The French Kicks + Calla + Revival

The French Kicks + Calla + Revival


The French Kicks
Calla

During the early songs in their set I wasn’t entirely sure what revival Revival was attempting. My first impression was that it’s a band in dire need of an inventive press kit. My suggestion is to pit a sepia print of the group sporting mod haircuts and bolo ties up against a vague identifier like “Post-Parsons”. It’s not that they’re bad, just bland. Everybody in the band can play; they’re pretty tight; there may even be a few ex-members of Canyon lingering around in the line-up. But the songs are monotonous and unemotional. One tune after another finds the band strumming similar chords over similar tempos and, as a result, the set never really picked up any kind of tangible energy. Near the end Revival surprise me with a cover of “Loser” from Jerry Garcia’s first solo record and I start to soften up a little. When presented with a decent tune, the band’s abilities are more audible and their aspirations become more apparent. It’s also exciting to see hipsters willing to play what is basically a Grateful Dead song. Calla was, fittingly, the band that attracted me to the bill. Actually it was a cover that bore their name. On a split EP with The Walkmen, Calla released a version of Can’s “Mother Sky”. As flimsy and stripped down as it was, the song was still enough to get me interested, if for no reason than their good taste. Further research led to the discovery that Calla had released their second record on Young God, the label owned by Michael Gira, of Swans fame, another blessing upon their heads. Upon my purchase of Televise much of the excitement dissipated. Calla play slow, sad songs about girls with none of the rhythm of Can and little of the intensity that attracted me to Swans. With a new record coming out however, I thought that maybe it would be worth giving the band a second chance. To their credit, Calla did manage to pick up stronger beats. Beyond that, I was crushed to find their new material to be identical to that on Televise. Through every song Aurelio Valle clutched his guitar, cringed his way to the mic, folded back the complex architecture of his messy hair and reached deep inside his heart to muster a grief that was totally boring. If Valle genuinely feels this bad, then I feel worse for totally not being able to buy it. All of the songs Calla played seemed like they were born of great ideas but sucked of actual content, and the lyrics were just something plugged in to cultivate a forced sentiment of “darkness.” The final song of the set finally works. A cascading wall of guitar frames a few moments where I actually start to believe that sometimes Valle actually means what he says. Through the first five songs, I loathed the French Kicks. I had never heard the band and had only a vague idea of what I was going to hear. The good journalist, my knowledge was still based on the descriptions offered by a few of my friends and a number of reviews that I had read. I more or less expected some sort of skronky garage rock along the lines of their Startime label-mates Natural History. At the outset, however, they came off like a lukewarm Walkmen. New-New-York-New-Wave. With their jackets and vintage shirts the band looked well groomed for TV guest spots and the songs sounded like they would meet their greatest purpose augmenting the soundtrack CD’s of tomorrow’s romantic comedies. Mid way through the set I was able to calm down and realize that most of my major qualms with The French Kicks were not their fault but merely the residual anger I still felt over watching Calla’s set. When I tried to write out criticisms in my notebook I found that most of them were ridiculous: “Singer has hair like Billy Joel.” The French Kicks were harmless and there was no reason to feel any greater negativity towards them. They just wanted to play pop music. The set tended to blend together, the songs felt somewhat similar and repetitive but of the three bands that night they were without a doubt the most accomplished showmen. Most importantly there was no forced affectation of darkness or pretense of gravity. The French Kicks did not rely on a dour image to establish their identity and because of that they seemed far more natural than Calla. At the end of the evening, this was something I could truly appreciate.