Riding the Two Bit Pony

Father & Son to join forces

Slim and son Sam played an impromtpu gig at Ba Ba Lu in Lorne for a final-night party for the local School Production sell-out stage extravaganza.

It was so well received that the proprietor wants Slim to come back with Sam who's been doing solo gigs there on Sunday nights.

Sam is an accomplished performer in his own right, with a string of gritty original compositions to his name.

It's been a long time coming. We'll share the repertoire 50/50 and glue it all together with the solid rythm of Reinhart and his doghouse bass fiddle. Despite Sam's foreys into musical styles such as techno, he has been reared listening to a lot of roots music favoured by Slim, and is more than at home with it, often lending distinctive flavour to his intepretations. Indeed, Sam is very much the firey showman and uses Slim's old song books for much of his older material. Combined with Slim's more down-home laid back approach, it should be an interesting dynamic. Good for father/son bonding if nothing else.

I started thinking about a name. Father & Son was too obvious and would sentence us to always having to play the eponomous song. Moment's later, Two Bit Pony came to mind. I don't know if I'd heard the term or not, or what it might mean. All I found with a Google search was that there were two characters in the oft-prescribed Year 9 study novel The Outsiders – Two Bit and Pony Boy, and an obscure modern day cowboy song lamenting that cowboys were now lining up at the Wal-Mart to drink espresso coffee, beside the two-bit pony, which I presume is a coin-operated kid's ride. There is enough resonance on different levels in all that to run with the name.

We debut at Ba Ba Lu Bar in Lorne on Sunday September 10th around 7.30 pm. Sunday is paella night at Ba Ba Lu.