Fonda 500 – ‘ABCDELP’
(Gentle Electric)
(Nov '04)
Once there was a would-be artist looking for inspiration, who came across a story about two men building a table. This table, when the builders stopped making it, perhaps didn’t meet all expectations as to what a “finished” table should be – it was perhaps a mess, maybe there were nails sticking out, it lacked the finest craftsmanship – but the table did fulfil the requirements which any table should fit. You could put a book on it for example, even a heavy semiotic text, and the table wouldn’t fall to pieces. The story suggests the only place you should 'finish' is just when it's the right time to stop.
This rough-and-ready philosophy is one that’s informed long-term partners in songwriting Simon and Nick 500, resulting in a prolific career. So here we have a single taken from their ‘Spectrumatronicalogical Sounds’ album, a beefed-up version of ‘Simon’s Alphabetical Beard’ - it’s got more parping recorders on it – but the single has 14 B-sides. To put it another way, it’s a normal-length album, but it’s half the length of their last album. Who do this band think they are? (they now include a full ¾ of ex-members from old Hull band Edible 5Ft Smiths [who themselves included ½ of Harvey Half Devoured].
They write lots of songs which are often rough and rambling – like an alphabetical beard – but do what songs song should do, i.e.
(1) they make you want to dance – hardly the most sophisticated response for a reviewer, but met with ‘Hallelujah’, a silly stomp like Yeah Yeah Yeahs shaking it with Kings of Leon, one can do little more; same goes for ‘Haircuts are Cool’, a low-budget Beta Band / pre-school Black Grape.
(2) they make you go “ahhh” – the closing track is a deliberate effort to send the Gentle Electric label bosses to sleep, and that’s meant to be comforting, not boring. Works for me. Elsewhere on a collection full of changing vocalists, Bod coos charmingly like a fifties schoolmarm through ‘Little Miss Spelling Bee’, and Ian introduces proceedings with a less piercing vocal than his last outing ‘I Am A Drummer’, instructing us to sit down while the glockenspiel players do their lovely thing.
So the introduction is on the second song, and occasionally the twee instrumentals reach a level of kitsch that could soundtrack Eurotrash – though they’re probably aiming for more of a Japanese tribute – and the album dips in the middle, the obligatory massed handclaps of ‘Thank God for Jesus’ seems like it’s never gonna end – but this is probably the most cohesive Fonda (E)LP yet.
They also tend to repeat themselves slightly, but this band are only guilty of doing too much. Is their mammoth output always worth hearing? As their Belgian friend might put it, “the answer is always yes, and never no.”
Because while someone could produce them properly and maybe score a hit, Fonda 500 just carry on doing that special thing they do, and that is songs about counting, bumblebees, haircuts and God.
And learning to spell by reading letters in a beard!
We could all learn something from this band.
live reviews of Fonda / www.fonda500.com / www.gentle-electric.com
