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| Photo | John Vettese |
I don’t think I wanna think about it.
Dammit, Matt Pond, you’re impossible to stay mad at. For years, I’ve been one of those twits calling for the relinquishment of the PA from your band name. Obnoxious, perhaps, but it felt like something between a regional slight and outright betrayal when you left Philly for Brooklyn along with, like, freaking everybody else in the early aughts. That, and MPPA’s NY incarnation had a completely different roster of bandmates. Plus also the new music you were making seemed comparatively subpar alongside your work with the Mike Kennedy / Eve Miller / Jim Kehoe axis of awesome. You didn’t deserve the PA. But perhaps that was just the anger thinking. Cause, see, now that you’ve announced plans to change your name to The Dark Leaves with your next release, I’m able to listen to Last Light objectively and…fuck. It’s good, dude. It’s really good. More studio polish, less orchestrations, but the songwriting is still strong. The bounce on “People Have a Way” ranks up there with “Fairlee.” The tragic car crash meditation “Until the East Coast Ends” gives me chills. More and more I’m forgetting about the bitch problems I had with Several Arrows Later and Emblems, since it’s seeming that the noted differences in your evolution away from chamber-indie just give you more room to really own the role of frontman. We saw that in action at your World Café Live show earlier this week. Photos and introductions to your new bandmates after the jump.
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| Steve Jewett plays guitar and has really long hair |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| The remarkably clean-cut Chris Hansen plays guitar and also keys. |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| Dan “Dills” Crowell hits things with sticks and likes the color white. |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| Poised bassist Matthew Daniel Siskin wins the scraggly award. |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| Then there’s Matt, natch. |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| In case you haven’t seen him in a few years, he’s now into black hoodies and Biblical hairdos. |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
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| Photo | John Vettese |
| Not mocking Dills here…just too great a shot not to share. |
A last word on Last Light: naturally Pitchfork doesn’t like it. But lest we forget, they’re a bunch of prickly fuckers whose slights we shouldn’t take too seriously. At least not as seriously as some of us took MP’s retainment of the PA.
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Staff Blog
Matt Pond PA, April 7, World Café Live
I just stumbled across this blog on Google, and I went to this; it was on my 19th birthday. My (then) boyfriend and myself are actually in the picture at the top of the article, right in front of Dan’s drums.
Fantastic show. =]
I forgot to leave my name in the above comment.*