Finally finally

A Ponys

Some changes here at Hey! Student, as the service I was using to host my files (Movedigital) up and folded over the past week. They made some heart-wrenching pleas for cash on their blog, to the effect of "hey we need $40,000 in five days can ya help?" I would link to these posts, in which the word "courage" cropped up an inordinate number of times, but the blog went down with the rest of the ship. They created a Facebook group called "Save Movedigital.com!," but it should really have been called The Saddest Facebook Group in the World, because last I checked it had about 8 members, and I'm pretty sure that three were the co-founders, meaning the rest were most likely their friends. So much for social networking eh?

So I guess 2004 was a pretty good year for rock. The one and only record by On!Air!Library! came out that year, and so did the first album by Chicago band The Ponys. Unlike some of their American contemporaries (this is when the Sufjan Stevens cult of influence was approaching its height), The Ponys were concerned mostly with straight-ahead rock. They sound way more like The Smashing Pumpkins, than, say, Pavement or any other indie touchstones.

I won't spoil it, but I really like the beginning of this album. The first track, "Let's Kill Ourselves," easily made it to the "Awesome Track 1s" show we did on the Indie Rock Suckfest (to my knowledge, still WNUR's longest-running Freeform program). Please enjoy Laced With Romance, hosted by the possibly temporary file service, Drop.io.

The Ponys - Laced With Romance, 2004