The Ponytail Diaries, Pt. 1

2 June 2009, 2:00 pm 3 Comments

Music: The Ponytail Diaries, Pt. 1

The shrill darlings of the Baltimore art-rock scene, Ponytail are not the kind of band you could fall asleep to but are certainly unlike anything else around today. Sounding like a pack of stray cats fighting their way through a ’60′s-style beach party, the band’s joyous onslaught of guitars and drums is pulled together throughout by the untethered vocals of Molly Siegel. And since Siegel herself is queer, and we love music that doesn’t sound like yet another clone of Arcade Fire, we asked her to start sending TNG some of her tour diaries. And she was nice enough to do just that. You can check out the first installment, in Molly’s own words, below.

Hey all! I’m Molly from Ponytail. This is my first post of a tour diary The New Gay asked me to do about our first headlining U.S. tour. I’ve never really done a tour diary before, but it definitely seems like a good thing to do. I’m psyched to be doing it for a queer site too! Thanks, Zack!

1. Driving through Idaho
Were driving through Idaho right now so that means a week of tour has already gone by. I’ve been slacking a little but I also lost my voice in Montreal and came down with a virus (not swine flu!) in Denver. I’ve been pretty much living out of this bag trying to get healthy. I am finally feeling back to normal and ready for some serious west coast action. We play Boise tonight but then were on to Seattle where I’m gonna meet up with some longtime queer buddies, so stoked. Were also playing with one of their bands called Oh Man! so that’ll be sweet.

Alright I’m gonna try to rewind a little but mostly I’m just looking forward, let’s keep it current.

-mmm

2. Boise
So the Boise show went pretty alright, but the main event was definitely Los Beto’s. We had gone here the last time we played Boise and ended doubling up on it the next morning. I’m from Phoenix so I consider myself a pretty good judge of Mexican food and I’m telling you this place is killer. We actually set our GPS to take us straight there before load in and then hit it up after the show. Rediculous, but awesome!

-mmm

3. Seattle

Hey! So we finally hit the west coast and it totally delivered tenfold. We played at a pretty rad you run space called Vera Project. My friend Jude who is the drummer in the middle band, Oh Man!, who were awesome btw, also dj’s in a dj group called Bromance, a group of queers/trans guys in Seattle. I asked Jude to get someone from Bromance to dj, so DJ Frankenheart came down last minute and spun some awesome Baltimore club. I was super stoked, definitely started the evening out on the right note for me. I may have been the only one but, I was dancing super hard. A local band opened called Herr Jazz. They were a group of highschool dudes who totally brought it when we played, thrashing hard, it was the shit, thanks guys!

Later, after the show I had sort of a blow out with my friends and ended up drunk at a peep show called the lusty lady. . . Ha yeah, did Seattle right. ;)

-mmm

4. Portland

Portland was pretty sweet, as usual. We played the Holocene which we were all excited about. Katy Davidson and her band opened which I rigged up, so I was super stoked to see them. They were incredible, and she played with STS who is one of the founders of Rock Camp For Girls, pretty amazing!

There were a fair amount of people there when we played, I think we were all a little intimidated by the size of Holocene. I couldn’t find any pictures of the show online, I need to start just taking photos of the crowd, I’ve always wanted to do that anyway.

The show was also the record release party for our first album, Kamehameha, on vinyl. Our friend Tony of Gaarden records lives in Portland so it was a bro down for sure. It looks so awesome we’re so psyched!! I designed the back which is the first album art I’ve really done. We also played Mega Man, had an awesome Mexican breakfast, and went to like ten thrift stores. . . Serious Portland timez.