Concerto: Red Pony Clock

Yes, that said clock.  Dirty monkeys!  Anywhoo, this past Sunday night I went to the Casbah to watch my friend Gerry's band, Red Pony Clock.  What follows is my review:

The first band of the evening was called the Donkeys.  And with good reason, they sucked.  They were too slow.  It was kind of like soft country but not supposed to be.  Thankfully their set was short and thus over quickly.

The second band was two people, girl drummer with guy on guitar.  Sound fimiliar?  Yes, they were a lot like the White Stripes, except without any real emotion.  Oh, and the girl did most of the singing.  One thing that was cool was that they paused and talked about their next song and how they wrote it and then played Brian Adams's "Summer of '69".  I had just finished telling someone that I would say something like, "We wrote this next song and the Beatles stole it from us."  This band wasn't very good, well-dressed, or funny, but they are from Portland, Oregon, so what could you expect?

The next band came up and had another female drummer/lead singer, and a horn section.  So I'm standing around thinking, "What's this all about?"  All of a sudden they broke out into what can only be described as interplanetary ska.  It was like a cross between Parliament Funkadelic and Save Ferris.  It was pretty fucking awesome!  The singer could really sing and reminded me a lot of Gwen Stefani when she used to sing ska.  Ah, the good old days.  Sadly, I don't know the name of this band but I would highly recommend them to anyone.  They were great.

Last but certainly not least was Red Pony Clock, the band that has recorded thebest version of "Happy Birthday" I've ever heard.  When they were getting set up, I was amazed at how many instruments were on stage.  There was an xylophone for godsakes!  They too had a female drummer (ah, we are truly moving forward).  Red Pony Clock was a lot of fun, though, not really my style of music.  There were no distorted guitars like the previous band.  God, how I love distorted guitars.  Their horn play was good.  I couldn't really hear the lyrics like I could with the previous band either.  That has more to do with the venue than the band.  But like I said, they are a lot of fun.  Their energy is high and I would definitely go see them again.

So there you have it folks!  2 out of the 4 bands were good this time around.  If you have a chance to check out either Red Pony Clock or the band whose name I don't know, do so (if that's even possible without their name).  Did I mention Gerry was looking sexy with a beard?  Oh yeah.

Update:  For those of you interested, both Red Pony Clock and Bunky (thanks Sean!) are on MySpace.  So check 'em out or something bad will happen...