Friday, April 5, 2013

Internet Memes: Brony

My son turned me on to "My Little Ponies" and the Brony movement. The "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic" cartoons are watched without irony and the music is listened to obsessively. In addition to the cartoons, there is a whole universe of media - similar to fan fiction, but with music and storyboards and the occasional animated bit. Ben listens to a wide variety of musicians doing an odd assortment of styles - with plenty of dubstep, for some reason.

While attending last month's Steering committee meeting at the Vera Project, Beth mentioned they had a Brony show coming up. I checked with Ben and signed us up for the show. Music about rainbow colored horses with tatooed buts and occasional wings or horns, couldn't be much odder than the wizard rock show we saw.

The show was put on by the Everfree Northwest folk. They run a yearly convention for My Little Pony fans and use this event to build some excitement and sell some convention tickets. I enjoy the brightly colored hair and horse ears.
Early April 100

The show kicked off with Tarby, who played guitar and sang with a saxophone player accompanying him. Tarby at the Vera Project
Interesting sound, I managed to get a bit of video of the performance here:

Next up we had Maestro Scherzo playing something in the alto sax or oboe range, a reed instrument, anyway. Definitely getting plenty of reed instruments!

Speaking of plenty of reed instruments, the Cutie Marks and Donn Devore (I'm torn, the show schedule said Don DeVore, but a YouTube video said Donn DeVore) set had one too. Don DeVore and Cutie Marks at the Vera Project

I enjoy the beat and the sound in this one:

The final act was DJ Everfree. He had some fun laser effects; I didn't video tape his set but I took some pictures.
DJ Everfree at the Vera Project
The audience also put on a show with the wigs, t-shirts, and lots of pony ears sticking out on top of everybody's hair. It was somewhat odd and silly, but earnest and non-ironic, and actually quite fun and different. Just like My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and the Brony movement in general, kind of hard for an old fossil like me to process. My 15 year old who is bigger than me and needs to shave watches juvenile cartoons and appreciates their message, and then he listens to Brony music. Rainbow colored cartoons. With ponies and unicorns and some have wings and many have magic. Then lots of 8 bit music and dubstep and pop and disco all about ponies. The Vera show didn't cover all of those genres, but it gave us some fun music and songs about ponies and friendship and magic. Totally new genre for me, which is all good as far as I'm concerned.

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