Phases and Stages

Ponty Bone

Fantasize (Loudhouse) Listening to a Ponty Bone album is like getting an invitation to a get-together that turns into a full-scale party. From the opening lines of "Now's the Time," Austin's premier accordion player creates a funky, syncopated sound echoed throughout his Fantasize on songs like "Ain't Got No Sweet Thing," "Just Like Home," and "Baby You Know." When layered between the Tex-Mex sounds of "Baby U Got It," and instrumentals like "Midnight Sun," with its languorous acoustic guitar, and a snaky, sublime belly-rubber called "Macumba," Fantasize turns reality. It should come as no surprise that Ponty Bone's downhome-style brand of Texas rhythms are so funky and danceable. He's performed with Alejandro Escovedo, Robert Earl Keen, and Ronnie Lane among many others, and hails from the same "Lubbock Mafia" that includes Joe Ely, Terry Allen, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore. That puts Bone in some mighty fine company whose influence is particularly obvious on the bouncy "Me, Myself, and I" and the title cut. Like any good party band, the Squeezetones get into the act when guitarist Fred Jarmon steps up to the mike for "I Must Be Dreaming" as the Texana Dames croon along, but no accordion album should be without a tip of the crown to Cajun music. Thus, Bone takes "Clifton's Boogie" for a spin and longs for "Louisiana Lisa," who's "built like a shade tree with four long limbs." Fantasize is so eccentrically Texas in its unique crossbreeding that it's likely to be too eclectic for the masses, but the real problem with invitations like Fantasize is they don't come often enough from Ponty Bone and when they do, the party stops too soon.