Picnic at indie rock Montreal’s Pony Up get famous Down Under and strike Gold with their third album GREAT EXPECTATIONS: Pony Up

by LORRAINE CARPENTER They’ve had a Hollywood record deal, a hit in Australia and an exciting bladder-voiding incident onstage in Amsterdam, but Montreal had Pony Up first. Since 2002, when they performed at the inaugural Pop Montreal festival, the quartet has been deeply embedded in the local music scene, making the cover of this publication prior to the 2005 release of their eponymous debut EP and gaining broader attention that year when the international media spotlight shone on Montreal-made music. Shortly thereafter, founding member Camilla Wynne Ingr defected to Wolf Parade spin-off band Sunset Rubdown, and another shift occurred last year when Laura Wills and Lisa Smith joined the Dears. But rather than undercut or overshadow their own band, the Dears gig has provided experience that they’re now bringing back to Pony Up just in time to promote their third album, Stay Gold. “The Dears is more of a ‘professional’ operation,” says Smith, “and being a part of that has heightened my expectations of how things should run, both in terms of the business side of things and the performance side. Also, playing with all those dudes has inspired me to wank off more on stage.” Pony Up also benefitted from the expertise of Dears singer Murray Lightburn, who not only co-engineered and co-mixed Stay Gold, but attended practices, rearranged songs, picked out instruments and amps and pushed the singers to get the most effective vocal takes. “We wanted to bring someone in who would challenge us and offer constructive criticism when necessary,” says Wills. “We wanted it to sound big and full, and sonics are not our strong suit, whereas Murray is insanely talented in that area.” The band also worked to correct some of the flaws of their previous records. They view the first as too simplistic, having been made prior to the strengthening of their “musical chops,” while they feel that many of the songs on 2006’s Make Love to the Judges With Your Eyes are long on ideas but short on skill. “On this record, we edited mercilessly to create really compact, purposeful little machines of songs,” says Wills. And it’s clearly their most accomplished album, simple but substantial pop packed with musical, lyrical and tonal nuance, depth and fluidity. But if you want a copy, you have to go to the band directly (iheartponyup.com). Having severed their relationship with Dim Mak, the band is selling Stay Gold downloads online and limited-edition handmade and signed CDs. Ironically, most of their pre-orders came from Australia, the one territory where they’re actually signed. Recommended to Inertia Music by Ben Lee (Australia’s Bryan Adams, they say), Pony Up have achieved success Down Under that they’ve yet to replicate at home. “That label did an amazing job,” says Smith, explaining their “disproportionate level of success” in Australia, where they’re now with Inertia affiliate Laughing Outlaw. “The national radio station, Triple J, picked up the single ‘The Truth About Cats And Dogs (Is That They Die),’ which ended up being #47 on their yearly Top 100, beating out Thom Yorke, Arctic Monkeys and Kanye West, which of course is hilarious, and no one in Canada would believe it. And our video charted on Australia’s MuchMusic, which kind of blew our minds.” WITH ARCHIVIST AND SCAPEGOAT SAILBOAT AT IL MOTORE ON THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 9 P.M., $12