Poi dog Pondering
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Poi dog pondering, "The little big band with the strong back and supple / stubborn heart", has been following it's intuition for 20 years now. From bohemian street buskers to impossible to market major label sacrificial lambs... Poi dog pondering have ripened into staunchly independent musical voyagers. They have let every sound that excited them flow through their music and flood it with ever changing colors; Rock and soul. Orchestral, acoustic and electronic textures. Americana, rock band disco and international musics. All threaded along the way with lyrics that embrace the beauty and pain that life can bring.
Poi dog pondering formed in Hawaii in 1986. The first live performance was at the Honolulu Arts Academy. Filled with youthful imitative exuberance and inspiration from reading about Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground's 'Exploding Plastic inevitable' projected film and music happenings, PDP projected films of lava eruptions, ocean and other natural environments over the band as they performed. The tradition of projected imagery along with PDP live performances developed and matured over the years and continues to this day thanks to long time film and video artist/collaborators Luke Savisky and Marco Ferrari.
In 1987 PDP's wanderlust drew them to the mainland where they embarked on a year long bohemian travel tour across the United States and Canada, playing acoustically on street corners for gas and food money, while sleeping outdoors all along the way. This experience forged Poi dog pondering's self identity & confidence as a "D.I.Y." entity.
PDP was signed to the noble boutique label Texas Hotel who released their first record in '88.
Sony / Columbia released the next 2 records "Wishing like a mountain..." & "VoloVolo".
PDP relocated to Chicago in '92 and formed their own label Platetectonic Music and released the critically acclaimed "Pomegranate" in '95. For the next ten years PDP delved heavily into developing their orchestration skills, culminating in major collaborations with the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Sinfonietta (with PDP's Susan Voelz, Paul Mertens, Max Crawford & Frank Orrall doing the arrangements). Band leader Frank Orrall's interest in electronic music garnered him respect from the Chicago House/Electronic music community for his solo project 8fatfat8, and lead him to become a member of Thievery Corporation as percussionist and vocalist. All this influenced PDP's next 2 records "Natural Thing" and "In Seed Comes Fruit" which saw the band experimenting with electronic textures, beautiful lush arrangements and unhurried, sometimes instrumental song structures, letting musicality determine the song structure, rather than traditional "verse / chorus / bridge" style song writing.
In 2005 PDP combined all of it's experience together and set out to write and record "a straight up Rock and Soul record", complete with strings and horns. The result is "7". The band chose this title because it's their 7th record and because "it feels like a benchmark".
20 plus years down the line there is a bolstered sense of history within the band now. A swagger that comes from having steadfastly carved their own path. It is quite apparent that PDP has always been, and ever will be in it for the love of it; creating and performing. Line up changes are par for the course. PDP is an organic entity, it changes like life does. But there is a core with strong roots, open to new ears and ready to experiment. That's what keeps it vibrant.
About
HELLO BROTHERS AND SISTERS!
We want to thank you for voting PDP "BEST ROCK / POP ACT"
in the Chicago Reader's, 2009 Readers Poll!
We are happy to announce these up-coming Poi dog pondering tour shows:
September 25, 2009
2 Young Rd, Londonderry, NH - (603) 437-5100
____________________________________
NOVEMBER 20th
PDP BIG BAND SHOW
@ THE VIC THEATER in CHI-TOWN
Ticket alert: TICKETS GO ON SALE SEPT 26TH
December 5th: Portland Oregon
AND IN OTHER NEWS (click on photo links to follow):
with T.C. in the following cities:
04/15: @ Belly Up Aspen, Aspen, CO 04/20: @ Roseland Theater, Portland, OR YOU KNOW WE LOVE YOU!
04/16: @ Fillmore Auditorium, Denver, CO
04/18: @ Coachella Festival, Indio CA
04/21: @ Paramount Theater, Seattle WA
04/22: @ Orpheum Theatre, Vancouver BC
-Poi dog Pondering
www.poidogpondering.com
Debut of PDP singer Frank Orrall's solo side Project: 8fatfat8
Click the link below to listen to the record, see videos, and if you wish; to order
1- we have a new single "Starlight" available here
2 - We have re-issued our records on our own label Platetectonic Muisc
and you can mail order the actual c.d.s or digitally download them Here at Poi dog Pondering and at many stores including Best Buy and Boarders
Fresh produce from poi dog pondering:
DOWNLOAD This weeks DIGITAL SINGLE: The new PDP song"Starlight"
*Super Fresh* The Early Sound From Hawaii (PDP roots) Click here for a Rumination on "That's the way love is", Manchester and PDP's affair with Dance music - by F.Q.O.
Click here to download the new 14 song Poi Dog Pondering Album: "7"
New PDP record "7" available now
(Domino Dandy photo by Rob Meyers)
(above photos by Matt Carmichael)
www.poidogpondering.com
| Dinner tonight - Simple Roasted Chicken: Coat roasting pan with olive oil, Place chicken thighs in pan 'skin up' so the fat drips down into the meat when cooking. Crush lots of garlic, chopped shallots, whole jalepeno pepper, portabello mushrooms, basil and sage... layer it all on top of the chicken so the flavors soak in. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper on top. Cook in pre-heated oven (350) for about 1 hour. For a wine try "Mas de Gourgonnier"- a simple French red table wine - (perfectly good and "barn yard" to go with the bird). You can add salad and bread if you want... but you won't need um. (FQO) |
(Poi dog Pondering announces the release of their 7th full length album, entitled; "7", on March 25th 2008. The c.d. will be available by mail order, digital download and in stores).
Poi dog pondering, "The little big band with the strong back and supple / stubborn heart", has been following it's intuition for 20 years now. From bohemian street buskers to impossible to market major label sacrificial lambs... Poi dog pondering have ripened into staunchly independent musical voyagers. They have let every sound that excited them flow through their music and flood it with ever changing colors. Acoustic folk rock, global music, big band disco, electronic textures, orchestral collaborations, rock and soul. All threaded along the way with lyrics that embrace the beauty and pain that life can bring.
Poi dog pondering formed in Hawaii in 1986. The first live performance was at the Honolulu Arts Academy. Filled with youthful imitative exuberance and inspiration from reading about Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground's 'Exploding Plastic inevitable' projected film and music happenings, PDP projected films of lava eruptions, ocean and other natural environments over the band as they performed. The tradition of projected imagery along with PDP live performances developed and matured over the years and continues to this day thanks to long time film and video artist/collaborators Luke Savisky and Marco Ferrari.
Recently PDP have been working hard on some unique projects that combine sound and vision:
2005: PDP joined forces with the Chicago Sinfonietta and composed and performed a "remix" version of Dvorak's "New World Symphony" at the Chicago Symphony Center and used projected-still and moving imagery with the intent to form a subconscious relationship between the notion of the hopes of what people associated with starting a new life in the new world and life's passage from birth to death.
(above photo by Matt Carmichael)
2006: PDP began writing music and lyrics for what would become the band's 7th full length release due out this Spring. Marco Ferrari was busy filming the writing and recording process for an upcoming DVD.
2007: PDP composed and arranged a re-invention of the music and themes from the opera "Carmen" and performed it live with the Chicago Sinfonietta. PDP founder Frank Orrall & film maker Marco Ferrari collaborated to make a stream of consciousness silent film to accompany the performance. The result was a sort impressionistic mini opera.
(video stills by Marco Ferrari)
Also in nov 2007: PDP composed and performed an original score for the film "Limite" (1930), the preeminent work of the Brazilian silent era, Directed by Mario Peixoto. This was in conjunction with the Chicago Cinema Forum & Sonotheque.
2008: PDP will release their new record; 7 march 25th and mount a national tour in april and may.
SOME NOTES ON THE RECORDING AND PRODUCTION OF THE NEW RECORD: Every record is a new adventure for us, and on this outing, we were in the mood to make a 'rock and soul' record. Because we control the purse strings, we spared no expense. We wanted a warm dynamic sound, so we recorded to analogue tape (when ever we could) & used old school effects like spring reverb and space echo in place of digital effects. We locked out the studio and lived in it. We employed every every instrument we had to give each song it's own unique texture. After having a lot of fun with sequencers and samplers on the last 2 records, we put them aside for this one - we wanted a rougher, more immediate sound to better serve these new songs. We shied away from click tracks and let the songs speed up if they wanted to. We wanted a record that would feel good to play live.
INSTRUMENTS USED TO MAKE THIS RECORD:
6 and 12 string acoustic and electric guitar, bass, drums, vibes, charango, guzheng, ukulele, tambourine, bandoneon, jaw harp, super tarana, xylophone, violin, cello, casio, vocals, trumpet, melotron, stylophone, electric mando cello, space echo, fender rhodes, wurlitzer, synth, piano, saxophone, trombone, baritone sax, omni chord, shakers, cow bells and hand claps.
NOTES ON THE ART WORK:
In a age where digital downloads rule, we still care about the art work. We wanted something the listener could hold and read while listening. The art work for 7 is loaded. The cover art is by the Chicago artist DZINE, The booklet art is comprised of sculptures by the Italian artist Virginio Ferrari from his 1960's works. To give that large format album artwork feel we added an additional poster you can unfold which contains Video stills of various works by Chicago artist (and son of Virginio) Marco Ferrari, cooking recipes from his mother Marisa Ferrari and a prose piece by Frank Orrall. The complete package was designed by Alberto Ferrari and Frank Orrall.
NOTES ON FORMAT:
"7" will be available on L.P., 8 track, cassette, c.d. and digital down load - Cause we're stubborn like that.
NOTES ON THE MASTERING:
You will notice that "7" is a little quieter than most pop recordings these days. That was intentional. There is a volume war going on in modern music, because everyone wants to appear louder. This has lead to seriously compressed... even distorted recordings, that frankly sound bad. We put too much into the quality of recording to let this happen at the final stage, so we found a mastering house (Chicago Mastering Services) who feel the same way and they did a fantastic job preserving the integrity of the recording and let it blossom.
Past history round up:
1987: The original Hawai'i line up of PDP (including Abra Moore) came to the mainland and traveled across north America for a year playing on street corners for gas and food money, and camped all along the way.
1988 - 1991: PDP re-located to Austin and released 3 records: "Poi dog pondering", "Wishing like a mountain..." & "Volo Volo".
1992: PDP relocated to Chicago and developed it's big band Rock and Soul sound.
1995: PDP release "Pomegranate".
1996: PDP performs the album "Pomegranate" from start to finish with the Grant Park Symphony in Chicago's Grant Park. (Susan Voelz, Paul Mertens and Max Crawford score and arrange for the first time on this large scale).
1996: "Electrique Plummagram" (re-mix e.p.)
1997: PDP release "Liquid White Light" - a live retrospective.
1998: PDP release "That's the Way Love Is" (re-mix e.p.)
1999: PDP release "Natural thing"
2000: PDP release the live album " Soul Sonic Orchestra" which captures the band re-inventing itself once again.
2001: Band Front-man, Frank Orrall's interest in electronic music led him to become a member of Thievery Corporation's live band as a percussion player and singer, along with PDP percussionist El John, (which they continue to this day, when not playing with PDP).
2001: PDP release " Sweeping Up the Cutting Room Floor" a collection of previously unreleased studio out-takes from 1987 to 1994
2003: PDP released their 6th record "In Seed Comes Fruit".
2004: PDP release the Marco Ferrari filmed and produced DVD "Audio Visivo" detailing the present history and recording of "In Seed Comes Fruit".
2005: PDP / Chicago Sinfonietta collaboration of Dvorak's "New World Symphony".
2007: PDP / Chicago Sinfonietta collaboration mini opera "Carmen" and the composition and performance of an original score for the Brazilian silent film "Limite" by Mario Peixoto.
2008: PDP finish and prepare the new record ("7") for release.
20 plus years down the line there is a bolstered sense of history in the band now. A swagger with 2 fingers up in the air (backwards) to the "industry". It is quite apparent that PDP has always been, and ever will be in it for the love of it; creating and performing. Line up changes are par for the course. PDP is an organic entity, it changes like life does. But there is a core with strong roots, open to new ears and ready to experiment. That's what keeps it vibrant.
A WHOLE LOTTA FOUNDATIONAL HISTORY:
Prologue: 1984
PDP Started from a cassette of 5 songs I recorded on my brothers 4 track. Two more cassette albums followed in 1985, and then in 1986 the 1st version of PDP formed and played it's first gig at the Honolulu Arts Academy:
Photo: Jean Francios Berneron
It all really began in a banyan tree in Honolulu.
After an evening of playing music for spare change on the street, we climbed up onto the tree limbs with cans of Foster's lager and conjured an imaginary travel trip across the mainland where we would have adventures and make our gas and food money by street playing. We liked the sound of it so much we decided then and there to make it real.
Photo: Jean Francios Berneron
We sold our belongings for airline tickets, flew to California and bought an old
GMC Suburban truck; loaded the accordion, marimba, tin whistle, guitars, mandolin
and sleeping bags in the back,and drove up to canada,
Photo: Jean Francios Berneron
down to mexican border towns and across the states playing on street corners and in front of collegecoffee houses - sleeping on hay stacks, grass fields and carpet floors,
and a year later we washed up on the beach of New York city with
no transmission left in the gmc. Exhausted.
That was the end of the Hawai'i version of PDP.
This experience, however, forged Poi Dog Pondering.
The beginning of the AUSTIN YEARS
Texas Hotel Records offered us a contract in 1988 - and we relocated to
Austin to record because we had met some
of the best musicians there while traveling, and we wanted them in the band.
Also, it was easy to live on nothing in Austin.
Local studio engineer Mike Stewart knew how to get a good warm sound from all
the wooden instruments... really cared for the sound. We tracked it in a fist-full of days,
and when the e.p. came out, we played on the street and sold it out of a card board box.
We were a self sufficient organism, knew how to sing for our supper, ready for
anything, and free to cross a whole country for a single gig.
We got one in NYC - opening for Hetch Hetchy. A lot of label people where there.
We brought our scrap on stage and started a buzz. Soon there where six
major labels after us. We let them all take us out to dinner. When you are
used to subsisting on coffee and bread you take all the free dinners you can.
We listened to their pitch and ordered the most expensive bottles of wine on
the menu. Max used to joke: "Who ever takes us to the best restaurant -
that's who we sign with."
I didn't want to leave Texas Hotel Records, but it was just meant to be.
Managers and lawyers have a way of making sense.
We had enough label interest to demand a fair contract, full of creative control.
We signed with Columbia/Sony and a whirlwind began.
Now we had a manager, booking agent, and a tour van named "Isabella" (after Isabella Rosallini). We took out the van's passenger seats, put mattresses down, and laid down like sardines. There were gambling card games, typewriter clacking hammering-out
new songs, people trying to read or sleep - all at once at 80 miles per hour down some interstate towards the next town, or towards someone's houseboat or farm who had invited us to spend the night after a show.
Plugging our espresso machine into gas station outlets along the way, we criss-crossed the country too many times to count.
Even made it to Europe a few times. Japan too.
Visual artist Luke Savisky was with us now, bringing his beautiful slide and film loop projected imageries to the live shows, transforming them - making them multi-dimensional.
1989.
We had blood in our hearts that flowed with the road and a desire for adventure.
Dog-eared copies of "On The Road" & Woody Guthrie's "Born To Win" (along with cassettes of Dylan, the Velvet Underground, the Jazz Butcher, Al Green, Nick Drake, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, and the Pogues), were rolling around in the van with us.
Camper Van Beethoven took us out on our first real tour as an opener.
We called it "camper van boot camp." They had a guitar tech who changed their guitar strings, good beer back stage, played nice rooms - big rooms, they had a trailer w/ their gear in it hooked to the back of the bus... we wanted that.
We also opened for Robyn Hitchcock, that was great, we'd knock on his hotel room door after the show, armed with a bottle of red wine for him - just to hear his stories, he even came and played on the street with us. Brilliant. Wonderful man.
The heart has always been more important to me than the mind. I wanted to talk to people's hearts - by-pass the ego. I wanted to write as honestly as I could.
I wanted to make soul buoyant music. We knew what the world could do to a soul -
we wanted to give people a reason to keep on keeping on.
We came off the street, we knew where the life was.
It was those people we were talking to. It was their hearts we sang to. We played for them.
The circus of journalists mostly missed the point, thought we were neo-folk hippies 'cause we could sleep anywhere, had acoustic instruments and dared to be exuberant - dared to play by our own rules. We weren't hippies - we were romantic to the bohemian, wine-haggard, caffeine-pupiled - and lusty for life.
Our hero's followed their hearts. That was how we saw it - how one was supposed to live it. Love it.
Embrace it... say "Yes" to the moment.
We found saints in every city: Vic Chestnut & Love Tractor in Athens, Howe Gelb and John Convertino in Tucson, Arnie Saiki in NYC, Oneziem in Baton Rouge, Scotti Bolin, Patrice...
Endless souls who looked after us, fed us beautiful stories, enriching the song writing.
Stole liquor from an R.E.M. house party. Twice.
Did shows without band members who went missing from some adventure the night before.
It was always about adventure, putting ourselves out there on the road, ready to take whatever detour life brought us. It was the people we met out on the road that made it all beautiful. It was pulling over to swim in a stream 'cause you felt like it.
We watched bands try so hard to win commercial radio and MTV;
it looked goofy to us, so we just played ourselves.
We got trapped into a few embarrassing videos, learned our lesson,
decided to roll on the side of exuberance for life, and make a meal of experience.
Besides, there was college radio then - it was a force.
When you are following what you love - life comes to you, the world breathes with you, that's how we walked it.
1990.
We rolled on under the instinct of impulse...
Showing up on the David Letterman show in torn jeans, threadbare shirts, and a borrowed guitar.
John, Bruce and Dave Max waking up hungover under the Eiffel tower after emptying the mini bar; in a single night - they were broke for the rest of the tour.
Playing the Montreaux Jazz fest and seeing Miles Davis' last performance there, Gil Evan's big band & Quincy Jones (conducting) were on that gig too.
Playing all the work horse touring clubs: The Blue Note, Lounge Ax, the Metro, the 40 Watt, Liberty Lunch, Mississippi Nights,
the I Beam, Slim's, Cotton Club, Irving Plaza, and the tiny (old) mighty 9:30 Club.
Finding clothes you could sweat in, that would dry fast so you could wear 'um the next night and pack light. I had a pair of vinyl pants made, so I could wash them in a back stage sink and wear the next night.
1991.
The wave of Manchester dance rock was surging and we liked it.
It influenced us. Ecstasy - I liked it... (not a lot - just enough).
Things were on the move musically in the world,
There was fresh inspiration now, we started broadening our sound.
We had our own discoteque on the bus ("the star kiss lounge") on the Volo Volo tour.
Something else was emerging.
1992.
Chicago was becoming home base.
This was the beginning of the end of the Austin years.
Everyone was a bit worn from constant touring,
and things were stirring at Sony - we were not the "next big thing" everyone had hoped up at Black Rock.
They released us from contract in '93.
We decided rather than sign with another label,
to go fully independent and start our own.
Thus beginning the Chicago years,
but that, my friend, is a whole 'nuther story,
and would require another bottle of wine.
We'll pick that story up on the 20 year mark of this ever morphing organism called Poi.
'Til the next time,
with love in our hearts for all those who have listened,
and gratitude for those who let us sleep on their floors,
Aloha nui loa,
Frank Orrall & Poi Dog Pondering
=============
PART 2: THE CHICAGO EFLUORESCENCE (coming soon...)
Photo: Matt Carmicael
Archives:
Recipes:
Simple Roasted Chicken:
Coat roasting pan with olive oil, Place chicken thighs in pan 'skin up' so the fat drips down into the meat when cooking. Crush lots of garlic, chopped shallots, whole jalepeno pepper, portabello mushrooms, basil and sage... layer it all on top of the chicken so the flavors soak in. Sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper on top. Cook in pre-heated oven (350) for about 1 hour.
For a wine try "Mas de Gourgonnier"- a simple French red table wine - (perfectly good and "barn yard" to go with the bird). You can add salad and bread if you want... but you won't need um.
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