A Primer for Ponce De Leon the Band.
I have an ongoing art band/project called Ponce De Leon. This band was started as a kind of joke between Greg McKenna, Dave Reich and myself in 2002. A friend wanted us to play his art opening and our “real” bands couldn’t make it, so we made this tongue-in-cheek band up by recycling beats/songs that Greg had composed on his computer and lyrics I made up about Ponce De Leon and buying clothes (the original band was called Ponce De Leon Commes De Garcons, or PDLCDG). Despite all logic, the Ponce De Leon “brand” has persisted for years.
This project has afforded me great opportunities and unexpected privileges. One of those privileges was working with asianjew’s own Audrey Chan as she acted and sang back-up in this band during our West Coast years. The following is an attempt to describe and explain what Ponce De Leon is all about.
Part 1: What We Are.
In the period between Sept. 11th and the second war in Iraq, an “electroclash” music scene developed in New York City wherein open sexuality and hedonism were celebrated with a vengeance after years of mopey and/or stoic straight-male indie rock dominance.
This new music scene encompassed, at least in theory, a broader racial and cultural spectrum than the mostly-white indie rock scene. This is in part due to the influence of Miami bass and minimal techno. Aesthetically, this movement was also influenced by London punk fashion and ‘80’s pop product like Miami Vice.
With the hottest subcultural trend in years having its roots in Miami rap and dance music, and with the results of the traumatic 2000 Elections being decided in FL, with Camp X-ray opening just off its shores in Cuba, it became apparent that the fate of the U.S. was at the mercy of the 27th state.
In the meantime, NYC intellegentsia types were laying the groundwork for the rationalization of Operation: Iraqi Freedom, inspired as they were by sustained terror.
Ponce De Leon the band, based in Brooklyn, observed this and sought to reconcile the sexualized hipster death drive with the liberal establishment’s need for order. PDL intended to allow for the underground art/music scenester to face his/her imperialist impulse directly.
PDL operated under the idea that, if we have a collective need or will to impose our belief system on others, we should at least acknowledge, accept, and confront it without guilt or shame or insincere self-reproach. Thus, PDL promotional e-mails would include a call to “Come celebrate your colonialist impulse.”
Musically, the songs are inspired by baroque music, progressive rock, electronic dance music and early hip-hop. Most of our lyrics are about Florida, Ponce de Leon, colonialist encounters and conflicts with Native American tribes. Some of the songs are about fashion and class privilege and two songs are about the undead.
Ponce de Leon the explorer was chosen as our namesake because, as a historical figure, he is considered both a despised conquistador and a quixotic fool who searched fruitlessly for the Fountain of Youth only to die at the hands of local natives. In this way, Ponce de Leon is the consummate millennial American.
What we have done and are going to do…
The members of Ponce De Leon reloated to opposite sides of the U.S.A. in 2004, but continued to make music, and even perform, with a rotating cast of absent members. I moved to Los Angeles to go to grad school. While out in L.A., we were able to perform at Fritz Haeg’s K48 Is An Animal Sundown Salon.
In 2005 Ponce De Leon released an album with Thorn 01 records. One of the songs from this album is listed as “Snap Goes the Gator Jaw” but a version of it entitled “Gator Jaws” has found it’s way onto the tracklist for the big-time video game Skate 2, thus affording them 9 hardcore 14 year old fans.
For my thesis project at CalArts, I wrote a musical comedy entitled The Island of Florida: A Foundation Myth to be performed live by a cast of nine “Ponce De Leon Players”. This was a work of historical fiction wherein Ponce De Leon and a Native American medicine woman have an illegitimate child named Delian Ponzales who is cast into the ocean and raised by dolphins, only to search for his long lost parents years later. The music was written by Ponce De Leon as a band. The complete soundtrack to The Island of Florida is expected be released in late 2009.
Ponce De Leon players before performing "Island of Florida" at Velaslavasay Panorama Theatre, 2007.
For more information on Ponce De Leon check out these myspace pages:
Ponce De Leon’s official site: dolphinstrickedoutwithsubwoofers
Ponce De Leon’s core members: John Hogan, Greg McKenna, Dave Reich
Thanks and goodnight.
-John Hogan
