It only takes one listen of Ponytail to leave a lasting
impression. The Baltimore quartet makes music of pure physicality,
packed to the brim with zooms, swerves, skids, stops, lurches, hurtles,
and dives. The twin guitar attack of Dustin Wong and Ken Seeno locks
firmly in step with Jeremy Hyman’s drums, coasting on a pipeline that
crests over the thickly trilled surf guitar of Dick Dale, with
occasional zigzags into the hammer-on riffs of Eddie Van Halen. On top
of everything, vocalist Molly Siegel makes all manner of noises from
chirps to shrieks, buzzes to barks, giggles to wails—almost
everything but singing.
It’s not surprising that the band began, as so many bands have begun
before, in art school. “Half of the reason I wanted to attend art
school was to start a band,” says Wong. “Bands like Talking Heads and
Lightning Bolt started in art school and they were both bands that I
really admire.” In fact, the group first came together as a class
project at the Maryland Institute College of Art: “The assignment was
to start a band and perform at the end of the semester,” Wong
says. “I think that was a good motivator to begin the band, but
now it feels like a whole new creature.”
Ponytail’s second album, Ice Cream Spiritual, was released
last year to considerable acclaim, and the record contains several
moments of indelible ecstasy. Considering how artfully spiny the music
is, and the sheer relentlessness of its speed-demon whip
cracking—not to mention Siegel’s inhuman squealing—it’s
amazing how inviting it manages to sound. Spiritual marks the
refinement of an unconventional process that had its origins in the
band’s art school background. “When we’re writing we always talk about
parts of the song visually, like, ‘Oh this sounds like a tunnel of
flowers,’ and such and such,” says Wong, who until recently also played
in the band Ecstatic Sunshine.
“Molly’s vocals have really developed over the years,” continues
Wong. “It used to be a lot more screamy and raw. It was never a
conventional beginning; on the contrary, it was a primal
beginning.”
Siegel explains: “When the band first started, I had no idea what I
was going to do or play,” she says. “For the first practice I was
tinkering with a toy xylophone. I mentioned that I might want to sing,
so Dustin suggested that we meet up privately at his house and jam.
That was the first time I tried out doing something similar to what I
do now. I was comfortable enough in that setting to try it. I’ve
definitely been refining and changing since then.”
The band’s Portland show is a record release party of the wax
incarnation of their first album, 2006’s Kamehameha, which is
seeing a vinyl release courtesy of Gaarden Records. It’s the third
release on Gaarden, a label run by Anthony Lambright of the band
Madagascar. Lambright is a recent Portland transplant who knew Ponytail
from his days in Baltimore.
With Ponytail’s emerging success, it’s an appropriate time to look
back at their first effort. “It’s a lot noisier then Ice Cream
Spiritual and I think a lot rawer in structure and energy,” Wong
says. “It feels like an old record in a transformative state. The album
cover is altered and the vinyl itself is white, and the label Ken
designed looks really awesome! It’s like our record went into a
cocoon.”