Eulogising Pony: 'A Petri Dish Of Ill Repute'
Pony booker Andy Moore, SPOD and members of Witch Hats, YIS, The Nation Blue and Teeth + Tongue reflect on the Melbourne CBD's 'most notorious rock den' with DARREN LEVIN.
The lights go on/The dead of dawn/It's Pony in the morning/The meat market is open.
Ben Montero wrote those words back in 2005 for a song called ‘Pony in the Morning’ off Treetops’ Gospel EP. It’s about those desperate last couple of hours and not wanting to be alone when you get home, he says. That Montero claims he never stepped foot in the place speaks volumes. Pony’s reputation as the CBD’s most notorious rock den – a place made infamous for its 2am show – preceded it.
About a month ago, rising rent costs resulted in the venue changing hands, and while the new owners say it’s likely live music will continue after renovations – just that word alone strikes fear into the heart of all who frequented it – booker Andy Moore said he doesn’t expect Pony to return as the same grotty, anything-goes venue it once was.
“[It’s] a classic room that is too small to have big shows and has a PA that should be in a venue three times its size, where the musicians and the audience have no separation and can smell each other’s breath. Shit always got loose at Pony and I don’t think we’ll really see that happening again in Melbourne.”
With the venue planning a 24-hour send-off in December, we asked some Melbourne musicians to share their recollections of the place – from Witch Hats’ Kris Buscombe, who met Rowland S Howard there (pictured together), to Moore himself, whose relationship with Pony stretches back to the early 2000s, when his band Digger & The Pussycats were headlining over Jet.
Andy Moore
Booker/Digger & The Pussycats
Basically, Pony and I have had a pretty strong relationship since the early 2000s as a young buck playing gigs, dumping the gear at home and then going out for some late-night drinks and a debrief of how awesome we had played that night. We had a lot of friends in bands and we'd often finding ourselves playing on various bills scattered across Melbourne, so we'd all meet up at Pony to catch the 2am late show and drink away the $26 we'd made from playing that night.
[Bandmate] Sam [Agostino] and I used to play in a band called Fort Mary and we played quite a few shows at Pony, including that legendary night when all the A&R dudes flew out from the UK and USA to try and sign Jet. We were actually the headliners that night, and I remember the room emptying once Jet finished as the suits and their fans rushed outside to get on their mobiles and hype shit up, which was great because our mates were then able to get in and see us.
Then, when Digger started up, we used to play there a lot. And we'd be hanging out there most weekend nights after shows we'd played at or been to. One night both Sam and I ran out of money and, after trying to negotiate credit with the bar (they politely refused), we suggested playing an impromptu set at 5am. The staff thought it would be funny and there was a full band's equipment there (they'd left it and gone home) so we just cheekily set it up and played a set, then enjoyed our "rider" until 7am. We ended up doing this a few times. What a bunch of scabs we were. But where else in town could you run out money and play for drinks? As they say, at Pony anything goes.
I started DJing there about nine or 10 years ago, which was a really interesting experience. The DJ booth is perched high above the dancefloor and you can see absolutely everything as it unfolds. On the second Digger record I wrote a song called ‘Pickup at Pony’, which was inspired by a DJ shift I did there and stayed relatively sober [for]. There was this girl who just danced all night; she was drinking heavily and she danced "enthusiastically". She was a looker and got plenty of male attention but she just knocked everyone back. She would turn her back and wouldn't even dance with them. Then there was this other guy who was just standing on the edge of the dancefloor for pretty much the whole night, drinking by himself, minding his own business.
As the venue started to thin out with patrons about 6.30am I started to change-up the tempo a bit and throw in a few slower numbers to help prime people for an orderly exit into the daylight. When I chucked on Modern Lovers’ ‘I'm Straight’, the guy threw back his drink and just went straight to this girl and they danced. It was the first time he danced all night and it was the first person she danced with. They started making out towards the end of the song and, as soon as it finished, they left together. I still don't know if they knew each other or if it was a pickup at Pony, but I'd like to think they met for the first time that night and now have a mortgage and three kids in Melton South.
Jess Cornelius
Teeth + Tongue
At one memorable 2am show with [former band Moscow Schoolboy], a girl suddenly crashed the stage with a tambourine, played it violently for some time and then disappeared through a hole in the ceiling, only to reappear during the next song. Meanwhile Jay [Richmond, drummer] witnessed some blatant teen sexual exploration taking place outside the toilets. I think that was common, but not based on experience of course. And then the stairs were always a hazard; steep and usually crowded. Apparently rolling a kick drum down them first aided in the load-out. I was sad to hear it was closing, although I hadn't been in years. Where else are those die-hard band-and-booze hounds gonna go to pick up?
Kris Buscombe
Witch Hats
I spent years there and used to get kicked out every night for climbing something. What a shithole! But lots of cool stuff happened among the mischief. I met Rowland Howard when I was wearing a green lab coat. I used to think it looked really cool, but I actually looked liked a fuckhead. Rowland had played a really powerful full-band show up there sometime around 2005. I kissed my darling girlfriend of seven years there for the first time in the side alley. Witch Hats all took ecstasy and played one of our many 2am shows, until guitarist Tomas Barry smashed his red Hondo guitar to pieces. I remember [drummer] Duncan [Blachford] somehow smashing his head into a foldback wedge. He stood up with blooded fingers and calmly exclaimed, "There's blood in my head!" I know someone who woke up in the toilets without their trousers on. He managed to do a two-lap search of the place before they kicked him out. I signed a Wolfmother EP for a confused patron upstairs and accepted praise for songs I hadn't heard of or written. This happened to me a lot around that time until he [Andrew Stockdale] grew an afro.
Thomas Lyngcoln
The Nation Blue/Harmony
One of my favourite Pony memories was watching Spod play on one of his first trips south. There was lobster and glitter everywhere and that tight pressure cooker of a room exploded the oestrogen levels normally associated with a Spod show. For weeks I kept finding glitter on my wife in increasingly dubious locations. It's a petrie dish of ill repute. Hell, the only time Harmony played there, one of us met someone who they soon married. I think it's the air or lack thereof.
SPOD
The first headline I played in Melbourne was at Pony. Matt Weston and Matt Tanner hooked it up I think, and that was in the early mono.net days where everyone was coming up to me at Melbourne gigs and outing themselves in secret with their “mono names” back when the internet was a shameful place. I had all of these lollies made that said SPOD LUVS U on them, and packed enough glitter and toys to kill a unicorn. I think Tom is referring to scorpions [with the lobster thing]. I used a lot of scorpion blow-up toys at the time, but they looked exactly like lobsters. It was totally rammed, way too loud for the shitty PA that was there and it was probably one of the most fun gigs I can remember playing. It really lit the fire of making me want to perform. Be it because of girls getting really suss in there, the big tequila and squashes they would pour, or weird dudes taking the microphone and giving “thank you” speeches mid-gig, Pony is the kind of place that gets as close to the reality of your imaginings of what going out and “partying hard” is like.
Simon Fazio
YIS
Like a lot of bands, we played our first show at Pony. My gig bag still smells like slop. It remains the only place in Melbourne where my mum won't come to see us play. Pat Carney (drummer for the popular American two-piece act “Blueshammer” The Black Keys) once remarked that it was “the only place in the world where if I dropped a cigarette I wouldn't pick it up”. I guess he pays people to do that for him now. Folks will always try to one-up each other with debauched late-night tales of what went on there but I still maintain that the most disgusting thing I ever witnessed was a band who played there with no shoes on.
All that aside, the 2am slot is about the only gig in town where you're guaranteed to play to a good crowd every time you do it (at least for shit-kicker bands like us) and they were always eager to give new bands a shot at their first weekend headliner regardless of how “cool” they were. You think we'd have more places where you can go see a band at 2am in “the music capital of Australia”. Now we've got zero. So, RIP Pony. Come back soon.
+
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Yeah, RIGHT!
i've seen him play there, so yeah that's twaddle
Great read, and I never even visited the place. Loved this line:
Played some shows there, saw a friend finger some girl mid dancefloor.
Typical Pony.
Um... Yah Yah's?
That's pretty much the truth, isn't it?
yes it's the truth...
...that typos can appear in your contributions that weren't there when you sent them
anyway, as this seems to be getting a lot of non-chat traffic/reposts on FB, i wanted to underline that aside from all the trashbaggery, pony is a really important cog in the melbourne touring circuit; the ability for interstate (and sometimes overseas) bands to do a regular show elsewhere and then swing through pony for a 2am can be the difference between going home with money in your pocket and going home broke... i really do hope they persist with that when the changeover happens.
and also, again, andy is a champ.
also. how are band going to play 3 gigs in one night now? huh?
pony sucks, but now that it's closing, i think i love it.
Fort Mary were such a great band. Shouldda been huge.
I'll miss the place, if it's really going....the perfect venue for a band's first gig.
BWA HA HA HA
We were playing a Specimens 2am show at Pony and one of the cunts from The Dirtbombs jumped up and sang TV eye. When the show ended their was a mass stacks on band and audience included. I dropped a slipper in his face. Welcome to Melbourne cunt face
Was always fun watching people slide down the stairs at the end of the night.
Dropping a stinky turd in the womans toilets.
Smashing up some little Ponys
I remember a fight out the front one morning after closing and some cunt had his beard ripped right off his face.
I kinda loved the Pony in spite of all the grunginess - I'm sad it's closing
I'm sure they will just move the 2am slot to yah yahs or something.
Or someone else will take it on. It'll still exist either way.
ooh the memories. this one time, and josejones is a witness, i had one guy come up to me and say if you don't kiss my girl i'm going to smash ya. so i kissed her all the while jose was pulling me away saying lets get out of here.
the bouncers there were always a colourful bunch too.
does yah yah's license allow live music that late? know a lot of places can be open, but can't have bands after a certain time.
How does the whole ''late gigs'' thing work? Is it a matter of inadequate sound-proofing, or not wanting a crowd of pumped-up drunks rushing out of the place at three in the morning and fighting over taxis, or something else? I don't really know so I'm curious.
Also this place sounds like something out of a Robert Rodriguez movie. Maybe all the promoters should just band together and purchase a miniscule town and turn it into a perpetual concert with hotels and milk bars. It could be the anti-Crown. That would be awesome, actually. Someone please do that.
I really enjoyed reading this article. Thanks to all those who shared their memories.
(How come no Matt Church input? Surely he released a few discs there.)
Live music is regulated by the council. If you soundproof enough that no one will complain then they will have no problem with you going as late as you wish.
I guess it would have been difficult to launch CDs by Matt Church when really we're only talking about 8 units worth, 6 of which are gifted to friends, who then promptly regift before sharing a cab home.
All very well and good to have all the major venues owned by the number of people you can count on one hand, but what happens when one of them goes broke and half a dozen venues close at once?
Never really had that much time for Pony, going there meant I had to get a taxi home from Crown and I hate doing that.
i set myself on fire at pony. long story. damaged only my jumper, not my flesh.
I remember one night sitting at the downstairs bar peaking and talking rubbish with a friend; for a split second it seemed like it started raining behind the bar; then I looked up at the clear part of the stairs and a dude was taking a piss there, urine dribbling through the cracks, showering the bar. classy place.
good article btw... I hope its not really closing forever, have had so many good times there.
Ah, see now this is an interesting point and worth bearing in mind. If it's only a matter of sound-proofing, what's the issue? Should be all-night rave-ons all over the place.
Also I've revised my original opinion - it seems like Pony was a perpetual house-party for people who were no longer seventeen and now had to worry about cleaning-up afterwards and losing their bond, and so endorsed a club that appears to have had absolutely no regard for the law, thus quite possibly shooting their own social scene in the foot through adolescent twattery.
But the limitations of each encompass an musical stance consciously exploited, rather than defining a stylistic trap.
Sorry to be a massive jerk, but it's ''Petri'' dish
Your easy shows intellectual promise and mako a fare point but etsy convoluted and rifle with granmatical eros.
C++
(also please stop hitching-up your skirt in class or you can't come to the bacchanal).
Petrie dish
Operettic pomposity insults Pony and that pseudotragic beautiful-loser fatalism insults us all.
Fail x ∞
I'm not a part of your weird thing and have no idea what you're talking about.
Pony still sounds flagrantly illegal, though.
What the hell is ''beautiful-loser fatalism''? Is this something I would have to have visited Pony to understand?
I guess you all have a bunch of weird in-jokes and shared experiences built around designer squalor and I won't take that away from you.
Presumably you're finished the latest instalment.
Re. your question: you fits this paradigm with two significant differences. The first is that you're rock and roll only by association, but it's philosophical rather than musical questions that remain because rock and roll has had more trials involving the nearness of death than anything fast approaching 70 should bear. It's hard not to sympathise for you, swamped by a constant need to transform your tedium into something expressive, something clever yet always overstating your thesis with funfair novelty. Sadly you're not going to start any fires. Maybe try combing your hair again.
The only fire I'm interested in lighting is the fire in your heart.
Pony's only illegal if you're the fun police, lightn up.
The Last Ride At PONY
From midday Sat 1st Dec until midday Sun 2nd Dec
24 Hour Pony Ride
featuring
DEAF WISH
THE ONYAS
THE THOD
(reunion show)
WOLFPACK
YIS
EUPHORIACS
THE WHITE GOODS
TEENAGE MOTHERS
FATHOMS
and about 15 other amazing bands to be announced soon
twenty bucks.
http://www.trybooking.com/Booking/BookingEventSummary.aspx?eid=36738
There are photos of 50 Kaintenz 2am gig at Pony, I don't have them though.
2005:
2007:
The man scares me
Bored girls watching their boyfriend's band at Pony - part one of a series. Thanks to Fred for falling over backwards so I could take this photo (it was his idea)
OX Rox!
The S.I.G.I.T
Now who's that...
2008:
Legitmate theatre
2009:
Kitty
Well, I can't see anything, Tim.
I reckon it'll probably sell out by the end of the day so get on it today folks.
What time do the tickets allow you to be in and out? Is it just for upstairs?
Does this mean that if they sell quite a lot but people only turn up for a short period there will be a lot of spare room a lot of the time.
Post midnight this place was no built for a cover charge, it's for filth, rotten bloody filth.
All I know for sure is that the ticket guarantees you entry for the whole event; I think the team are working out the logistics of what happens when people start to pike but I'm not going to speculate because I know nothing
Hah, not so ''invisible children'' according to Jess Cornelius.
Also: tickets are not just for upstairs but the whole venue and there's no guestlist.
They really should have just had a rotating door. Are the tickets for the bands to get paid from?
Also I've seen a line outside of Pony when it's half empty so selling this show out might only take 28 tickets.
Yep.
sold out, but...
ah pony. I don't actually remember a lot of it, 2003/2004 was a bit blurry. I should find some gig photos. but besides the bands, dont most people try not to remember what they did there? not a place to be sober. good times.
One of my best friends has never been there. And now he never will. I think that's an achievement in itself.
i can sell him my final gig ticket if he wants.
Tell him to go this Sunday morning (8am-midday) when everyone has piked and only those who have biologically adapted to survive that environment are around. True horror.
also, plenty of people looking for tickets on the FB event page if you're looking to get rid of it
i couldn't go to the final gig, I don't think I can get as drunk as when I used to go there, let alone make 24 hours. nad I never did drugs to get through pony, but I would need some to get through a few hours, let alone 24. I nearly bought the final ticket on sale, but hubby talked me out of it.
tempted to walk past while it's on, but no windows really to peek through.
Depending on what time you go past you might be able to get in. I expect all that stuff'll be announced in the next day or so.
plus it wouldn't be e same unless it's full of chats.
Deaf Wish are playing at 10am Sunday. Oh, the human detritus we'll see at that time...
i assume it'll be a mix of vomit soaked corpses and hipster couples that met at pony in 2001-2005 with a soy chai latte in one hand and a toddler in the other who'll come after breakfast. it'll be one for the history books regardless.
Does anybody know what time The Onyas are on?