“Morning in America?
It’s Fucking Midnight!”
After surrendering Jones Very, Vic Bondi soldiered on by enlisting Colin Sears (drums) and Roger Marbury (bass) from Dag Nasty to form Alloy.
Vic calls Eliminate “…arguably the best thing I ever did.” AOF fans might differ but listen carefully. Hear the harshness that suffuses this entire record even in the ballads. Hear how abrasive fury bleeds into sadness between opening track “Alloy” and the second, “Unafraid”. Hear how razor-thin the line is between personal regret (“More Alone With You”) and political regret (“An Advertisement”). It’s enough to make you scream; and Vic does. Continuously.
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Alloy carried on through a scorching self-titled album and then a final e.p. - all present and accounted for.
Self-Titled
Then, barring the Weathermen demos with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, it seemed to be all over.
But seventeen years later Vic re-appeared (with the mighty J. Robbins from Government Issue, Jawbox and Burning Airlines in tow) as Report Suspicious Activity because, as he put it, “…the next impeachment needs a soundtrack” Also, Vic kicked ass in American Hardcore (he states the thesis at the start plus he gets two quotes and a song into the preview).Vic Bondi
Vic Bondi never followed the easy way but unlike Bob Mould and Ian Mckaye he got scant credit for ground broken. In 1991, Jones Very (they were named after an American clergyman and poet and contemporary of Emerson) released a lean, raw and primal e.p. called Trains of Thought. The clash of noise and melody would get driven into the ground in the ninties but listen to how, long before all that, the sudden folk-rock flourishes on “Ideas New Tomorrow” and
“Fugitive Time” create a roaring contrast with the Vic’s sandpaper vocals and roughshod guitar.
A beautiful noise – dig in.
JV ended here and the and 1994's New Life For Lies features some fleshed-out studio versions of songs from Radio Waves.
Vic Bondi
The record collection got divided up after he disappeared.The collection, each piece with its own clear plastic sleeve, lived in a closet with wooden sliding doors. It was small, seventy-five LP’s and a few dozen singles but packed with the unknown.
“You wanna hear some culture?” the collection’s curator would say, flashing his smiley-face grin, before dropping a black platter under the diamond needle and then gently lowering the clear plastic dust cover. Garbled, tinny anger burst forth. I listened while poring over the sleeves.
For a twelve-year old Pink Floyd fan in the early eighties, it was like an unheard subterranean culture cracked open wide in that messy suburban room full of gig posters, Mad magazines and music, music, music.
The albums (other than Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind hidden at the back) were so unusual as to not seem like records at all but more like placards. Each stark cover, whether made-up of cut-up stock photos, primitive drawings or merely a spraypaint-ready logo, carried blunt words - Wargasm, The Blood, The Freeze, Flex Your Head, Articles of Faith. The first album in the box ,with its bloody Christmas image, always stopped me.
Since the curator was a lender, I eventually wedged the unrelenting fury of that album, Give Thanks by Chicago's Articles of Faith, into my knapsack.
Give Thanks starts with a scream and a drum explosion. Than it gets mad, as “I Objectify” proves. If anything, the acoustic track “Every Man for Himself” intensifies the unrelenting attack on American Excess. Next, however non-chronologically, came the "What We Want is Free” 7"which unleashed a gut-churning fury that does not fade with time.
boomp3.comI followed singer/songwriter/guitarist Vic Bondi through the anguished and punishing AOF swan song, In This Life. Then Vic quieted down till 1989’s Words and Days by his next band Jones Very (with Jeff Goddard on bass and James Van Braemar on drums). Words and Days has sparse packaging but is packed full of Vic’s raspy howl and electric and acoustic guitars that join the screaming chorus. “Yesterday in the Western World” is the fist-waver, “Desperation Bends” the ballad, “Jesus…I” the tense builder and "Cut' will do just that - listen with caution because the intensity is relentless.
Follow the links for so much Vic history and buy his available music here and here. Now!
As for me, I will hear no more culture from the curator because he ended his own life but what he played – stayed. For that, I’ll give thanks and continue to curate.
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