Hooves, organs and beaver tales
Dylan Young
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Bionic picks fight with the Besnards
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After years of riding the rickety rollercoaster of qualified success, and tuning out the drone of local ambivalence, Pony Up! are launching their debut EP on former Claire Daines beau and Aussie songsmith-to-'tweens Ben Lee's Ten Fingers/Dim Mak Records. The multi-track "coming out" release by the indie scene's favourite debutantes is news enough (check Ilana Kronick's feature on the cantering local celebs in this issue), but the launch party is being turned into the week's banner event. In addition to a set by Pony Up!, the night also boasts performances by four (that's right, four!) other acts.
Donkey Heart are already being touted as the next Unicorns by people who can't keep their opinions to themselves. It's nowhere near true. "Quirky" may be an aptly parallel description, but these guys aren't nearly as temperamental or obsessed with challenging the thin-skinned divide between metrosexual and outright faggy. The tunes are unstable, the ingenuity is undeniable and one of them claims to have mugged Daniel Johnston (which is the kind of public service we should all be encouraging).
Burlington, Vermont's The Smittens find their way to Montreal on the waify tones of their shimmy-bop twee harmonies and strange-o concepts, like "fi-curious" (an awkward balance of bi-embracing sexuality and musical preference - yeah, I don't get it either) and "gentlefication" (some misguided nicey-nicey world domination plan - be nice or will erase you with my gomme efface!).
They sound like a pre-pubescent Magnetic Fields writing classroom notes to The Archies. You decide whether that's a good thing or not. New York art-rock electro nerds Poingly ride into town claiming Pony Up! as their "vote for the best new band of 2004 and 2005." Sucking up aside, Poingly have got the shit to make you shake your shit. Sonically it's kind of like a gay-boy version of Peaches with slightly less cussing and sass, unless you count their massively warped track I Want to Stick My Vagina Into Your Penis.
And here's where it gets really interesting. You heard it here first (well, maybe not quite). Montreal's next name-check indie personality? Beaver. Once he rode the moniker of Yellowfall, but after reading a Pop Montreal catalogue reference to the Beaver Badger Bedroom (a name as made-up as the story I'm telling), Beaver adopted his new tag with gusto. He can now be seen about town sporting his raccoon hat and cavorting with the beautiful people. Musically, he's claiming "everything is still in the works," but at his solo performance for the Warrior Magazine issue #2 launch he sounded like a pitch-altered Neutral Milk Hotel plucking Appalachian indie outside music. And he claims it's all improvised!
Pony Up! launch extravaganza, Feb. 5, at Le Local (7154 St-Urbain). Doors at 8 p.m., tickets available at entrance.
oooIn this corner... Bionic vs. Besnard Lakes: Earplug alert! Not the kind of Fight Night that jumps to mind, but as soon as the lineup of these two Montreal heavyweights hit the show calendars, you just knew it was going to be big and dangerous. The Crush in the Slush sees the bone-crunching, ear-ravaging jabs of bearded deviant Jonathan Cummins' Bionic take on the swirling excess and psych-assault of Jace Lasek's Besnard Lakes, two walls of noise hurtling toward each other from opposite sides of the roster! Y&R tried to reach Cummins and Lasek for pre-bout commentary, but all we could hear over the line was threatening guitar rumble and a lot of overdrive.
Rock DJ Juan and a special secret surprise band will mop up between rounds, Feb. 4, at Sala Rossa. Be there or get squared.
oooRestless natives and strangers in paradise Post rockers Shoot The Moon take aim at the pop music status quo with formula-thwarting infectiously obtuse songsmithing, albeit without the outré pretense. Justifiably dubbed "complicated, sexy, honest and a little wild," they hit the stage at Casa del Popolo tonight, Feb. 3, at 10 p.m.
Our very own alt-new-country all-stars, The Sonny Best Band, have finally scored nationwide distribution for their debut Boots Camera Action through Maple Music. To celebrate, they'll be line dancing over at Le Swimming tonight, Feb. 3. Five bucks gets you crudely drilled country gold with whiskyed vocals and roadhouse twang.
