The Ponys & Jason Forrest at The Talking Head

I went late last night to the Talking Head in town to see Chicago's The Ponys and crazy mashup electronic artist, Jason Forrest.
The opener was forgettable- two guys on laptops bobbing their heads and amusing themselves. No thanks.
Jason Forrest, on the other hand, despite playing tracks on his laptop, was great. His style of music is the ultimate ADD mashup- he overlaps samples of other songs and create flurries of sound bites from various styles of music from punk to rock to techno and hip hop. Meanwhile, onstage, he was jumping around, dancing, and air guitaring to his tracks, and he even ran out into the audience to mosh with us. Cock Rock Disco!
He was briefly sidetracked when his laptop lost power, but his interaction with the audience was fun. He convinced a kid to strip naked onstage for beer.
The Ponys followed and they were great. I love their Celebration Castle record. It's pretty solid Chicago influenced rock- I think Albini produced the record. Their guitarist and drummer were just tight, while the lead singer, Jared, was fun onstage. Melissa the bass player was really cute- she reminded me of Susanna Hoffs and Chiaki Kuriyama.
They too had technical difficulties when the snare drum broke. While fixing it, the band had audience members come up to tell jokes.
Best one: What is brown and hiding in the attic?
The diarrhea of Anne Frank.

"I'm With You" - The Ponys
(Thanks to A Gentle Bossa Nova)
"My 36 Favorite Punk Songs" - Jason Forrest