Plate.tec.tonic

I sent a track to a friend of mine here in NYC. It was from a band I first encountered in Chicago after they moved there from Hawaii via Austin, POI DOG PONDERING. My friend is twice my age and was perhaps not properly prepped to receive the song I sent (on auto play from the player embedded below).



The response was unfortunate. A lesson there - I should have offered the song in a better way, with greater weight and explanation that a mere e-mail can't provide.
THIS is what I should have sent her after the conversation.

I took the same chance with another friend, only this time I brought him to a show. Sometimes, all you need to believe is to see. Here's why:
The happiness this marvelously eclectic band has been providing me since the summer of '95 has rarely been matched. Poi dog Pondering started in Hawaii 20 years ago as a funky street band. In 1995, Frank Orrall, the leader of the pack, moved them to Chicago and that was where he discovered House music. He integrated it wildly into the music, adding electronic beats to the already impressive line-up of strings, horns, guitars, percussion and visuals (in the biggest productions, he has a filmmaker projecting layers of film loops above the band, footage that morphs and goes with the music being played . Back in '95, they were headlining a free concert in Grant Part at the finish line of the Chicago Marathon. Over 1 million people stayed to rock with them, including me. This song, Complicated, was the song they were playing when I stumbled into their lives. The following year, they performed a show at Ravinia Festival in Highland Park, Illinois, an outdoor festival outside of Chicago. It was Ravinia's highest attendance to date. I was there too, it was jam packed; so packed, and the crowds so crazed from dancing, they had to change the set list and bring it down to end on a calm note to soothe the crowds before the mass exodus. Their shows usually build and build, and most importantly they are about love, soul, happiness and always magical.
Nothing on a musical stage matches their originality and collaborative brilliance. They haven't tried to become superstars, they record out of their own studios and tour whenever they can. At heart, they are still the street band from Hawaii, but with a growing soul.
Frank, Susan, Dave, Charlotte, Kornell (Cornelius, Leddy, and all the rest from the past), thank you for doing what you do so well. It's a pleasure to watch you venture along towards the next step in your evolution.


Enjoy and listen on.