After a day spent shopping and watching "Quadrophenia" in the company of our friend James Horrigan and fiancée Helen, we're nevertheless still up for some undiscovered rock! We missed the Irresponsibles - a shame, as EdV had said that, "Mike Gent likes them; and Mike Gent doesn't like anybody!" Still, we were there in time for Astrojet, next up just before 10. Featuring Fountains Of Wayne and former Belltower guitarist, the entertainingly vague Jody Porter, this new NYC lot ("only our fourth ever gig," quoth Jody afterwards) were mighty fine! A trippy, hippy and dippy mix of the fried acid rock and slightly-delic pop stylings of bands like the Dylans and even The Stone Roses, The Astrojet were a modern yet retro delight, and even ended their set with a couple of more up-tempo stronger rocking numbers. Thumbs up to Jody!
We were intrigued by Lemonpeeler; an obvious name reference to The Gigolo Aunts, we thought, and with a couple of good reviews in "The Noise" and other local august tomes, we wanted to check them out. However, they turned out to be a standard and somewhat dull country rock outfit, very similar to The Jayhawks or the US Wallflowers. So we headed back to the pool tables!
We emerged again for headliners Pony, who've obviously brought their mates, judging by the reaction. "The Noise" compared them to Velvet Crush and Matthew Sweet, so I was seriously intrigued. However they turn out to be a massive disappointment; loud, clumsy, unstructured, with a David Gedge lookalike on vocals spouting inanities. After 4 numbers we've gotten nowhere near the supposed Crush similarities, and worse, they kicked off a seriously ham-fisted cover of Madonna's "Material Girl", so we decide to head off, pausing only for a hilariously vague conversation with Jody Porter, in which I tell him we're on holiday from the UK and he replies with, "so, uh, you living here now?(!)", and during which he also claims to have been the first person to recommend The Strokes to NME editor Steve Sutherland! Still, vague or not, his band were the freshest thing on the menu tonight!
We were intrigued by Lemonpeeler; an obvious name reference to The Gigolo Aunts, we thought, and with a couple of good reviews in "The Noise" and other local august tomes, we wanted to check them out. However, they turned out to be a standard and somewhat dull country rock outfit, very similar to The Jayhawks or the US Wallflowers. So we headed back to the pool tables!
We emerged again for headliners Pony, who've obviously brought their mates, judging by the reaction. "The Noise" compared them to Velvet Crush and Matthew Sweet, so I was seriously intrigued. However they turn out to be a massive disappointment; loud, clumsy, unstructured, with a David Gedge lookalike on vocals spouting inanities. After 4 numbers we've gotten nowhere near the supposed Crush similarities, and worse, they kicked off a seriously ham-fisted cover of Madonna's "Material Girl", so we decide to head off, pausing only for a hilariously vague conversation with Jody Porter, in which I tell him we're on holiday from the UK and he replies with, "so, uh, you living here now?(!)", and during which he also claims to have been the first person to recommend The Strokes to NME editor Steve Sutherland! Still, vague or not, his band were the freshest thing on the menu tonight!
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