Friday Morning Rock n Roll Idols: Poi Dog Pondering (video link repaired)

Poi Dog Pondering–I can’t think of a better band to throw out here as we enjoy the first truly warm days of spring.

One of the most enjoyable shows I ever saw was in the old Graffiti Lounge in Pittsburgh, late Spring 1990, for a triple bill featuring John Wesley Harding, Poi Dog Pondering, and the mercurial Michele Shocked.  The show started off on a great note–I’d picked up two comp tickets from the now-legendary progressive rock radio station WXXP.  You can’t beat a free show.

I remember nothing about Harding, and Shocked provided a solid if unspectacular show–though I liked her at the time, the album she was touring to promote, 1989’s “Captain Swing” wasn’t a favorite.

The real highlight of the evening turned out to be the quirky Texas-Hawaiian Folk-Pop-Rock-Hippie fusion collective Poi Dog Pondering, who had launched out of Austin Texas on the strength of a fun little song called “Living With The Dreaming Body” and landed in Pittsburgh with, it seemed, about two dozen members–including a flutist, a mandolin player, a fiddler, and a bunch of hippie-looking folks  banging on drums and looking like they’d been picked up at the youth hostel and added to band the night before.  Whatever was going on, Poi Dog brought the goods, and I was hooked.  Hard to believe it was 24 years ago.

Bonus: my favorite PDP song, recorded with Abra Moore in a motel bathroom (read the description on the youtube page)