Pontiak: Swamp blues from Baltimore

If you read my Tiny Mix Tapes top 25 of 2006, or got any of my myspace bulletins last week about Pontiak, you know I dig this band. And if you missed their show Thursday at Reservoir, well, you're just lucky I got video of one of their best songs. Pontiak is swampy blues-rock from Baltimore made by three brothers (at least I think they're brothers -- they all have the last name Carney). The Reservoir show was the first show of a summer tour in support of a new CD, which isn't out yet, but which singer/guitarist Van was kind enough to give me. It's called "Sun on Sun," and it's darker, more brooding and even better than last year's "Valley of Cats." Here's a video I got of the CD's first song, "Shell Skull." Reservoir's lighting isn't really great for video, but it sounds alright.

Pontiak from Mann's World on Vimeo.

NOW LISTENING TO: Cantwell, Gomez & Jordan, "We Are Not at the Opera." Thanks to Kim from 307 Knox Records for passing this along. CG&J's quirky prog-metal has the tendency to be really exciting one minute, and just too tiresomely quirky the next. I like them best when they just let go and rock. Luckily they do enough of that on this CD to get me through the slower parts. The CD includes a pretty cool video for "Shayna wuz here ... peeing like a cheetah."