last night we happened upon some house party a little ways north (?) of campus. local band the newspapers was playing there, and I have to say, they were pretty impressive. playing a set of dancy, catchy, pop-punk, their site claims they are a result of the shins + minus the bear, but they sound like they owe a great debt to portland locals the thermals (the best song of their set aped the hook to "here's your future" to good effect). check out their
myspace and listen to them, or listen to "lakeview", a song off their lakeview ep. it's a chill track with a nice use of delayed acoustic guitar and some glockenspiel action going on.

-mp

also: i had a really vivid dream about starting a record label. i was woken up in the process of making the business model (step 3: after recouping production costs, label and bands split profits 50/50). is someone telling me to do something?

introducing the almond gallery

Check out this site if you like what you see here ;D

Charlie Deist, a very dear friend of ours here at the Pony, has started up his own blog, The
Almond Gallery>. Check it out, one post combines two things very central to my life, marginal benefit and the Buffalo Exchange. If the current posts are a sign of anything to come, his blog will be a good read from here on. We also put a link in our favorite sites section if you're too stupid to click the link in the post here.

mp

T-Shirt design alongside death ramble

Life is weird and death is hard. That's the conclusion I have come to just yesterday, after the death of my dear Grandmother. I found out that she 'passed away' when I woke up and I spent almost all day pretending that everything was ordinary. I sat in my classes and kept my head up, giving the same responses as I would normally give. It's times like these that remind me why when people ask how I am, I respond with "I'm okay," because after lunch when someone asked me how I was, I was sick of pretending everything was okay and broke down. I've seen this person once before, and she gave me the most comfort I have ever needed. Somehow, everything she said to me was perfect, and although I was mad with tears, I was okay. Death is so hard to deal with, especially when everything else keeps moving forward and there is no time for the deceased.

I have come to the idea that I'm okay with my own death, but am so scared of death of my friends and family. I would be fine to die whenever, because I know it's my fault for being lazy or not doing something, especially with all the opportunities put in front of me. Dealing with two deaths, both my Grandparents, within six months is hard, real hard, but to consider losing one of my close friends or my sister or parents is so terrifying. I've also decided that the phrase 'passed on' is incredibly stupid doublespeak. Death doesn't need a word to make it seem nicer. It's death, the loss of a life, why does it need to sound any nicer than what it actually is.

Anyways, I wrote a poem about my day yesterday, goes as following:
Plastered Face

Your life ended today
But mine kept moving forward
It's not like I wanted it to
But the pull from people around made it impossible
So I put on a plastered face

I had no emotion, everything was indifferent
I had no emotion, because I was scared to be recognized
I had no emotion because I resisted the tears
And I had no emotion so I would be ignored another day
So I put on a plastered face

And I carried that face with me all day
And it made me want to vomit
It made me sick to my stomach to have to ignore you
To pretend that you were here like yesterday
To pretend that maybe I had the chance to say goodbye

That chance I didn't have
Nor was I ready because I'm still not
Because I'm still preparing myself to say goodbye to Granddad
And to apologize for all the times I made him a burden
Even when I did have the opportunity to bid him farewell.

to be seventeen forever

Saw the Hold Steady and Art Brut last night. Initially I was apprehensive to seeing Art Brut; their music, with the exception of a few songs ("Emily Kane" and "Bad Weekend" in particular), always seemed gimmicky and uninteresting to me. But they sure did change my mind with their show. Singer/uglyass brit Eddie Argos ran around on stage complaining about drunk texting, too many dvds in record stores and ex-girlfriends, all in a very charming fashion (part of the charm being his accent). Probably the highlight of their set was when Argos drunkenly ran into the crowd, jumping around with the kids, then drunkenly ran and stumbled over the barrier between the drinking/non-drinking sections of the Crystal. Between the rock-star posturing of their second guitarist (who really didnt play the guitar all that much, thinking back on it. Argos called the other guitarist the 'actual guitarist') and the drunken mishaps of Argos, Art Brut put on a pretty good show.
The Hold Steady, however, were something great. Their first set was standard fare, playing through a large number of songs from mostly their last two albums, with all of the energy and fire of their recordings. When they came on for the encore, though, something amazing happened. They played 'Chips Ahoy' like they knew how much we wanted to hear it, and then Craig Finn said he haid one last thing to say to us. Obviously drunker than before (part of how amazing they are live is how much alcohol they imbibe yet still manage to play even better than on the record) he kept on pausing and stuttering, talking about how people say he talks to much (he doesn't talk enough in fact). With a smile and a nod, he said "there is so much joy in what we do up here," to the cheers and screams from the crowd. And what he said defined their show; part of what was so amazing was the great energy and joy with which they played. After the shouts subsided, the band proceeded to rip through one of the greatest jams I have witnessed, playing the jaw-dropping "Stevie Nix" and then segueued into a song I hadn't previously heard, "Killer Parties", from their first album. I've included a playlist of "Killer Parties" and "Emily Kane" by Art Brut, but the recorded version of "Parties" comes nowhere near the power of what I witnessed. By the way, their lead guitarist deserves major props. It seemed that the more he drank the better he played [and they fucking drank; the keyboardist downed an entire bottle of wine and then several beers and other assorted liquor (did his moustache absorb some of it?), the guitarist had plenty of Jim Beam, and Craig had more beers than I could keep track of (some of which he sprayed on the crowd)].

Very satisfying, all in all. If you, reader (do we have readers?), have the chance, I highly reccomend seeing the Hold Steady. And not asking sketchy crackheads to buy you alcohol.

Progress(?)

I found this on www.icecreamman.com from when we were at Musicfest NW, back in the beginning of the school year.

I have actually started recording, but until I find a metronome to actually keep perfect rhythm, nothing is going to be posted, so I'd say in about a week once I finish some bullshit essays I will have some stuff up. I should also have up some designs that I have been working on for making T's.

fc

Our new addition followed by a night of fun

Mac and I decided that we should add our other homie from the bay to the blog since the guys back home will probably be reading this, and also because he has a mustache and I'm really jealous. I guess I should introduce him, he is John (on the left) and Dallas is on the right, but he don't get no blog access today. Last night we decided to get all fancy and shit before going to a real good dancy-psychadelic garage band down the road. That lasted for a good while and a trombone player even came into the mix for a few songs which was pretty tight, added even more flavor to the band.

Presenting

Last week it was my friend Kellys birthday, and I decided that after we got to see so many shows together at MusicfestNW I would make her a fake venue poster. If you cant figure it out, from the left it goes Kollossol Kelly, DJ Painus, and ruckus jones. FC isnt in the picture because I have yet to create his visual persona.

On another note, I have been toying with an idea, 'Chaos out of Order,' and it does sound a bit cliché, but I wrote a poem out of the idea, and am working to turn it into a song in the future.

There are pictures hanging on the wall
All but one slanted as if the room was tilted to the left
All but one

It grabs the attention
Not because of its order
But because of its pure chaos

The order hurts even more
Because you want to pull it to the side
Because you want to tear it down

l8
fc

IN_RAINB_WS

i think its agreed that the entire music industry shat its pants when RH said that they were releasing the album themselves, for whatever price the consumer wants. it'll be interesting to see the stats on how much the downloads are going for.
but the real thing to wait for is when another band starts to do this. and another. and another. it's easy for radiohead to release their new album like this because they know they have a built-in audience for it, but what about the lesser-known bands who can't guarantee a return on their recording time?

only time
will tell

mp

Spanning the globe

Mac and I have decided it's time to start a mothafuckin blog, so watch out, we be stealin your free time. This is gonna be about our music that we will one day create, poems, and our dainty little lives.

l8
fc