Wild abandon

It's not often that I am totally totally blown away by a show, but I gotta admit that this Ponytail/Woods/Pocahaunted/Pink Reason show the other day totally sauteed my brain. Pocahaunted and Pink Reason were a little spacey for me - I told some guy that Pocahaunted reminded me of Double Leopard while I was in line for the bathroom, and he made a face like "whhaaa?" and I was totally embarrassed, and then while I was peeing I realized that I meant The Double and not Double Leopard, but instead of bursting out of the bathroom and shouting "THE DOUBLE!" which I seriously considered, I just let it go.

Anyway, Ponytail and Woods were the total standouts. Woods, who look a little geeky (no offense, dudes), make this psych/indierock hybrid, where they'll be in a pretty standard rock/pop song model, and then just kind of freak out for about three minutes. Also, the singer sings in this crazy falsetto that was emotional sometimes and just really nutty other times. But I really liked them.

PONYTAIL, though. Ponytail are sweaty dance magic. Ponytail are a non-cynical !!! fronted by Bjork singing in the style of Sigur Ros. Ponytail is noise music with a melody that you can dance to. It's psychadelic music you can listen to without sitting down. It's dance music that isn't boring or annoying. It's rock music that isn't boring or annoying. I was about 5 beers and into the evening by the time they came on, but I could not stop dancing, I could not stop having fun, I could not stop being not depressed, and that's a pretty neat trick.

THANK Y'ALL FOR VOTIN

If you'd asked me if I had anything approaching expectations of quality when I first started drunkenly watching NBC's Nashville Star 10 minutes ago, I would have laughed. Ridiculous, as I expect nothing but total and utter boring, derivative shit. How could Nashville Star actually disappoint someone who expected so very little from it? Well, brothers and sisters, I can report that this show actually fails to meet even the most modest expectations of televised entertainment. The look on Jewel's face as she tries to mentor these slithering aspiring fameballs says it all. "JESUS," it seems to say, "How have you managed to get yourself in a position to have a multi-platinum musician who despite her book of cheerleader-depth poetry actually was somewhat interesting in some way at a point in time not all that long ago (me) despite your utter lack of performing or vocal skills? Like FOR REALZ." And I would, just this once, have to agree with Jewel's face.