Photo Montage above by Elias Zimianitis!

NEW ALBUM BY FRANK ORRALL 

A hand made album entitled: "Never Trade These Days" 

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Available NOW as either a Digital download or Limited edition / Numbered & signed C.D. & also a short run of Cassettes are available  

ORDER THE ALBUM HERE 

Track list:
Steve Marriott (PDP)
Sweet Thing (Van Morrison)
Jeremy Brett (PDP)
Uncertain Smile (The The)
Young and Wilde (PDP)
Win (David Bowie)
Starlight (PDP)

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Click on the band members faces to visit their individual pages

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Frank
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Charlette
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Rick
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Susan
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El John
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Max
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Ron
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Dag
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Earl Talbot
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Kornell
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Ted

POI DOG PONDERING UPCOMING  SHOWS 

Poi Dog Pondering Live!  in Concert February 9th at

The Paramount Theatre

23 East Galena Boulevard, Aurora, IL 60506 

Poi Dog Pondering Live!  in Concert December 26th and 27th at
City Winery Chicago  : BOTH CITY WINERY SHOWS  ARE NOW SOLD OUT

 

poi dog pondering news

 

 
     

BRAND NEW UP-COMING PDP CONCERT LISTINGS 

   
 

 
   

 

Platetectonic Music IS NOW broadcasting to you live on the
on the electronic air waves,
from beautiful Hyde Park Chicago,
sending you love, rock, folk  and Internacionale soul. 
 

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Frank Orrall with his Ukulele on 47th st., in New York City
photo: Rob Myers 

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Dave Max Crawford and Frank Orrall
Photo by Sid @ Too Much Rock 

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This weeks 
"Starlight"
in celebration of PDP's up-coming
Ravinia show under the stars

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The Poi Dog Pondering Sound  /   all the main releases from recent to past

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Digital single: "Starlight" digital single   * 2008
A late night mood tsunami.

 
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Starlight

.........................................

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Digital single: "Jeremy Brett" digital single   * 2008
An ode to the late actor Jeremy Brett who is best know for his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes in the British BBC / Granada series.

 
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Jeremy Brett

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"7"   Full Length Album: * 2008
A tour de force filled with love, swagger, raw honesty and moxie. After a 10 year exploration of expansive orchestration and electronica, PDP trimmed it all down and turned up the amplifiers. "7" somehow sounds like a brother / sister record to PDP's '95 release "Pomegranate". This is a rock record, Filled with sex, romance, mischievousness, glitter & psychedelic soul. Arguably their best record to date.
An instant classic in the poi catalogue.

 
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 1- PERFECT MUSIC
 2- STICKY
 3- LEMMON DROP MAN
 4- HEAVEN ONLY KNOWS
 5-  BABY TOGETHER
 6- BUTTERFLIES
 7- FROM THIS MOMENT ON
 8- PALM LEAF EFFIGY
 9- RUSTED WEATHER
10- IN COMES THE NIGHT
11- OUTTA YER HEAD
12- ROCK CANDY
13 -SUPER TARANA
14- SPACE DUST

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THE BEST OF THE AUSTIN YEARS   Full Length Album:    * 2005
A Sony music compilation of the first 3 PDP albums, spanning 1988 to 1992.

 
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pulling touch
everybody's trying (single edit)
i've got my body
hardest thing
collarbone
watermelon song
Love Vigilantes
thanksgiving
get me on
jack ass ginger
be the one
Living with the dreaming body
I Had To Tell You
bury me deep

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AUDIO VISIVO   DVD /CD:     * 2004
(dvd and 3 song e.p. packaged together)
Features videos of "Simple Song" & "Natural thing" + Marco Ferrari's documentary on the making of "In seed comes fruit". Package also includes a c.d. of the up-dated 'soul kitchen' mix of "Simple Song", a cover of New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" and a juicy re-mix of "Natural thing"

 
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DVD:

"Simple Song" Video
"Natural Thing" Video
Concert footage,
Interviews,
and the making of
"In seed comes fruit"

Compaion CD:

"Simple Song"
"Bizarre love triangle
"Natural Thing"

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IN SEED COMES FRUIT   Full Length Album:    * 2003
One of the most elegant albums of the poi catalogue, and some would argue, one of their most un-characteristic. This is the most collaborative of all the PDP records with many members sharing in the writing of lyrics as well as the music. Chief song writer Frank Orrall seems more interested in sound than lyrics during this period and so cozies up to co-producer Martin Stebbing's chair and enjoys the ride in more of a sonic conductors role. Susan Voelz and Paul Mertens stretch their orchestral wings on this record and give this record a unique intimate - yet expansive sound. Singers Charlette Wortham, Carla Prather, Kornell Hargrove and Susan Voelz take the lyrical reigns and the result is broad in palate, but richly cohesive.
 This is a record for musicians, painters, long distance drives and lovers.

 
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 1. Had I Known
 2. You Move Me
 3. A Love Rains down
 4. 10-28
 5. Daytrippin
 6. Hangover
 7. Keep The Faith
 8. True
 9. So Real
 10. Hotel Seze
 11. Simple Song
 12. In Seeds Come Fruit

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SWEEPING UP THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR    Full Length Album:  *2001
A collection of studio out takes from 1987 to 94 (rarities & b-sides). In cludes the beautifully haunting "cotton and wood pulp paste" featuring Abra Moore on vocals and piano.

 
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1. Over the Top
 2. Money Is Tight
 3. Think N Thin
 4. Cotton and Wood Pulp Paste
 5. Absolute Perfection
 6. To Be in Love
 7. Original Chain
 8. Can I Change My Mind
 9. Fiddle and A Bow
 10. Black Hole
 11. Been Down So Long
 12. Willem Dafoe
 13. Better Than This
 14. Wine Song

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SOUL SONIC ORCHESTRA    Full Length Album:   * 2000
The neo Disco soul of poi dog pondering shines here live at the turning of the millennium.
This record captures PDP in the midst of exploring how to combine the 70's Philly soul disco with House and rock.
With a controversial new line up and focus on soul, disco jazz and house music, PDP set out to explore that field planted in the 70's by The Sound of Philadelphia (or TSOP), Big band live disco with strings and horns, Jazz keys, bass, congas and drums. Striving to become the organic link between that and the electronic present.
Recorded live on NYE at the dawn of 2000, This record captures the band feeling flush with creative energy and determined to follow it's heart in-spite of a vocal portion of it's fan-base resistant to let the band morph as it always seems to need to do.

 
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Rise Up and Walk
That's the Way Love Is
Ta Bouche Est Tabou
Spend My Life
Natural Thing
Ain't No Stopping Us Now
Diva
Baby I'm Scared of You
(If U Got Real Love 4 Me)
JAG
Plate.tec.tonic

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THAT'S THE WAY LOVE IS    Re-Mix e.p.:   * 1999
Re-Mixes of the Ten City classic "That's the way love is" as well as
2 tuff re-mixes of Poi dog pondering's "Complicated". (check out Lego's "side tracked dub").
Featuring remixes by Maurice Josusah, Mike Dunn, Lego, Jesse De La Pena and Bunky. 

 
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That's the Way Love Is:

Poi dog Pondering
- single edit mix
Ruckus Vocal Mix
- Maurice Joshua
Deep Soul Vocal Mix
- Mike Dunn
Blue Groove House Mix
-Jesse De LaPeña
Bunky's Way Mix
- Tim “Bunky” Titsworth
Ruckus Instrumental
- Maurice Joshua
Deep Soul Dubb
- Mike Dunn
Sound Clash Mix
 - Jesse De LaPeña

Complicated:

Boom Boom Room Vocal Mix
- Légo
Side tracked Dub
- Légo

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NATURAL THING    Full Length Album:   * 1999
"Natural Thing" is the sound of PDP in the summer light fire of re-invention. Again.
The lyrics get thrown in the fire, and the music rises higher.
"At this time in my life I felt like music was so much more expressive than words..." said Frank Orrall, "And I just wanted to let the music speak." "Rather than traditional song writing structures like; "verse / chorus / bridge " etc., We just let the musicians be musicians and play. Martin and I followed where they went and made the song fit their intuitive structure.... The instrumentalist was the conductor, and the songs just wrapped around that cosmic shape."
 "Also at this time in my life lyrics were not coming to me and so I just felt like lyrics should be short and to the point. Set the stage and let the music talk to the listener in the sound of the soul. The arc of emotion in "Octavio / Beautiful to meet you", Spend my life", "Diva" and "Tracery / Tana dery Na" literally pull at my heart" say's Frank Orrall.

 
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 1. Octavio/Beautiful to Meet You
 2. Ta Bouche Est Tabou (french mix)
 3. Natural Thing
 4. Come Together
 5. Diva (Live at House of sound)
 6. Berry
 7. That's the Way Love Is
 8. Spend My Life (Moorea mix)
 9. Hard Sometimes
 10. Jealous
 11. Tracery/Tana Dery Na (waterlily mix)

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LIQUID WHITE LIGHT    Full Length Double Album:   * 1997
The quintessential live PDP record to date.
This captures the early Chicago line up in it's prime. Knowing it was the band's first live record, and at the decade mark of the band's existence - they chose to lay the concert out like a sonic retrospective; Starting with "Angelika Suspended" 's early poi acoustic sound and ending the night with the bands emerging interest in electronic textures and dance / rock music.
Recorded over 4 nights at the Vic Theater,
Expertly mixed by PDP's #1 trusted 'man at the controls' Martin Stebbing and assisted by Max Crawford's dedicated attention to detail and choice of passion over performance...
This record captures the late '90's poi to perfection.

 
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disc one:
Angelika Suspended
Postcard from a Dream
Living with the Dreaming Body
Catacombs
Sugarbush Cushman
Lay My Love
Everybody's Trying
Tall
Searching for the Fertile Fields
Pulling Touch
Sandra at the Beach

disc two:
Diamonds and Buttermilk
Ecstasy
I've Got My Body
Shu Zulu Za
God's Gallipoli
Ta Bouche est Tabou
Collarbone
Big Constellation
The Chain
Jackass Ginger
Platetectonic
Complicated

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ELECTRIQUE PLUMMAGRAM    Re-Mix Album:   * 1996
In the mid 90's PDP were enjoying fresh inspiration from the vibrant Chicago underground electronic dance movement, and so Fresh off of releasing "Pomegranate", PDP went back into the studio with producers Frank Orrall and Martin Stebbing and engineer Scott Ramsayer to make this RE-MIX album. They locked themselves into the studio and experimented with vintage synthesizers and drum machines to make club ready versions of 4 previously released PDP songs. This session yielded 3 new cuts; "Zap Disco" (inspired by Chicago's south side 'Juke' and ' booty house' sound), "Platetectonic" a quasi rock / electronic house Frankenstein, and the hidden JEM of the whole record; "Diva (bliss mix)" closes out the record.
This record freaked out some fans of the band who thought the band "went disco" - but it also made new fans, and is a testimony to PDPs musical elasticity.
"Diva" is singularly beautiful in it's organic electronic-ness - fully electronic - but somehow it sounds like it could fit right along side PDP's most acoustic tender songs.  Frank Orrall counts "Diva" and "Falling" as two of his favorite PDP recordings - they are like the north and south pole of the poi catalogue - a world apart from each-other, but very much in the same glove of poi's tender melancholic joy.

 
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1. Platetectonic

2. God's Gallipoli
(Arqueen Remix)

3. Zap Disco
(House-O-Matic Mix)

4. Complicated
(Berlin Remix)

5. Hard Sometimes
(M-Theory Remix)

6. Diamonds and Buttermilk
(Matt Warren Remix)

7. Diva (Bliss Mix)

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POMEGRANATE    Full Length Album:   * 1995
Made under the pressure of tending to a lover ( and band member ) struggling with cancer, this record emerged a diamond. It's a determined deep breath, and acceptance of life and it's ways and choosing to live and love it.
It's sex and dreams and dirt and earth. A masterpiece.

 
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 1. Pomegranate
 2. Catacombs
 3. Complicated
 4. Chain
 5. Big Constellation
 6. Sandra at the Beach
 7. Diamonds and Buttermilk
 8. Shu Zulu Za
 9. God's Gallipoli
 10. Shake of Big Hands
 11. Al le Luia

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PALM FABRIC ORCHESTRA    Full Length Album:   * 1994
A sublime all instrumental record. Pure natural music. Featuring Frank Orrall, Ellen fullman, Kit Ebersbach, Mark Willams, Susan Voelz, Max Crawford, Paul Mertens and other Members of PDP.

 
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 1. Time And Gravity
 2. Thawing Spring
 3. Angelika Suspended
 4. Window Down, Still Far From The State Line
 5. Wood Box And Block Of Ice
 6. The Garden
 7. Rounding The Trees By The Forest Edge
 8. Coda: Lover's Reprise

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VOLO VOLO    Full Length Album:    * 1992
This began as an instrumental record, When our label contact heard what we were making he flew right down to Austin and said, point blank:
"Columbia wants a lyric record or else they're gonna drop the band."
In-sensed by this form of control PDP decided rather than to quit or quibble, to take their cue from Madona; "Gain power, then do what you want with it", so they wrote a stone solid pop lyric record, put boxing gloves on for the cover photo and let Columbia know they were in the ring. "In retrospect, I'm glad Columbia pushed us - cause it ended up producing 2 good records - the one we meant to make (Palm Fabric Orchestra) and Volo Volo.... " 
That's a good story - and true... but an equally important truth is; when the band was on tour in England in 89 and they heard the Happy Mondays, that kinda started a revolution in the poi sound. And with Palm Fabric in the bag - they were happy to move on and explore again. You can start to hear it here.
The band got hate mail from fans who feared they sold out when volo volo hit.

 
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 1. Lackluster
 2. Collarbone
 3. Get Me O
 4. The Hardest Thing
 5. Ta Bouche Est Tabou
 6. I've Got My Body
 7. Jack Ass Ginger
 8. Be The One
 9. Tall
 10. Building
 11. Te Manu Pukarua
 12. Blood And Thunder
 13. Entrance
 14. Endtrance

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FRUITLESS    EP:   * 1990 An eclectic mix of covers and live tracks, wrapped around a 'slightly' remixed version of "Fruitless". the stand out track here is "I had to tell you" (a Rocky Erikson cover) sung by bassist Bruce Hughes. You can hear the last shades of the street busking days here, before the shift that Volo Volo would bring to the band. 

 
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Fruitless (remix)
I Had To Tell You
Love Vigilantes
Going Up The Country
Wood Guitar/Falling (live)
Thanksgiving (live)

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WISHING LIKE A MOUNTAIN, THINKING LIKE THE SEA   

Full Length Album:   * 1990
The whimsical apex of early PDP.  Before the Sony / Columbia machine and cynical press cavity toothed mutterings scared them into self awareness... (which is not as bad as it seems... they survived just fine.) This is the sound of PDP just happy to be there in the world playing music and unaware that it might matter to anyone - and bliss-full to the fact that the lions in wait of "thou shall not from 'indie to major label' trade" were ready to pounce.
Little had anyone known that they had (in their brashness), beaten the best contract out of Columbia, better than any indy contract  - filled with creative control.... (including clauses for a kid's record, and an instrumental record... ) and kept their own publishing  - all because they could care less and fought them for it. But none of this has anything to do with the sound and the songs here.
This is pre-indy back lash poi being it's natural heart on the sleeve self. 
Angered letters from fundamentalist religious zealots came in addressing the songs: "Bury me deep" and "Praise the lord". PDP took it as a good sign.

 
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 1. Bury Me Deep
 2. Watermelon Song
 3. U-Li-La-Lu
 4. Everybody's Trying
 5. Big Beautiful Spoon
 6. The Ancient Egyptians
 7. Spending The Day In The Shirt You Wore
 8. Thankgiving
 9. Praise The Lord
 10. The Me That Wa Your Son
 11. Fruitless
 12. Big Walk
 13. Sugarbush Cushman

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POI DOG PONDERING    Full Length Album:   * 1988
Poi dog Pondering's debut CD. Originally released as 2 e.p.s on Texas Hotel records.
This record captures the whimsical elegance of the the bands early acoustic rock sound, fresh off the street from their beginnings as a street playing "busking" band. This album sounds as fresh today as the day it was recorded thanks to Mike Stewart's warm analogue recording. It's time-less and heart-felt. Earnest and honest.
Violins, accordions, mandolins, mando cellos, bass, oboe, drums, electric guitars, penny whistles, harps and trumpets are a few of the instruments that give this recording it's unique texture. Threaded together with prose that knows that life is short, and sometimes painful, and should be lived with both hands and a healthy thirst. Zorba the Greek would like this record.

 
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 1. Living With The Dreaming Body
 2. Fall Upon Me
 3. Postcard From A Dream (Toast And Jelly)
 4. Pulling Touch
 5. Sound Of Water
 6. Fact Of Life
 7. Circle Around The Sun
 8. Aloha Honolulu
 9. Wood Guitar
 10. Falling

You can Download or mail order any of these c.d.s directly from the band following the links above,
or find the c.d.s at these stores: 

You can also download from these sites below

 





   

 



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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 un-hurried, 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. 
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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 April 1st and mount a national tour in april and may.

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SOME NOTES ON THE RECORDING AND PRODUCTION OF THE NEW RECORD:

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POI DOG PONDERING HISTORY ROUND UP

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.
(Click here to see silent 8mm footage of PDP at CBGB's in 1988)
1988 - 1991: PDP re-located to Austin and released 3 records:  "Poi dog pondering", "Wishing like a mountain..." & "Volo Volo". Toured heavily in the States, Canada, Europe and Japan.
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

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.

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( 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 AdellMatt 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. 96evenfurthur.jpegSo 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

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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



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