BONDO: NAVEL GAZING TO A SLOW BAND AT PLAY

Coming through the other end of all the health issues I had last year, I’m not sure what to do. Should I celebrate like I’m a young dummy and do the neverending equivalent of a birthday week? Maybe sit in the dark and remember all the good times I had with my bladder? I think the only thing I can do for now is stay busy and make sure that action doesn’t become a depressing rut. Even though in some morbid way I think the more I write equals immortality, I do not want to wake up twenty years from now still giving the thumbs up or down to some musical group of youngsters. 

So where does that leave me when the ‘90s revival dies or The Wire decides they don’t need their American goon correspondent anymore? The fuck if I know! I’m too old and diseased for some record label to hire me. I would have to wear a hazmat suit to spend over an hour in a used record store and physical labor is limited of course. So that kinda strikes down all the things I could fall back on. The thought of all these future complications on top of the complications of the present day just makes me blow air through my lips as I distract myself by contemplating what’s for lunch. I’ll work on an answer to this quandary and hope I’m satisfied with it. I’ll keep you in the loop. 

As I ponder my fate, I would like to listen to…SHIT!...music by a group of youngsters from LA named Bondo. Since I despise using the word emo to describe bands I am not about to use slowcore to explain Bondo, even though it would make my job a whole helluva lot easier. Much like many of my other mopey favorites from the era of clear cola, Bondo is blinkered in their transmissions using repetition and restraint to reach organic peaks in their music that are subtly crushing.

Their recent Tascam B-Sides is a tad bit more playful finding the band screwing around with bargain basement glam rock on “Zone” and Casio-derived pop on “Lemon”. But for those wanting the slow jams, “Flow My Tears, the Policemen Said” is sheer twinkling beatitude – the kinda tune that’ll be the soundtrack for all cool moms' nightly soak in Calgon. 

…And if you think a reference to Calgon displays the loose grasp I have on what young people like, then go vote for Taft, you lollygagger! 

P.S: Why wasn’t there a band in the ‘90s called Taft?

P.P.S: We all know where the title of that Bondo song comes from. You’re not special.