High Diving Ponies, “Face Blindness” cassette

cover - face blindness
Last Friday, Stephen Thompson answered a question regarding too much music on the All Songs Considered blog. I sympathized with the writer, because looking at the stacks of records, singles, CDs, and cassettes scattered about the basement, I feel that I don’t get a chance to really appreciate music the way I once did.

And, really, it doesn’t hit until you throw in a cassette by a local band — in this case, Kansas City’s High Diving Ponies‘ newest, Face Blindness — and realize that you’ve really enjoyed everything they’ve ever put out, but probably only listened to each release but once. And you’ve never seen them live? Seriously, how can you claim to enjoy a band when you’ve only listened to them 10% as much as you did Blink-182 as a teenager?
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High Diving Ponies come out of the woodwork for a rare show tonight

high diving ponies
Kansas City’s High Diving Ponies haven’t played a show since last November, when they played FOKL with Dry Bonnet. They’re not likely to be playing around here any time soon, either. According to the band’s Josh Thomas High Diving Ponies are “probably not playing Lawrence or KC again until fall.” So, that makes tonight’s show at the Replay in Lawrence an imperative thing to attend, especially if you’re a fan of the intense psychedelic shoegaze the band proffers.

Thomas promises that the band will be “playing mostly new songs,” giving you a chance to hear the live versions of the long-gestating Face Blindess cassette that ought to be out sometime in July (Thomas has “been doing seemingly endless remixes,” he says). However, if you’re looking for a chance to hear it before everyone else, there will be 10 light-scribed CD-Rs of the album available at tonight’s performance (which also features Kansas City’s Pretty and Wisconsin’s Elusive Parallelograms). The show starts around 10-ish, and High Diving Ponies take the stage around midnight.

Listen to a couple of tracks from Face Blindness below, but take care — I listened to all of these yesterday afternoon and promptly lost a good half hour of time. They’re mesmerizing.
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