Part-time bands can often be quite frustrating. When a bunch of teenagers, unemployed college grads or even low-paid dead-enders decide to start a band, it can end up becoming a big deal. It’s certainly more glamorous than being a server or a cubicle drone, and some bands even manage to luck out to the extent where its members get to drop the low-paying dead-end jobs. It’s a different story entirely, however, when a bunch of older people with solid careers start a band; no matter how fun it is as a hobby, it will always remain a hobby—unless, of course, you become the Next Big Thing.

Where exactly that line is, it’s hard to say; Robert Pollard was a school teacher until about halfway through Guided By Voices’ lengthy history, and being a teacher isn’t such a bad gig. Toronto’s Wild Strawberries, on the other hand, are surprisingly active, given that the husband-wife duo of Roberta Carter Harrison and Ken Harrison are both medical professionals—or, at least, they were at the time of 1999’s Quiver, but it’s hard to imagine them suddenly leaving, given that Ken Harrison’s on record as saying he’d “never leave medicine.”

Fonda, a five-piece from Los Angeles, fall somewhere in between. The main songwriting duo, Emily Cook and David Klotz (also a married couple), work in various areas of the film industry—he’s a music editor, she’s a screenwriter. With the band’s average age hovering somewhere in the thirties and most of them settled with decent jobs, it’s clear Fonda will never turn into a full-time affair. Even the band’s MySpace profile claims cheekily that they get together for wine tastings more often that they do practice sessions.

It’s a bit of a shame, because there’s this small pocket of indie pop that’s grown older and disappeared over the years, led by the likes of Imperial Teen and Fonda. It must be something about Southern California—I think it’s the beaches and the ocean—that led bands like Fonda to produce beautiful pop songs perfect for the endless summer sunsets overlooking the Pacific. Or maybe it’s their day-jobs in the film industry that have led Fonda to fully appreciate the importance of the “golden hour”—the hour just before sunset when the light is absolutely perfect—and try to craft a soundtrack to suit.

In any case, the idea of having to make do with only an album every three or four years just doesn’t seem fair, and the complete lack of news on the Fonda front suggests it’ll be even longer before we see a follow-up to 2003’s Catching Up to the Future, if we ever see one at all. But maybe that carefree, relaxed vibe of songs like “Until the End” would disappear if Fonda were more active. After all, there are some things you just can’t rush.