No Filler Music Podcast - French Kicks "Swimming" - How A Garage Rock Band Went Out On Their Own Terms

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

If you were a garage rock, post-punk band from the 2000s, chances are your music was going to be compared to The Strokes, or Interpol, or fill-in-the-blank heavy-hitter from that era. For the French Kicks (a band from you guessed it: New York), they couldn't shed the comparisons, and their moderately popular releases never caught on like their fellow New Yorkers did. So on their self-produced fourth album (and unfortunately their last), Swimming, they decided to stop trying. And the resulting record ended up being on of their most endearing, with stripped-down intimate songs chock full of poppy hooks and catchy choruses. Tracklist French Kicks - Abandoned French Kicks - New Man French Kicks - Said So What French Kicks - Knee High French Kicks - The Way You Arrive French Kicks - Love In The Ruins This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Pantheon is a proud partner of AKG by Harman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Whoa, 13. That's Taylor's lucky number. The Venture X card from Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One.com for details. And welcome back to Noah Filler. the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me as always. And today, Q, we're going back to our wheelhouse with some 2000s era indie rock, post-punk, garage rock with a listen to. to a band called the French kicks.

That is our jam, dude. But this is new to me, man. I've never got any of these guys. Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing about these guys. They hit right when the strokes hit and the Walkman hit. And, you know, the bands that actually made it on the map, right? And so they were constantly kind of competing with and being compared to these much more successful bands, you know?

And so they never really got off the ground. You know what I mean? And so this record that we're going to talk about today. is their last record. And from a lot of the reviews that I'm reading and sort of people's take on it at the time when it came out, which was 2008, this was kind of like their album of like, okay, we tried to be successful. We never caught on. Let's just make a record and not be preoccupied with trying to make it.

You know what I mean? It sounds like you're saying they threw in the towel. Well, I mean, it was just them being more. more like, you know, the record that came out prior to this one was like super, like overly produced and like pro-tooled, you know what I mean, as in like trying to be the super polished and packaged thing. And then this record, swimming is just more kind of a return to, you know, the older way of doing things. Well, so, you know, we like to reference bands that we've covered before that had similar situations. Yeah. That sounds a little bit like

what Cavan was trying to do with Antenna and then they said you know what, fuck it, let's go back to our roots. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that seems to be the case. So I stumbled upon this record maybe like two or three years ago. So I didn't, I didn't hear this when it was out. You know what I mean?

Like when, you know, around that time. Like if you were a French kicks fan, this record seems like the one that may have like, alienated some of their fans, you know what I mean? Because it was a little bit different and a little bit, like people are saying it's a little bit safer because it sounds, you know, these songs are a little bit more like poppy, I guess. But I didn't, I don't know that. I didn't know that. You know what I mean?

Like, I have nothing to compare it to. So to me, this is just a great record. Yeah. So the only song of theirs that I know is one that you brought to the table for our longwave episode, all our weekends, which I loved. Well, if you loved all our weekends, you'll love the other picks I got today. But yeah, that is worth mentioning. We did briefly talk about these guys on a sidetrack episode that we did where we mainly focused on a band called Longwave, which is another band from that era. Another band that kind of got shadowed by, like you said, the heavy hitters at the time.

Right. Strokes, Interpol, Walkman, yeah. And like the French kicks, these guys, like, they were. from New York City. You know what I mean? So they were in the thick of it. Right. You know what I mean?

Right when the strokes hit. So yeah, this is just one of those, you know, bands like these were a dime a dozen back then. And when you stumble onto a band like this, maybe, you know, 10 years later as I did, you know, it probably, I may not have liked this if I heard it when it came out. but 10 years removed with like my taste in music evolving and me having more of a sort of a nostalgia for this type of sound, I'm able to appreciate it maybe in ways that I wouldn't have if I hadn't heard it when it hit, you know? But I mean, honestly, I think it's a solid record. You know what I mean?

I don't know that I'm tainted by my, my, just my love for and nostalgia for garage rock. I think it's honestly, honestly a good record. So anyway, there's not much to say about these guys. a band like this, let's just be honest, we're just here to listen to the tunes. We're not here to talk about these dudes. There's no deep history or story behind these guys. It's just another indie post-punk band from the 2000s, you know, and this is their last record that they put out.

And that's kind of all you need to know. They were trying to make it big like all the other bands were out there. They never had much success. And so, like, you know, this is a record where they decided to produce it themselves. and sort of dial it back a little bit, and I think it's a solid record. What more do you need to know? Sweet. Nothing more, dude. Let's hear some tunes.

I will say one interesting thing, though. The one of the, so there's two vocalists. The drummer actually sings occasionally, which I thought was interesting. And this other guy named Matthew Stinchcombe, which is a, that's a funny name. Stinchcombe? Stinchcombe. He is currently, Etsy, as in. Etsy, the website.

Yeah. He's currently the European director of Etsy. So we found some success after this, right? Anyway. But yeah. Yeah, let's just go right into it here, dude. Okay? Let's do it.

We're going to start with track number four. This song is called New Man. Getting some quiet as the new loud vibes. Not the album, but that era of Quiet but Loud. Okay, okay. Well, that's interesting. Like Peter Bjorn and John or, I don't know, like Matt Pompier or like Midlake. That's interesting because I always associate Quiet as the New Loud with the more indie folk type stuff, right?

So, curious to know why you said that. You know, it's a little more subdued like you said. Yeah, I think it fits in that category. Which is maybe why they didn't get that much love in 2008 because, you know, that style had already come and gone. It sounds like the approach to the recording process for this with like, you know, let's not overthink things. Let's just lay the track down. You know what I mean? Maybe if we need a second take, we'll take a second take.

But like, let's just get it out there. Let's not, you know, it sounds like they were a band that was like consumed with like perfection. Perfectionism and stuff on like their previous two. releases, you know, like obsessing over making sure the arrangement was perfect and stuff like that. And when they put this record out, they just wanted to roll into the studio and just kind of let it, just let it happen naturally. And this was self-produced, right? I wonder how much of that, you know, relaxed kind of feeling about, you know, recording was because they had that freedom. Maybe, you know, maybe they had all this pressure from record labels like we hear about all the time from bands to

just make, have it perfect, you know, with every take. I mean, you know if you're a post-punk garage band in the 2000s, yeah, I mean, you're going to get a lot of pressure probably from a record label to make a hit because, you know, if you're signing a garage rock band in the 2000s, your goal is to make the next strokes, right? Yeah, and they were perfectionists too. Julian and all them with the strokes. Definitely Julian, right? But yeah, the way that the guitar player, Josh Wise, described it in the recording process,

they used a lot of first and second takes and tried to preserve a sense of immediacy and discovery that comes from putting things down before you really have a chance to think too hard. I think you had read that quote when you brought them to the table for that long wave episode. And yeah, you definitely hear that, especially in the one that you played previously, the All Our Weekends song. You can hear that, that, like, immediacy and just like the one-off kind of stuff that you hear when you're not trying to make it perfect, you know, when it's not as rehearsed. Yeah, and I think it comes off on this record because, like, there's just a sense of, like, laid backness to this record. It's a very, like, easy-gone record. This track, New Man, what I love about it is that, and this is something they did on all weekends, the track that I play, where there's,

They do a good job with repetitiveness, I guess. Like, they do it in a good way. Like, it's also just really simple guitar work, too. Like, especially in that track I just played. Like, that main guitar riff, super simple. And there's a sense of like, let's just roll into the studio and knock this thing out. I mean, that's that simple guitar work and the repetitiveness, they do it really well. It's really effective.

That's what I'm saying. And now, speaking of repetitiveness, this next song that we're going to play, it's got one of the catchiest hooks I've ever heard. Once you hear this chorus, it's going to be stuck in your head until the end of time. So you're welcome. Awesome. It's also got the most plays by far on this record. It's not a single, by the way.

So I'm not trying to sneak a single in here. But it is super catchy. And yeah, get ready to have an earworm. Because this chorus is catchy, A-F. This song is called said so what Dude I was going to call you out for actually Dropping an AF on this podcast Because I think that was the first time that's been dropped

I know I'm not I'm not a fan of AF dude But you know what that was catchy AF I don't think there's any better way to put it I told you And yeah dude I think I spoke too soon when I said that that sound had already come and gone by 2008. Because that sounded a lot like the morning benders to me. Their album, Big Echo, came out in 2010, and that album blew up.

That was like one of Pitchfork's favorite albums of the year. Man, they fizzled out real quick. Well, it's a funny story behind that, dude. Oh, really? They fizzled out because the word bender is like a, it's like a, homophobic slur in Europe, I think, or something. Yeah. So they completely changed their name and just like just did a complete identity change.

So they probably minted in this like a like a bender like an all my like a bender like getting wasted or something. Exactly. Yeah. But yeah, they just kind of, man, what was that one band that you brought to the table? Yeah, they were called. They changed their name to preoccupations. But they went by Viet Cong. They went by the name Viet Cong.

And then they were just like, you know what, we're not out to make, we're not out to offend people. Like, that's not our thing. So we're going to change our name. Well, that's what happened. Yeah. That's what happened with Morning Binder. That's a side track. But yeah, dude, like two years prior to Big Echo dropping, which is, you know, it's that 60s pop kind of jangly pop kind of sound.

Yeah. I was going to say the same thing. Like with that song said, so what by French kicks that we just played? It does have a little bit of a 60s. to it. Yeah. And I don't, I don't think that was something that was necessarily, you know, a signature of garage rock. Not necessarily, definitely not in the early 2000s.

I think garage rock was more, you know, like the strokes. Punkish. Punkish, yeah. Yeah. But I think they do it, they do it well. They do the harmonies really, really well. That's what I like about this record, French kicks. The harmonizing is great.

Was this recorded live, do you know, you know, like one take all in the same room kind of thing? They try to do, you know, first and second takes, and that's it. So that's really cool, too, because that's really, that's legit harmonizing that you're hearing. That's not just the one lead singer going back and, and recording the harmonies, you know, later. And it's the drummer. It's the drummer and the guitar player. Yeah, that's cool. That was cool, that the drummer's back there.

Anytime a drummer is singing, I love it. Yeah, dude. But yeah, just really simple, straightforward garage rock songs that, you know, like we're saying here, like, you know, they sort of, they're, they're, they're, making their own, cultivating their own unique sound. They're not, when you hear this, it's not like it comes off as like, oh, this is just a band trying to be, you know, the strokes or the Walkman. His voice does kind of sound like the Walkman dude occasionally, but I'm just saying they have a unique enough sound where it's not like just them trying to be one of the

bands that came out before them. But it sounds like that's what was happening on the records they put out before. They were trying really hard to insert themselves into that sound. And this was the record where they said, you know what, let's just do whatever we want to do. I feel like what we need to do at this point, dude, because we keep talking about, well, this is a left turn from their previous stuff. You haven't heard their old stuff. I haven't heard their old stuff. Let's just fucking listen to their old stuff, man.

All right. Well, in that case, let's just listen to their most popular song, according to Spotify plays at least, from one of their previous. records. Okay. Because that should be a good sense of what the sound was. I'm just going to pick a random one. I'm going to pick the most place one. This is 2006 then. Yeah. Album called 2000. So this was two years in between swimming and trial of the century. Trial of the century. Okay. Let's just pick a random one. So this, hey, and this is the year we graduated high school. Just throwing that out there just for fun. All right. This song is called knee high. Love it. I like that one. That was good. And like you can hear, you know, sort of like that

single note kind of staccato thing that like the interpol would do and stuff like that and the fast paced double up on the high hat drums that reminded me of the walkman a lot and that's another thing that I read from people who reviewed this who reviewed swimming they said like some people were thought that french kicks was on this trajectory like off this last record as far as like their sound and stuff and people were disappointed with what happened to swimming but I actually it kind of makes me appreciate swimming a little bit more because they just like I said they just rolled into the studio and just let whatever happened happened versus this record 2000 you can tell by just hearing that last song that like it's very very like highly produced second takes um yeah that's cool dude

swimming is more natural and it kind of comes off that way it just feels like a band in a studio you know I mean, and to me, that's actually more true to the garage rock origins or whatever. Band's just getting together in the garage and playing music together, you know? That's a good point, dude. Well, what else you got from swimming? All right, let's play another song here. This song is called The Way You Arrived. Cool stuff going on in that, dude.

Yeah, again, like with the background vocals the entire time I really liked, you know. That was cool, man. That was like another instrument, like another, like a keyboard line. Yeah. Even cooler that this is first or second take, man. Like, and all recorded at the same time in one room, you know, recorded live. That's really cool. So, you know, on the flip side of the critics that didn't like the direction that they took the band,

there are some critics out there, like the Village Voice, that thought that this record would lead to people starting to compare other bands to French kicks instead of the other way around. So like, you know, some people thought that this was a good direction to take the band. Like even this under the radar, which was a publicated, and these reviews all came out in 2008, so obviously before the band fizzled out. This guy says here, French kicks guarantee that swimming is not a watered down concoction and in doing so have not only reinvented themselves, but may have also saved their careers.

Didn't happen. But people thought that it could have. And I think that's because it's, you know, this is them just saying, you know what, let's stop worrying about trying to become a, you know, a band that takes off and let's just do what we want to do and self-produce a record. Yeah.

This quote from Pop Matters kind of stands. out though, dude. Swimming is really too damp to catch a spark, but could quite easily find a home nicely in the background somewhere of a candlelit wine bar or other chilled venue. I guess the point they're trying to make is that it's not, there's nothing memorable about it. Well, here's what I like about, about, you know, all these harsh words from these critics. Like you said, the fact that they said, you know what? Fuck it. We're going to do this ourselves. We're going to do what we want. we're not going to focus too much on

trying to make this a polished album that can get radio play. This is going to be an album for us and we're going to have fun with it. That's really all that matters, I think, dude. I think it's great. Yeah, and like, you got to appreciate it. You got to admire that, right?

Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we're going to go backwards here on the record, but that's okay. Because I want to play another subdued kind of more quiet is a new loud cue. Hey, I appreciate this, Travis. This song, another really quiet song, more subdued, and I like it a lot. Well, hey, dude, before we do that, let's take a quick break.

So this song is called Love in the Ruins. Beautiful song. Yeah, dude. Good stuff. Good stuff. Definitely in the Seawolf vein, that kind of stuff, which I know you're a big fan of. or clientele, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's funny to think about like clientele. Dude, you want to talk about now that we're back in this decade, we should do an episode on clientele on their record, strange geometry. That's happening, dude. Well, you're going to have to sway me, dude, because I've just never been too big a fan of theirs. Well, I mean, I can do that. I can easily do it because that record is great. Well, here's what I want to do next, dude, because we've,

mentioned them several times. I would love to cover the Walkman. Yes. Oh, fuck yeah, dude. Let's do them next. Yeah. All right. I'm down with that, man. I love the Walkman. Me too. I haven't listened to them in years. Honestly, I haven't played one of their tracks in years. I went through and listened to all of the records, like, maybe a few years ago. Not all of them, but a good portion of like their early ones and stuff. Yeah. I still think the rat is one of the best songs to come out of that era. So we'll have to play it. Even though it was a single, the intention. intensity and his vocal work on that song is unmatched.

And those drums, killer. Yes. So we'll play that track because we have to. Maybe we can play that, what was it, Conan or J. Linow or something. Maybe we should just play that live recording instead of the one for that. But the way he does the vocals on that track is unbelievable. Anyway, that's a good call. Well, let's do that next, actually.

Let's do the Walkman next because they're a really good, companion to French kicks. Yeah, and a good example of the kind of, I don't know what wave it is, but second or third wave of garage rock that happened in the early 2000s. Yeah. A good example of like the uniqueness of that era alongside the strokes and Interpol and all that. And to me, the Walkman, it's all about his vocals. Let's say his name, Hamilton Lighthouseer.

Well, we're jumping the gun here, dude. Now we're talking about Walkman. Okay. All right. Let's go back to French kicks here because I think... We're pulling this one. Right out of the ass, dude. You know what?

Sometimes this is our best material comes right out of there. I think Love at the Ruins might be my favorite track on the record. Because I think it incorporates everything that French kicks does really well on this record, which is some of the quiet stuff, his vocals, the harmonizing. The baseline is killer. That baseline that comes in. Yeah, that was cool. Boom.

Boo, do, do, do. Exactly. And that's a classic bass type of sound from that. It reminds me of some of the Spoons bass lines. Uh-huh. Exactly. Yeah. Anyway. But yeah. There you go, Q.

I like that French kicks went out with this type of record because they got to do, they got to make a record on their terms. You know what I mean? They got to make a record that they produced that was more like authentic and like, genuine, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's a cool snapshot of the actual bands, you know, and what they do when they're

jamming together and having fun. Yeah, it is really cool. Right. I think it makes me appreciate the record more when you know that this is just them, you know what I mean, in the studio. But yeah, like you said,

we've returned, we're back in the 2000s and we'll probably stay here for a while. We'll do the Walkman next and yeah we'll do a sort of a sampling of some of the music they were putting out around the early 2000s because there's a lot of good stuff that's spread out across their discography and I don't want to pick just one record. So it's possible the Walkman have not appeared on this podcast yet besides maybe talking about them which is hard for me to to, to, uh, get my head around if that's the case but it's possible i'm actually yeah i'm surprised too that

they didn't make an appearance if if they showed up anywhere it would have been in our like top 100 of the last decade i don't think so man i think we also said no singles so yeah they're not on there so yeah the first time that we we've talked about these or i think we've talked about about maybe this will be the first time that we have played music from the Walkman on this podcast. But that's another example of a band that there's no way we could do a music podcast and not share tunes from these guys eventually. So here we are. We finally arrived at that moment. Next week. Next week. Yeah. All right. So, yep, that's it. Next week. We'll come at you with some Walkman. Those guys are from D.C. Nope, New York, man. Everybody will

from New York back then New York, D.C. That was the place to be, man. If you were making indie rock. You found your way to New York somehow. Yeah. All right. Well, there you go, Q. That was French kicks.

That was swimming. And you're either going to forget about that album the second you stopped listening to this episode, or you're going to go and push play on track one and give it a closer listen. Because it really is kind of one of the... those bands it's like grows on you not yeah it'll grow on you but like i was going to say um as that critic said it just kind of there's nothing really like you know there's no spark that's gonna start from from this music it's just really good a really good snapshot of of the type of music that was being made back then but it's it's nothing crazy uh insanely like um you know catchy or like

unique unique yeah but it's just a good record you know totally all right well you can find us on Twitter

if you'd like to get in touch with us at No Filler Podcast and since as we just said we're about to cover some some bands from that era some indie bands some garage rock bands give us a shout out and tell us

what you want to hear us talk about as far as bands we've talked about from that era before. We've talked about the strokes. We've talked about Interpol. We've talked about Longwave, Phantom Planet. We've covered quite a bit. Some good tunes that we've covered from that era already for sure. Yeah. But there's a ton that we haven't talked about. Yeah. And if Twitter's not your thing, if you don't have an account and you don't feel like making one, send us an email. No filler podcast at gmail.com. You can email. us directly or you can find an email form on our website, which we haven't really updated in a

while, but you can still find us on our website, no filler podcast.com. You can email us directly from the site. Yeah, let us know what you want to hear. Tell us what you like. Tell us what you don't like. Say hi. Say bye. Say whatever you want. Just reach out to us. We'd love to hear from you. and we are part of the Pantheon podcast network. The podcast network for music lovers, Trave. There's like 50 plus music-centered shows on the network. We're proud to be a part of the family. You can find us on Pantheon Podcasts.com.

And as always, I want to give a thank you to AKG. for supporting the show and supporting the network. And that's it, Travis. We'll be coming at you next week with the Walkman. And until then, thank you, as always, for listening. My name's Quentin. My name is Travis. You all take care.