Ass Ponys - Grim

Editor's note: Here's one of those promised sporadic appearances of. ...in a perfect world. Enjoy.

Standing on the highway
My pants around my knees
I'd write her name out on the road
But I can't piss Denise

With a lyric like that, you might expect a novelty song romp. You'd be wrong. Very wrong. "Grim" lives up to the image that title invokes. This is a dark song that reflects a lot of pain and hurt expressed by a man struggling to understand how he lost his true love to Jesus.

Not that they didn't have their novelty song moments. The Ass Ponys song ":Little Bastard" fits that bill, and it was the infectiously catchy hit single that elevated them to mainstream status. But the Ponys were a much smarter band than one single might imply. Frontman Chuck Cleaver's songs were vignettes depicting folks on the fringes, misfits who didn't quite fit in, who didn't really want to fit in. And his wordplay was/is wonderfully evocative as the band shifts effortlessly from an acoustic, alt-country-style vibe into jarring rock clamour.

The Ass Ponys made their return in November to play their first shows in over a decade at the Woodward Theater in Cincinnati.

From Ass Ponys Ride Again, by Jason Cohen at Cincinnati Magazine

Mark David Stewart and Bryan Pfahl grew up in Hanna, Alberta, a farm-and-oil town of less than 3,000 people that is not without a certain musical pedigree. “There’s a famous Canadian rock band from there,” Stewart explains. “We don’t want to give them any press, but they start with an ‘N,’ end with a ‘K,’ and have ‘ICKELBAC’ in the middle.”

An indie singer-songwriter himself, Stewart tends toward more refined fare than the music of his fellow former prairie-dwellers, who are often cited as the world’s most hated band (go ahead, just Google “Nickelback” and “hate”). His heroes include John Prine, Nick Cave, Richard Thompson, and Cincinnati’s own Chuck Cleaver. A friend played Stewart Ass Ponys’ breakthrough third album, Electric Rock Music, soon after it came out on A&M Records in 1994, and Cleaver’s songs and worldview struck a chord.

Which is why, on the first weekend of November, Stewart and Pfahl travelled from Calgary to Cincinnati to see Ass Ponys play two sold-out nights at the Woodward Theater in Over-the-Rhine: the band’s first shows in over a decade.

The pilgrimage was not unnoticed by the band. “Y’all are motherfuckers,” Cleaver said from the stage on Night One. “Man, you came from everywhere to see us.” Pause. “I wouldn’t come!”

It was a hero’s welcome straight from Cleaver’s irascible, profane heart. Drummer David Morrison snapped a phone picture from behind his kit before the band had even played a note, and the crowd instantly revved into call-and-response mode for the set opener, “Hey Swifty,” the first song on the band’s first album, 1990’s Mr. Superlove. It was also a far cry from the band’s denouement, when they were quietly gigging around town, several years removed from their last record (2001’s Lohio), until they simply stopped booking shows and Cleaver turned his attentions elsewhere. The four aren’t even 100 percent certain when and where they played for the last time. “I have a piss poor memory for which shows and where but the other guys think it was some shitty club down on Main Street,” says Cleaver. “I do remember that there was hardly anyone there.”

But that’s how band reunions go. You play your last show terribly and/or with little fanfare, then return years later to find pent-up demand, rekindled sparks, and an upgraded, upsized venue filled with people of a certain age out past their bedtime, some of them trying not to spill that rare third beer onto their tucked-in shirts or blazer, others with fingers pointing and fists in the air like at a Springsteen or Guided By Voices show. “For a bunch of introverts, this is the weirdest thing in the world,” Cleaver said at one point from up on stage, before adding: “You’re probably introverts too.”

The story continues here...

Also see: Ass Ponys
Interview by Pete Crigler at Perfect Sound Forever