Recent History:
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. (click here to see photo)
2006: PDP began writing music and lyrics, and recording
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.
Spring 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. (click here to see photo)
Winter 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.
(click here to see photo)
2008: PDP finish and release the new record "7".
2009: PDP voted "Best Rock / Pop Act" in the Chicago Reader's
2009 reader's poll. Begin work on up-coming 5 song E.P.
A WHOLE
LOTTA FOUNDATIONAL HISTORY: |
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
But
the real adventure started when we left the stage. and played on the streets.
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:
"That's the way love
is", Manchester and the partial story of dance
music's influence in PDP's history
(Note: this is loaded with links to some classic videos including Daft Punk's first stateside live performance
at Even Furthur in Wisconsin 1996!- enjoy)
Being a band
for over 20 years means that you are going to go through a lot of phases, and get interested in a lot of music. Along PDPs
way through it's eclectic rock journey it has had a very enjoyable flirtation, or "thing on the side" with Dance
music... a sort of affair if you will. This is a rumination on that.
Prologue:
1983: I
got a summer job working in California as a production assistant on the set of the movie
"Breakin". On the set, cassettes of Malcolm McLaren's "Duck Rock", Run DMC's first record and Grand Master Flash and the Furious Five, and Kraftwerk's "Tour de France" started circulating around our beat boxes. That was the first wave of this new sound that washed ashore. I went to
the Radiotron in L.A. in 1983 and stood at the edge of the circle and watched the nylon hooded
break dancers do there thing - and I had my mind blown! I went home -
and the new sound was in my blood.
( Photo: me back home
in Hawaii practicing dancing on the patio / lanai - with the beat box - I forget who took these photos now.)
1989 PDP was deep in the Austin music scene and the Pixies were fresh on the turn tables.
Meanwhile in Chicago, unbeknown'st to us at the time, the band TEN CITY was emerging from the House Music culture there
and released a classic song that PDP would cover 10 years later: "That's the way love is"
Early glimpses of club music:
The term "Dance Music" has always been a goofy one - Hell, Benny Goodman was
'dance music', but the term has a connotation now - (negative or possitive, depending on which side of the fence the
person talking is on) - and we've had to sort of adjust and know what people mean when someone uses this term. So in light
of this - there was always disco - and I always liked it. I liked all my school dances. "Flashlight", "Serpentine Fire" ... I won't even start. And all that New wave had
it's roots in disco even though it tried to hide it.
But this story is about the next dynamic wave....
So onwards... to 1987... Sitting on Michael Corcoran's front stoop in Austin (with his
stereo speakers on the porch blasting towards the street) and
him beating Public Enemy's (brand new) first record. This was juicy. Something was stirring.
Then 1988 - Gretchen
Lono was visiting Austin from Europe and she was telling me about this new thing called Raves that where happening in the
country outside of London where people would set up sound systems far away from the police - and d.j.s would play and everyone
just enjoy'd themselves and danced. I liked the sound of it.
In
89 we were on tour in England (right around "Wishing like a mountain...") and we were in
Manchester or Leeds and the club owner put a record on the turn table while we were setting up... it was
"Bummed" by the Happy Mondays,
with the single "Lazyitis" and "Wrote for luck". It was rock, trying to be a bit dance... but it was fucked up, brash and sloppy. We liked it. We didn't pay it much
mind though. We had a gig to play. But it registered in our brain.
Back in Austin John Nelson turned me on to Soul 2 Soul ('Jazzie's Groove" and "Fairplay") and that opened our minds for sure - got the juices flowing. There was something in the air - you could feel it.
Then De La Soul and Deee-lite hit and made it all fun. Even the rock kids were having fun with it on the floor. Club music was kind up for grabs
and it was coming so fast and furious that nobody had a chance to catagorize it and make it sterile yet. All that music coming
out of the speakers made the world feel close internationally.
Then in '90 we back in England for a few shows and Dave Max and I were in our hotel
room watching the BBC and we saw the Charlatans video for "The only one I know" and we both dug it a lot. I went to the record shops and bought the Stone Roses & the Charlatans.
We went home and started working on "Lack Luster",
"Jack Ass Ginger" and "Get me on" with all that inspiration. And so the writing for Volo
Volo began.
But then the Happy Mondays pulled
the trump card and released "Pills 'N' Thrills And Bellyaches" and blew everybody's mind, and that was it.
I knew I needed someone to work with production wise in the studio who understood how
to bring a dance element into the mix. I met D.J. Casanova in Austin and heard him d.j.ing "The 900 Number" (by The 45 King) - and he was shaking the dance floor - and I thought "I wanna work with this guy". He came with us to
England in '91 to put the final touches on Volo Volo. And while there we went out to the dance clubs
and heard NOMAD "I WANNA GIVE YOU DEVOTION", and The KLF - "3AM Eternal". We also went to Soul to Soul's night at the Brixton Academy and it was all exciting. We went back into the studio and Casanova put a nice drum loop form "Impeach the
president" under "Be the one" and made "Take care of your thing" come alive with some turntable work and a few choice samples and an
808 kick drum. He took both those songs into another world.
Back in NYC my friend Arnie Saiki was turning me on to the Brand New Heavies and the whole acid jazz scene. He would take me to all the good nights at Nell's night club which was a fantastic little club with amazing music and everybody dancing. We also regularly went to
the acid jazz nights of Giant Step. Dancing was a part of every
day life again - and it made everything seem to sparkle. On my visits home to Hawaii D.J. Daniel J Ward and Lloyd Kandell were keeping me up to date on the new and classic cuts.
While
we were waiting for Volo Volo to get pressed U2 released Achtung Baby and it just heightened the excitement - even the big boys were falling in love with combining rock and dance. There
was a sense of momentum of something new cresting.
On the Volo Volo tour in Chicago at the Metro in '92, we went downstairs to the Smart
Bar and danced our asses off and had a great time. Austin seemed slow on the up take as far as dance music was concerned
so that just helped make the move to Chicago. Austin taught us so much when we were exploring acoustic rock, but now with
this new inspiration, Chicago seemed like an exciting move, and so we relocated there in 93.
We went to work on the record Pomegranate ('94) which was more
groove oriented than any of our previous records and yielded PDP's quasi rock/house anthem "Complicated". While we were working on re-mixes for Pomegranate I heard Robin S singing "Show me Love" on Chicago's B96 and I was so inspired I tried to re-create the organ keyboard bass line and you can hear it's
influence in "God's Gallipoli (the Arqueen re-mix)".
Mel Hammond introduced us to Lady D, Jevon Jackson and the real Deep underground sound, and brought me into the Chicago House Community - I fell head over heals. The
people were so nice. Welcoming. And proud of their History.
In '96 Carolynn "Chaka" Travis introduced us to David Prince & Matt Adell. Matt turned us on to Derrick Carter and Dub-tribe (which were on
his label "Organico"), and David was the founder of Reactor Magazine and co-founder of Even Furthur.
Chaka and David suggested that we perform some of our newer more electronic songs at
the EVEN FURTHUR rave in Wisconsin. 
So we did. We went up there and performed a live set as Poi Energy inc., and camped out and enjoy'd 3
"ecstatic" nights of house, techno and bass and drum, and had our minds blown. Daft Punk played their first U.S. live set there that year too
One night David took us to hear Byron Stingily and he sang
"That's the way love is" and it blew me away. Mel and Justin tracked down the cassette of the original for us from their basement collection.
Powerful lyrics and beautiful melodies, piano and bass. It brought me right back to the beginning. Back to 1989 where the
Dance world seemed to open up again.
In the mid to late nineties
Chicago Producers Mike Dunn, Maurice Joshua, Lego, Jevon Jackson, Mel Hammond, Matt Warren, Bunky
& Jesse De La Pena did some real nice Re-mixes for us. We also saw a transcendental
live set at metro by Orbital that was the apex for me as to how truely powerful a live electronica set could be in the right hands.
There's a whole lot to talk about here, A whole 'nuther history of the Deep house
era of Chicago that was going on in the clubs and at the after-hours parties in the 90's - a lot of late nights rolling
on into the morning, X, dancing & 8fatfat8 .... that would be hard to really express but I will try and compress some of that feeling into these words below:
The blue light of dawn will always remind me of Chicago:
Aberdeen basement,
with condensation on the ceiling,
the rattle of lose screws
in the bass bins,
the crackle of phonograph needles
on favorite records,
speakers pulsing
and fluttering in the sound waves,
bodies jumping and yelling,
heads bouncing and concentrated
faces.
hands held up into the air,
or one hand over your face,
the other on a friend's
shoulder
when things got good and subconscious.
every friend greeted with a hug.
you could be free
to lose your mind,
for a night - release the day,
get down deep inside your self,
freaky
as you wanna be,
if you got too high -
someone would look out after you,
we were all there for the same reason,
to get deeper,
to see each-other,
a congregation of a culture
free to be,
encouraged to set
it free,
gay,
straight,
black,
white,
brown,
drugs,
no drugs,
no judgement.
sleeping all day,
out all night,
coming home,
body tired,
heart happy,
in the blue light
of dawn.
---------
From 1999 into 2004 we
let the band morph freely between rock, Jazzy R & B undertones, philly era disco production (ala strings and live
instrumentation), while trying to include the emotional and technical things we learned from more modern house and electronica.
The result was a live recording "Souls Sonic Orchestra", a more orchestral studio
record "In seed comes fruit" and a beautiful re-mix of "A love Rains Down" by California's
Gavin Hardkiss.
Around 2005 it felt like we had come to the
end of the ball of string with all that experimentation, and just felt like it was time to get back to basics. So we set out
to make a straight up Rock and soul record, which became "7".
Dance music is like an elliptical orbit, it is always around me, but sometimes it swings in real close and sweeps
me along full force for a while. And I have to say 89 to 91 was a magical spark, and that magic sparkled on through the 90s.
I look forward to the next wave. In the meantime I'm digging the rock again. Taking a break from guitar based music for
a while brought back the freshness for me. God I love music. All of it.
I gotta go to bed though... I've been up all night on this journey, and it's almost noon.
Love,
F.Q.O.
PART 3: THE CHICAGO EFLUORESCENCE (coming soon...)
Photo: Matt Carmicael
Some
Favorite Poi dog Pondering links...
