I was introduced to A.A. Bondy some years ago, by a regular reader of mine who goes by the name of Campfires and Battlefields, when he wrote a guest post and included the awesome Vice Rag to illustrate his point.

Since then I have gone on to become a firm A.A. Bondy fan, although never in that outspoken, evangelical way I can be about music.  And three gorgeous albums into his career I find myself wondering why.

A little like Kurt Vile, perhaps his music just doesn’t deliver a slap around the chops like some stuff.  He rarely writes songs which excite you, as such, more ones which slowly envelop you.  It’s music which, I suppose, just feels right.

On this album there is more of a band aesthetic at play than the usual stripped down arrangements, which generally works.  The extra instrumentation is never overbearing, and in fact just bring an added level of warmth and depth to songs already rich in empathy and pathos.

With music like this you have to be a little careful not to demand instant satisfaction.  This can be more of a problem when reviewing things than when just listening for enjoyment, but even now, when I pop a couple of songs up for sampling purposes, you won’t really get the full feeling of the slow, comforting embrace of sadness which you get from listening to this album.

Despite the overall feeling being consistent, they never fall into the trap of monotony, and here the band is a big help.  After the lush loveliness of DRMZ, everything lifts for The Twist, which breaks you out of your melancholy beautifully, with a brisk drum beat, a steady, growly guitar riff, and an organ backing which feels like an ominous choir.

Like all of his albums, this will sink in slowly, and won’t absolutely demand your attention necessarily.  But if you give it, you will be rewarded.

A.A. Bondy – The Heart is Willing

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A.A. Bondy – DRMZ

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Godcast?  The fucking Godcast?  No, don’t worry, there are no theological debates, nor even any snide remarks about the ludicrous nature of religion (except that one).

This is called the Godcast because Anthony from God Don’t Like It (promotions, press, parties, DJing, drunken tomfoolery and almost everything else) happens to be visiting this weekend to hang out, have a few beers, go and see stuff at the Edinburgh Festival and enjoy the first week of the football season.

I am not entirely sure what regular listeners to this podcast will make of Anthony’s choices but erm… well fuck off, it can’t be all ‘moaning indie pish’* all the goddam time, can it.

*Copyright Mrs. Toad 2007

Direct download: Toadcast #187 – The Godcast

01. The Shivers – Irrational Love (00.25)
02. Dels – Capsize (06:47)
03. Sneakpeek – Walk All Over Me (15.02)
04. Baanex – Weird Dance 2 (17.54)
05. Solo Banton – No (27.01)
06. The Japanese War Effort – I Can’t Wear Jackets Inside (I’m Afraid) (36.34)
07. The Pineapple Chunks – Dog Shit (39.15)
08. A.A. Bondy – The Heart is Willing (46.57)
09. Funghi Girls – Some Easy Magic (51.03)
10. Seams – Motive Order (58.05)
11. The Offset Spectacles – Elements (67.54)

16.Richard Hawley – Truelove’s Gutter
There’s something incredibly intimate about Richard Hawley.  See him perform, and he’s a lively, witty raconteur, but on record that is all dialled back to a deep, comfortable and incredibly domestic sort of warmth.

Richard Hawley – For Your Lover Give Some Time

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17.AA Bondy – When the Devil’s Loose
AA Bondy has similar qualities to Richard Hawley, in that he conveys a confidential sort of intimacy, but there is a lot more weariness about this stuff. It didn’t really make much impact on me the first time around, I have to confess, but the general aching sadness of this record is just inescapable.

AA Bondy – False River

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18.The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
I confessed in my review that I don’t love every song on this by a long shot, but the almost confrontational refusal to be inhibited or even all that disciplined has resulted in an album with a real feeling of integrity and individuality.

The Flaming Lips – See the Leaves

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19.Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard – Em Are I
Jeffrey Lewis has a lovely turn of phrase, and a habit of simply following his trains of thought wherever they might lead.  I’d maybe call this album a little inconsistent, but when it’s good it really is excellent, and Lewis himself is so personable as a narrator that it’s hard not to warm to his music.

Jeffrey Lewis & the Junkyard – Whistle Past the Graveyard

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20.Ambulances – The Future That Was
I really enjoyed their live performance at Sneaky Pete’s in August, and I realised then what I like so much about this band: restraint.  There are an awful lot of them, but they keep everything really tightly under control.  The album is like that too – an economically assembled and really well executed record of guitar-based indie music.

Ambulances – Cease to Exist

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There’s something about AA Bondy which I love, despite there being no real surprises in his sound.  It’s plain vanilla acoustic Americana, but it’s gentle and lovely and his voice is charismatic and believable.

Maybe it’s because his songs are really personal, and delivered in a weary, confidential tone, so you end up feeling like you’re actually having a conversation as he picks a slow path through his carefully constructed tales of normal unhappiness.  He manages to be just a little poetic and just a little cryptic and in doing so lend just a little obvious craft to what are actually mostly domestic and personal songs.  Generally though, these are confessional and couched in plain, simple language, giving them all the more impact.

There’s something quintessentially American about the delivery, rhythm and instrumentation.  This reminds me very strongly of my time living over there, of living somewhere kind of rural, of drinking red wine late into the night with a new friend, and getting to that stage in the evening where you are drunk and tired enough that you start to tell one another about your failures and regrets.  The stories are told with no shame, but the pain is still a little too fresh to be completely hidden, and suddenly on the basis of these confessions you find yourself forming a surprising bond with someone who would normally be much more of a stranger to you.

There is no really obviously infectious tune like Vice Rag to suck you into this album, unlike his last, so you have to make your way more slowly with the less radio-friendly stuff which actually is a lot more representative of the bulk of his work.  But it’s immediate enough in its own way, in a very emotionally engaging way, and a way which makes you feel instantly at home and comfortable with the record.

No-one will prick their ears up the minute you put this on the stereo and demand to know who they’re listening to, but catch them when they’re a little more vulnerable and it should hit home pretty instantly!

A.A. Bondy – To the Morning

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A.A. Bondy – I Can See the Pines are Dancing

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Oh thank fuck it’s Christmas. Or, any holiday really. I am so fucking incredibly tired I could pitch face first on the tarmac and sleep for six months without so much as coming up for air.

I have been reading, with some amusement, the bickering over the religious nature of Christmas which seems to take place in the American press with monotonous regularity. Apparently the Christians are adamant that we remember the religious nature of a pagan festival, which seems a little odd considering that the Christianisation of Christmas itself was basically the Christian colonists’ acceptance that they could never defeat local pagan religions. So basically they adopted Yuletide and tried to wedge their amusing Biblical myths into a story that their conquered people would never give up, and then waited a few years for it to degrade into some sort of carnival of aquisitiveness which they could have a tantrum about.

So it’s a pagan festival which has turned into an unbridled celebration of Western consumerist greed… erm, which part of this came up in the Bible again?

Personally, as an atheist, I love Christmas. It’s got nothing to do with that Jeebus character, it’s closer akin to the the pagan celebration of light and life in the middle of the darkest part of the year. As a family we have always come together and spent peaceful time together at this time of year. We play music, we read books, we cook together, but above all we rest. We get together and enjoy one another’s company. Mrs. Toad and I will, this year, be doing nothing more than snuggling up on the couch and wasting time. And that time wasting together is oddly one of the most important things you can do to forge a strong relationship. Just taking time to be together and enjoy one another’s company is, after the year we’ve had, going to be a rare treat, and one which I intend to enjoy immensely.

Toadcast #51 – The Yulecast

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01. Yo La Tengo – On Our Way to Fall (03.12)
02. Tom Waits – Soldier’s Things (07.21)
03. Pale Young Gentlemen – We Will Meet (15.23)
04. The Felice Brothers – Greatest Show on Earth (19.15)
05. Eels – Beautiful Freak (27.27)
06. Clem Snide – The Dairy Queen (35.25)
07. Bob Dylan – Tangled Up in Blue (43.13)
08. A.A. Bondy – Black Rain, Black Rain (48.45)
09. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – Brompton Oratory (54.19)
10. Sufjan Stevens – Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Stepmother (60.06)

Why is The Waitsing Room a Muslim? Because it’s all covered up of course! Get it, get it? Fuck me that was poor, apologies to absolutely everyone involved – shambolic rubbish. What prompted that garbaggio? Well this week me old mate DC (who has taken somewhat obscure exception to my post about Eaten by Monsters – I don’t understand it, but then he is Welsh) has done something I don’t think I would have the courage to do: tackle a whole show based on covers of Tom Waits songs.

The Waitsing Room – Cruel Variations

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Why wouldn’t I have the courage? Well to paraphrase Bill Hicks, I’m like a kid with a sore tooth with Tom Waits covers – it hurts, but I can’t quit pressing. Any cover of a Tom Waits song, I just have to hear. I’m fascinated, compulsive, I just can’t stop myself, despite the fact that almost without fail the only emotions they inspire in me are a mild frustration and immediate desire to go and listen to the original. I don’t know why, exactly, maybe he’s just too idiosyncratic, maybe my relationship with his music is just too close to pedestal-based worship, maybe I’m being a blinkered idiot, and maybe a little of all three.

What is it with cover versions anyway? So many are so incredibly poor, and yet we’re fascinated by them. Is it a traditional thing, where people used to cement communities by playing songs and trading stories and such-like, or is that just far too Oprah fucking Winfrey for everyone’s taste?

I’m downloading the show as I type this, and will be playing it all afternoon at work, to take my mind off the tedious grind of Proper Job and I am sure that by this time tomorrow the Tom Waits score on my last.fm count-o-meter will have jumped by another hundred or so. So toddle on over to The Waiting Room and download this week’s episode of his show, which airs live on Error FM on Wednesdays at 10pm, mostly, or nine sometimes.

A.A. Bondy – Hang Down Your Head (Live)
The Wedding Present – Red Shoes by the Drug Store

I am off for the weekend, going to the Fence Collective Homegame Festival up in Fife, with the shining light at the very centre of my universe, the lovely Mrs. Toad.

Normally under such circumstances I’d write a pile of posts beforehand and set them to appear at regular intervals so that it appeared that I wasn’t away at all.  This time, however, I’ve had a different plan: a guest writer.

Campfires & Battlefields is one of my most loyal readers and regular commenters.  His regular feedback has been the sort of thing that makes a blog like this fun to write, and he’s sent me so much good music I’ve lost track of it all.  He has already been responsible for introducing me to A.A. Bondy, O’Death and Mariee Sioux (well him, and DC for that last one I think). Recently, though, he’s been prolific – I’ve been getting about an email every other day for the last couple of weeks, all stuffed with excellent stuff, so I thought it made sense to invite him to look after the blog while I was away and write about all this music in his own terms, rather than just mine.

So, there you go – four days of ‘C&B Presents…!’ to enjoy.  I should be back on Monday, so make sure you leave him lots of comments and make it worth his while.  I’m really grateful he agreed to do this, because those robot posts always seemed a little soulless to me.  So show the man some love, and by way of preparation, here’s a taste of the sort of stuff you’ve read about on this blog for no other reason than that C&B introduced me to it.

A.A. Bondy – Killed Myself When I Was Young
Nick Jaina – Maybe Cocaine
Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers – Rising Sun Take 2 (Demo)

Actually, two of them you haven’t heard about on this blog, have you.  That’s because I have yet to get round to writing about them.  See – told you we needed C&B!

You all know I’ve been doing a regular slot on DC’s radio show, The Waiting Room, of late, don’t you? Well this week’s slot saw me picking a track by Sky Larkin, as well as three wonderful songs from the splendid Happy Realease Records from darn sarf*. I may have been a little rude about their sound actually, but it was inadvertent. I was trying to head off the criticism from indie snobs – What? Who? None of those round here, surely? – about the fact that they are just plain enjoyable indie-pop for the most part, and ended up implying that I thought they were lightweight. The Genius of Tact strikes again. I should teach courses in this shit.

Anyway, swing by The Waiting Room to download this and past episodes, and Error FM to see what sort of crazy fools agree to put this sort of rubbish on the airwaves. The, er, internet airwaves. Interwav… oh never mind, you know what I mean.

The Waiting Room, Wednesday 12th March 2008

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* Darn sarf, for my non-British readers, is the phonetic spelling for how a cockney might pronounce the words ‘down South’. Which is where they are from. Yes, I know, hilarious wasn’t it.

And here’s a sneaky little bonus podcast from myself:
Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast

A week or so ago, I recorded a demo show for Fresh Air FM, the local student radio station, with a view to applying for a slot during next term, only the computer ate the bastard thing. Fucking technology. Anyhow, Sunday was Mrs. Toad’s birthday, and for some reason she was keen to get plastered and do a podcast with me, so we re-did it together. It wasn’t played quite as straight as I’d hoped, and by the time I’d had time to reflect on submitting it I was pretty certain Fresh Air would chase me out of the building with sticks. Fortunately for me, however, they didn’t hate it, didn’t seem to think I was a smart-arsed twat and didn’t dispatch me from the building with a boot print in my arse.

As this show is just a pre-record and will be going out randomly over the night when they stop broadcasting, I thought I’d pop it up here for you to have a listen. I won’t be doing this with any more Fresh Air things because, well, you need to go over there and listen for yourselves really, don’t you. But for this once I thought you might like it seeing as you shower of treacherous fuckers all seem to love Mrs. Toad so very bloody much. Be warned though, because it was made for a different audience, so there may be a bit of duplication from previous podcasts, and it’s rather long, as apparently there is a lot of time to fill overnight when there are no presenters in the building.

The Fresh Air plugs themselves were enough to see us kicked out.

Toadcast #23½ – The Freshcast

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01. Shout Out Louds – Tonight I Have to Leave It (03.09)
02. The Shaky Hands – Whales Sing (06.41)
03. The Cave Singers – Thinking of Heaven (13.05)
04. Preston School of Industry – Straits of Magellan (17.23)
05. Adam Balbo – Talkin’ Bush (27.11)
06. Donnan Linkz feat. Baje One of Junk Science – The N Word (29.18)
07. Riff-Raff – Romford Girls (36.44)
08. The Pogues – Dirty Old Town (38.58)
09. Nicole Atkins – Neptune City (46.44)
10. Edith Piaf – Elle Frequentait la Rue Pigalle (50.11)
11. Dusty Springfield – You Don’t Own Me (53.34)
12. AA Bondy – Vice Rag (59.12)
13. Relatively Clean Rivers – Hello Sunshine (68.09)
14. The Eighteenth Day of May – Lady Margaret (71.05)
15. Celebrity Chimp – Pornstar (81.27)
16. Nightjar – Poor Man’s Son (84.01)
17. Ravens & Chimes – General Lafayette, You Are Not Alone! (93.03)
18. Eels – Love of the Loveless (95.59)
19. Glasvegas – It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry (106.49)
20. Flashguns – St. George (111.01)
21. Elle S’Appelle – Little Flame (123.09)
22. Elk City – Cherries in the Snow (125.58)
23. The Low Miffs – Also Sprach Shareholder (130.41)

We have the splendid Campfires & Battlefields to thank for this one.  He emailed an mp3 of Vice Rag a while back which I loved so much I posted it immediately and also stuck it straight in a podcast.  I went straight out and bought the album too, and I’ve been listening to it for a while.

There is absolutely nothing new here.  Monsieur Bondy occupies pretty standard low-fi Americana territory, with only the sparest application of anything as rock-related as an electric guitar.  At times he sounds almost Dylanesque, at times more like Willy Vlautin of Richmond Fontaine.  You will listen to this album and hear nothing you haven’t heard a thousand times before.

That said, for some reason it is very satisfying.  Vice Rag may still be the standout song, but the whole first half of the album prickles with songs about the American psyche, taking on patriotism, tribalism, religion and all the other themes most artists would never have the balls or wherewithal to tackle.  And he does it with lovely tunesmithery, a rich and cosy atmosphere, and a deft touch with his arrangements.

Maybe the familiarity of the musical territory leads you to underestimate this album.  You don’t really notice it when you put it on, but once it sinks in there is tremendous depth to enjoy, and you will find the darker atmospheres start to grow and ultimately envelop your understanding of it.  He talks of a lot of dark places, does Scott Bondy, and he doesn’t rush himself doing so.

A.A. Bondy – Killed Myself When I Was Young
A.A. Bondy – Vice Rag

myspace | hype | buy the album

There’s no real theme to this week’s podcast, but there’s plenty of splendid new music. Basically I felt so guilty about the crazy rant that the Pink Podcast descended into that I have tried to say as little as possible in this one.

I’m off to the End of the Road Festival this weekend, which is why I recorded an advance post, so you’ll be enjoying this while I’m away getting rained on. The lineup is just phenomenal actually, so it should be really quite a splendid weekend. Tim from the Daily Growl will be there, as will Jamie from the Runout Groove and I believe possibly Sweeping the Nation as well, so it may turn into quite a blog-in. Tragically, however, I will be without my Midget Companion. Mrs. Toad is away in Australia (jammy bitch) with work and doesn’t get back in time to come along, so I will be taking a book and enjoying the pleasure of my own company as best I can.

There was at least one inevitable balls-up though – when describing the Catherine Howe song I said ‘I can’t believe this is current – it sounds so old-fashioned!’ and I have since discovered that in fact it is a 2007 re-release of a 1971 record which may just explain that. In the process I also discovered that I am something of a fucking idiot.

So, End of the Road, and in the meantime, enjoy the podcast – Toad on his very best behaviour!

Toadcast #11 – Not Sure What This One’s About[audio http://media.libsyn.com/media/songbytoad/ToadcastNo11.mp3]

01. A.A. Bondy – Vice Rag (00.52)
02. White Rabbits – The Plot (03.39)
03. The Courteeners – Cavorting (08.19)
04. Alaska in Winter – Close Your Eyes/We Are Blind (11.46)
05. Beirut – Fork & Knife (La Fete) (18.32)
06. Band of Horses – Is There a Ghost (21.57)
07. Nathan Lawr & the Minotaurs – We Go Down (26.52)
08. David Dondero – Rothko Chapel (30.34)
09. Jackson C. Frank – Blues Run the Game (38.15)
10. Calexico – All the Pretty Horses (41.45)
11. Catherine Howe – In the Hot Summer (48.53)
12. Little Name – How to Swim & Live (53.31)
13. Emma Pollock – Adrenaline (56.36)
14. George Pringle – Fellini For Prime Minister (63.52)
15. Octoberman – By the Wayside (67.27)
16. The 1900s – When I Say Go (74.54)
17. (The Real) Tuesday Weld – Kix (79.44)