On a recent day in September, music fans everywhere reacted to the news that R.E.M. had decided to break up. However, the same day a much less famous band, but perhaps one that still had a bit more potential for future growth, also announced that it was calling it a day. The breakup of the wonderful, inventive Baltimore quartet Ponytail was not exactly a shock — in fact their split had been preceded by a lack of touring and lots of speculation about the band’s status — but it was still sad to hear. But the band left behind one last album, Do Whatever You Want All The Time, released earlier this year before calling it quits, and it’s a worthy addition to their legacy.

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Rapdragons is an incredibly cool rap group here in Baltimore. They pick stellar samples, their rhymes are infectious, they don’t take themselves too seriously, and they simply know how to have a good time.

Their forthcoming record “Featuring Baltimore” samples a ton of Baltimore bands, including: Weekends, The Agrarians, The Art Department, Mr. Moccasin, Lo Moda to name a few. It’s an interesting concept and this is a record to look out for. You gotta dig the Baltimore love.

For their microshow, Greg and Nick had the idea to, instead of using a sampler, bring in the people who performed the samples originally to play live on top of the beats. Jeff and Cory from Secret Mountains, Dustin Wong from Ponytail, Aran K from AK Slaughter and Sam from Future Islands are a few of the guests.

This set was perfect for our first spring-ish microshow. We know you’ll enjoy this set as much as we all did last night.

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The second album by Baltimore quartet Ponytail, Ice Cream Spiritual, sounds like what some other bands would call a rehearsal tape. Riffs and rhythms seem to loosely come together and build steam, while never congealing into repetitive song structures, and singer Molly Siegel might as well be laying down a rough scratch vocal, her spontaneous trills and squeals rarely seeming to consist of any written lyrics.

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