I'm a F-A-N of N-Y-P-C

A Friday ago I put on my best dress and shoes to go "Get Dancey" to New Young Pony Club. I was pretty much the opposite of this blog's title as Andy from the band sent me an unexpected message on myspace the day before the show.

They are sweethearts - I heart them for tracking me down/keeping track of me.
Due to rounding up balloons and taking a trip back home after doing so to collect my polaroid camera that'd I forgotten while walking out the door earlier I missed Reverse Dotty and the Candy Cane Shivs. They even went on late! It woulda been my first time seeing them since they opened for the Gossip in April.

Jaguar Love:

Who I did catch after meeting up with Brendan and his friend to take my remaining two glist spots and bumping into fellow shooters Chloe and then Renee - who came down all the way from Seattle was Jaguar Love - a brand new trio made up of two members from the just broken-up Blood Brothers and a former Pretty Girls Make Graves-er. It was their second show. You can definitely hear influences of their former bands in their sound.

There was definitely more room in the venue for more people, but the good thing about the attendance level was that there was room to dance - even in front. NYPC cofounder and guitarist Andy said it was the smallest crowd they've played to during their hastily booked and shortly announced North American invasion. Tahita and her semi-confrontational dance moves spent more of her time up against the railings of the stage interacting with the crowd/her fellow dancers.

New Young Pony Club's set went by SO fast!! So fast! It felt like it was a half hour, but it was a bit more than that - still they played all of their recorded output - including their "The Bomb" b-side cover of Squeeze "Take Me I'm Yours" and a cover of Techtronics' "Pump Up the Jams." Both videos are below. "The Get Go was their one song encore.

Crush LOU:

The reason the Teenagers' remix of "The Bomb" is titled so. Lovely Lou - gf of Jamie of Klaxons - the self-confessed 'monk lookalike'.

Tahita accepted multiple items from audience members - from a heart necklace to a cap that turned them from being New Young Pony Club into New Young Jeezy Club hahaha:

The night "Decend"ed into chaos towards the end when we tried to do some portraits featuring $15 worth of balloons I'd just purchased from the Dollar Scholar on Hawthorne (officially Portland's best dollar store).

It's funny that I'd write the word chaos too because to my knowledge that is a track of theirs that remains unreleased. When I first saw them at the Vibe bar on December 19th 2005 on Brick lane in London at an open mic night (fresh from an AMAZING weekend in Berlin) that was the only track that really stood out in the way the four tracks of theirs that had already been floating around - ie "Ice Cream," "The Get Go," "Tight Fit," and "Jerk Me" did. Part of me thinks it may have been adapted into "The Bomb" as the lyrics were a bit science-y - I think they even mentioned Einstein.

Anyway - yeah - um there was VERY little focus and I now understand why their publicity shots are oh so plain - I mean their songs are full of such imagery I was always like "there are so many photo concepts that can be drawn from them," but alas I don't think NYPC are capable of holding still long enough to be shot in any other get-up than in T-shirts against a wall sans any sorts of props or the like. That in itself is huge improvement already as they used to be "too shy" for photos and the only image that existed in relation to them was a graphic of female in riding gear when I first got into them mid-2005. They didn't have a myspace, only an obscure website that played "Jerk Me." They only released music on vinyl and rarely played live.
In the end of the year I formed a myspace group for them and a live photo of them escaped proving they truly did exist (really - people were beginning to wonder).

Here's the listing I wrote for them in the paper:
[AUDIO ICE CREAM] New Young Pony Club used to be so secretive you could’ve mistaken the band for a covert government operation rather than the electro quintet it truly is. With live performances few and far between, no photos (because the gang was “too shy”) and an addictive set of tunes, this pony tale had all the makings of a fantasy on track to outlive the myth of the unicorn. Thankfully, the London quintet has broken out of its stable and is now all about showmanship—visually embodied by the group’s frontwoman, Tahita Bulmer, who leads the dance party.

Andy quoted the government operation part later having read it the day prior while hanging out at Tube - glad he enjoyed it :)
Before disbanded for the evening on that Friday we discussed how we could inspire more activity in the myspace group. I went on a member adding spree the next day hahahaha
The ponies left cackling about a creepy party invite from a couple they'd just received and declined while I made my way to Storefront.

"Take Me, I'm Yours" New Young Pony Club MP3

More of my photos over at LocalCut

Here are some vids I shot:

"Pump Up the Jams"

"Take Me, I'm Yours"

Make new friends or keep the old:
http://myspace.com/newyoungponyclub

God - I miss blogging! I just can't be bothered lately. Well, I can over at LocalCut, but just not here. I'm gonna try to get that together seeing as I'm still paying the fees and all. I'm trying not to go the way of the Swish blog in terms of indefinite hiatus, but now I see that it can be all too easy. I miss being "Nilina Not on the Guest List" rather than just Nilina hahaha :)