A.A. Bondy gets busy in 2010

In a possible bid for the hardest-working-man-in-showbiz crown, indie-folk/bluesman A.A. Bondy has announced a new slate of club dates set to commence a month after his just-completed run of 45 shows. Bondy's latest club trek begins Jan. 8 in Memphis, TN and will run through Feb. 6 in Brooklyn, NY.

SoundSpike caught up with Bondy via phone the day after he wrapped up his 2009 touring obligations with a show at the Bowery Ballroom in New York and found him a bit worse for the wear.

"You get to a certain point where you don't know who or what you are any more," Bondy said of life on the road. "You're kind of like a circus bear. You get up there and dance, then you get put back in the train car and go to the next city, but I hold my own leash."

Bondy's last point is an important distinction for the singer/guitarist, who first gained notice under the name Scott Bondy as the frontman of grunge-era rockers Verbena. The band, which was signed to Capitol on the recommendation of Dave Grohl, seemed primed for success, but then it all went south. "That whole thing appears to me like a series of cartoons or some sort of horrible video game," he says. "I remember it, but it doesn't seem like it was mine. When that was over, the idea was to get as far away from that as possible. We just kind of did it all wrong."

Burned by the business of music, Bondy retreated to upstate New York and took a series of odd jobs before he finally re-emerged as a solo artist with a new moniker--derived from abbreviating his given name Augeste Arthur--and a stripped-down sound that draws heavily on the folk and blues traditions. "I just got really into the finger-picker guitar players like John Fahey, [Mississippi] John Hurt, and all that kind of stuff," he says. "It was something new that I hadn't done before. Any time you pick up a new instrument or a new anything, there's a certain level of excitement that comes with learning a new language. You can get songs out of it. It's like biting off a new piece of meat."

Bondy's solo debut, "American Hearts," was issued in 2007 on Superphonic and subsequently reissued by Fat Possum, which also released "When the Devil's Loose," his acclaimed 2009 effort. For Bondy, the fact that he's found acclaim the second time around is no surprise. "Many people have been smacked down when they try to have a second or third chance, but there are still plenty of people doing their best work after they've reinvented themselves," he says. "That's a bit of a myth that there are no second chances."