I was never really a believer in local music until I saw Rooftop Vigilantes. They were the first band from Lawrence that was as good as any of the other bands I was listening to. In fact, they were better than a lot of the bands I was listening to. I would wager that the band’s 2009 debut--Carrot Atlas--is one of my Top 5 most played albums of all time. It was just mind-boggling that people I partied with made songs as blindingly catchy as anything from Guided by Voices’ greatest hits. Real Pony Glue was supposed to be the band’s breakout. They decamped to Baltimore to record with the legendary J. Robbins and...then no one wanted to release the album. Or something like that. Which was crazy, because it’s so good and there are at least 6 or 7 songs on this album that would be a regular band’s high watermark. If I remember correctly, the album was effectively self-released on cassette and that was the end of it. It’s the great indie rock injustice. Where Carrot Atlas sounded like a group of friends getting together to make some songs and having a rowdy good time, Real Pony Glue feels like the battening down of the hatches. Everything is tighter the second time around, the melodies are catchier, and even with a staggering 17 songs, I feel like I couldn’t hit the replay button fast enough. I only had an MP3 file of all the songs mashed together, and that was fine because even though there are so many standouts, it was like why not just listen to them all, you know?
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