The Ponys, Sano live!

The Ponys, Sano
Schubas, Chicago
Friday, January 12, 2006

The flagship showcase for this year’s Tomorrow Never Knows festival at Schubas featured the first performance by Chicago’s Ponys in several months. Fueled as the night was by an ad hoc, adventurous spirit, the real winner was a side project by The M’s Josh Chicoine, called Sano.

After bouncing from influence to influence on their first two albums, the bulk of the headliner’s set pushed their forthcoming Matador Records debut, Turn The Lights Out. Pursuing a heavier, less trendy approach, The Ponys were still haunted by a reverbed surf-Pixies ghost and the continued unadaptability of frontman Jered Gummere’s voice. Despite cutting as towering figure as Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore, Gummere spent an inordinate amount of time pressed against his upper register or straggling behind in a detached echo. This wouldn’t be so costly if the band’s melodies weren’t almost exclusively structured around him, leaving luminescent barre chords to repeat patterns into the ground (“Pickpocket Song”).

Sonically the band seem to have found ground with which they’re comfortable, perhaps restrictively so. “Poser Psychotic” bet heavily on Girls Against Boys’ bulldozing “Bullet Proof Cupid” without updating it in the slightest, though a happy-Sunday bounce through “Turn The Lights Out” and the wickedly echoing sonics of opener “Double Vision” made cases for The Ponys’ unlikely status as a buzz band.

While an unfortunate decision to mask his voice established a permanent distraction throughout the set, Chicoine’s Sano showed surprising range for a hobby. Frequently offset by his sassy falsetto, Chicoine was able to rely on backing tracks as well as fellow M’s Steve Versaw and Joey King and simultaneously dug into a bag of Kinks-isms. Songs like “Rising Tide” displayed a melodic sense downgraded on last year’s Future Women, giving hope that the lack of self awareness on the band’s first album (actually a combo of three EPs) hasn’t dissipated entirely.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Live Reviews, Weekly