AA Bondy/Chris Bathgate; March 6, 2009; The Rathskellar

There were some tough decisions to be made tonight. Alan Sparhawk’s Redemption Gospel Choir was at the Orpheum, and while I find his best known band Low a mind-numbing trudge, his other project the Black Eyed Snakes had me begging him to quit his day job. At the Frequency, Jeremiah Nelson’s Mysterious Bruises (now known as the Shifty Switches in the endless name parade he leads), a band mostly forsaken for the more readily available Achilles Heel, were making an appearance. But at the end of the day I knew I had to go see AA Bondy.

I don’t even remember how he initially came to my attention, but I found myself on his MySpace page listening to tracks that were decidedly unimpressive at first. I felt better about not seeing him open for the Heartless Bastards after listening to those. But somehow he worked his way back into my consciousness. I would catch little snippets of song coming from my cousin’s computer, catchy enough that I wondered who it was, and every time I asked who it was Bondy. I had him burn me a copy and within weeks I bought my own, it was even a late addition to my best of the year compilation.

A friend of mine had seen him twice already and didn’t like his snoozy singer-songwriter fare, which had to be either because she had seen him solo or because she just doesn’t like singer-songwriters. Live it didn’t take much band at all to translate the record’s spare tunes to the stage, only a rhythm section was necessary to recreate American Hearts’ broken soul. The record’s most immediate track, “Vice Rag,” with its glorification of drugs and alcohol, didn’t come off as a threat to today’s youth, but instead as a simple confession to the power of potential addiction. The title track was as aching and lonesome as ever, while “Killed Myself When I Was Young” had more blues stomp than on record. Bondy didn’t rely on clever conversation; a simple thank you was about the extent of it, instead just playing songs. Or maybe he just didn’t have anything interesting to say.

Without a band Ann Arbor’s Chris Bathgate had a harder time commanding the crowd’s attention, and for most of his set he struggled to be heard over the constant chattering drone. When he ended his opening set with a “thanks for listening,” I couldn’t help but think he was being facetious despite seeming completely sincere. His seemingly simple songs were more complex than they seemed, and relied on his solid looping skills to make the sound fuller than it would have been otherwise. Despite having to listen through the noise, I enjoyed his set. He shared a certain amorphous quality with Anders Parker who also shines as a solo artist. I meant to pick up a CD but at the end of the night I didn’t see him around. Hopefully he will make it back to Madison soon, and with any luck it will be in a better listening environment than the Rathskellar.