Jym Ponter
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Jym Ponter

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom | SELF

Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom | SELF
Band Blues Acoustic

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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Press


"Multiple Reviews from Edinburgh's premiere open mic"

"This singer/ songwriter certainly knows how to present a song. A throaty-voiced Bob Dylan sounding number, this had great presence."

"...I heard Jym Ponter for the first time and mightyfine he was too. With a vocal reminiscent of Kurt Cobain, there was a genuine ache in his voice as displayed in [Give my Gold Records to the 8th Street Alchemists]. His sound mingled with the melancholy and anger in the lyrics, and created quite an intense, spooky atmosphere in the small Canons’ Gait cellar bar. [Equations]...had dense, impenetrable lyrics that left the listener curious and hungry to know what it all meant. Final song [Lady, Go Drown Yer Freakshow Man] had a guitar sound similar to early Dylan and his playing was remarkable"

"...the vocal energy and sheer quality of his guitar playing was breathtaking. Jym has a big, big sound and he gave a top quality performance during this one-song slot. This was a raw, emotional, bluesy track not unlike early Bob Dylan in style, and I am a big fan of that stripped-down style."

"Hello acoustic junkies!

All change at OOTB this week (11th Jan 2007); from now on, we're featuring one lucky(!) act, giving them a double slot with which to showcase their talents. ...On this subject, then, first up to the plate is new sensation Jym Ponter, who'll be strutting his stuff from 10.20-10.50. Check out his music
here: www.myspace.com/howevermonger ...or better still, check out his music at the CG tomorrow."

"Jym Ponter is next week’s featured artist, getting a half hour set from 2220 to 2250...there is the stench of revolution in the air.
The structure of OOTB is shifting like a tectonic plate beneath us.
Should be good though, mind. His voice hung heavy and smoky – something that’s now a rather an odd sensation in Scotland’s [smoke]-free pubs and clubs.
Sprightly strumming had the song cantering along at a fair old pace.
It’s good to hear the extended notes; a little strain brings out the brilliant gravely quality in his voice. His second number had me thinking of summer festival camp circles around a fire, passing around whisky that you’re probably too young to drink. The freshness of youth. The joy of the
unknown. Song number three brought the pace up from canter to full-on, hell-for-leather gallop. “I’m getting weaker as the wave grows strong”. Up and up and up it crept until it came careering to a stop. If you fancy some more of the same, then be sure to head along to the Canon’s Gait for his full slot…"

"Jym Ponter gets the first featured slot OOTB has ever had, and treats us to 9 songs in his trademark cobain-esque voice. You don’t get enough folk singing like this, so it makes a change. ...He started with a song in which he says he’ll “save your soul” with a wee descending bass note in the chords. The 2nd song is much happier and bouncier than the last, I really enjoyed it. It’s a catchy tune... [Stomach You] showcases his gravely voice, and his ability to write a catchy 4-chord tune...My favourite song of his set was the 4th song, which is quieter with dark minor-y chords. “You aint gonna bother me” he sings. Towards the end the song expands into some quite loud yelling, I wish I could yell as well as this guy! The rest of the set, Jym continues to show he has a quieter side as well as a loud one, with a mixture of quiet sensitive numbers, and rocking out, with plenty of his trademark “oohs” and “aaahs”. He certainly has plenty of songs up his sleeve so it was great to hear some I’d never heard before...what I heard was intriguing!"

"Jym says “I don’t have the resonance”, and I don’t know what he means. ...I like the drive and energy Jym pushes every song along with and I’m regulary surprised as to how his voice copes with the punishment it must take as he rasps out the vocals.
I’m struck by the variation (ok, within a theme) that there is in his material and also how catchy his songs actually are. This is obvious as he ends on an old favourite and half the audience easily join in."

"Jym has the voice of Cobain but a guitar style more like folk-cum-western. His song-writing style...is all simple bottom of the neck chords with an in your face strumming style. This is not 'pretty' music, with no apologies required. Jym is the essence of 'take me as you find me'. ...he is possibly the hardest working open-micer in Edinburgh and clearly loves performing"

"The hardest working man on the open-mic circuit apparently"

- Out of the Bedroom/Canons' Gait


"Jym Ponter at Macsorleys, Glasgow - 17 July 2007"

...[Jym's] grasp of dynamics impresses. Ok, so he has that hippie chic thing going for him but there is honesty in his performance. The ghost of sixties' protest singers loom large as well but after a few more songs, his voice starts to take on a rather more distinctive character. ...There is power and authority in his delivery..." - bluesbunny


Discography

Albums include
Pisces Throat Songs;
Put Downs;
Mythology and Pest Control;
Yeah, Yeah, Calm Yourselves;
Howevermonger;
But if We Suffered they would Surely Kill Us;
Moriarty;
Savant Garde.

Self produced singer/songwriter; Commercially unreleased.

Over 100 songs, seen at gigs and open mics all over Glasgow, Edinburgh, and the United States - for more details and vids, check out: www.facebook.com/jympontermusic or www.youtube.come/jympontermusic

Photos

Bio

He hopped a plane one morning and left Edinburgh with a few pounds in his pocket and his guitar-love, and found himself like so many bohemian artists in misty San Francisco. He ate grapes and crackers, found solace in hostel porcelain, and forgot his army-brat childhood. This nomad was hoping to lose himself and instead he found everything he could ever be: a stripped back style, raw and coercive, life amid the graveyard of modern music. He tracked it back to Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell, through the soul of the railriding south, felt his way through his sweet mama's old Bob Dylan records, listened with a musician's heart to the Beatles, Syd Barrett, the kinks, the Sex Pistols, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, Bessie Smith, Leonard Cohen. Despite constant reminders that his gravelly voice, flannel shirts and long hair remind others of grunge god, Kurt Cobain, Jym prefers the lesser known Clove Kintson or even Blind Plot Thickens to the profitable prophet of 90s Seattle. Instead, in the histories of blues, jazz, mo-town, he saddened and raged the wrecked lives, moreso the stolen songs that changed all. He absorbed the meaning and shed the pretense. He inhaled the soul and exhaled the limitation of physical presence. To Jym, music is bigger, is more important, than any other thing, including his own life, he knows his life will be sacrificed on the altar of that love like so many have been before him. And he embraces that. After a month of survival on the San Fran streets, he boarded a plane and went back to Scotland to record the first of many self-produced albums such as "Put Downs" and the phenomenal "Mythology and Pest Control" & the studio-recorded "Howevermonger". The most accomplished is "Moriarty", an album which possibly gets the closest to what he believes music really should be. And in it, we can hear the lyrical ingenuity, the musical dexterity, the innovative genius and the infinite passion that makes his new songs sound like classics. And over the years and albums, Jym has found the confidence bordering on crazy that reflect in his starburst blue eyes and rarely seen grin. What sets him apart? Everything. Listen to the radio and hear the same band over and over and over...then listen to Jym, and hear yourself. He's not going to play because you pay -- he's going to play because he must. He has no choice. Unlike the by-products of contemporary music culture, those who set out for fellatio, finances and fame, Jym simply is music, music in its simplest, sexiest, surest sense.