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"Jackalope party" – "Un après-midi à La Prairie" Saturday 22nd, Chambéry - Saturday 23rd, October, 2005, Annecy : Coming Soon / Bear Creek The Solvents Schwervon! Kymia Dawson Jeffrey Lewis What is there to say ? The author hasn't found anything yet (to this day, October 31st) except : "It was one of my best week-end ever". There's probably some glitter still stuck in her eyes from all the wonder she's witnessed and her ears probably won't be the same ever. Not that she's become deaf. She actually discovered bands that play at a reasonable volume so that most of the time no ear protections are needed. Still, harm is done : she's discovered the Anti-folk gang and now… How could any band be more gifted than The Solvents to rock her softly with sweet sorts of lullabies and wake her up suddenly with a Sweet Child of mine cover? How could any drummer sound good now she's seen and heard Nan, of Schwervon! riding her drum kit and singing as a cowgirl would her horse in some Mid-West plain, with such fun, joy and a beautiful voice… There can't be any coolest drummer on earth! How could any girl singing alone with an acoustic guitar produce any more extraordinary effect on people, such as making them sit on dirty floors to listen, than Kymia Dawson? How could she listen to anything punk or anything about punk history without it all being interfered and blurred away by the vibrant memory of Jeffrey Lewis telling his tells about punk music, magic rocks,... with his wonderful wit, comic brother/bass player and books? Oh… Well. They're all gone now, back on the road to sparkle their wonder all over the place… Lucky others… We're left all alone here… Well, not really : the Coming Soon are staying; this local band with such a variable line-up it's a wonder how they manage to go through their set without getting lost somewhere in the middle: a magic 12 year old drummer who can also go solo as Bear Creek, a beautiful female singer/choir girl (who can also go solo as Jane Kidder), … Guys who do the backups then the lead, leave the stage to other parts of the band for a while, come back, switch instruments and finally go sing among the audience… Sparkle glitter everywhere. They were all playing on that Saturday evening, as announced in the program, at the Locaux Larsen, in Chambéry, a creepy old little place in an industrial basement, creepy but fun in the end since it's underground anyway and at least, here, they can make as much noise as they care. They played all together again the following afternoon at the bistro des Tilleuls, a small bar in Annecy (in the quiet quarter of La Prairie), when only Schwervon! and Jeffrey Lewis had been announced. Such a cool surprise! Such cool things can happen in such unexpected places! So, more precisely, what are all those people doing? The Coming Soon are… Sorry but the author is not a Coming Soon and therefore, is lost. There is… Bear Creek/Leo the young drummer/singer/etc…, his brother and guitar player Ben Lupus (who can make his acoustic guitar sounds quite like an electric one, can't he? Well, at least to amateurs' ears…), the bass player Billy Jet Pilot (who sometimes hits the floor with a foot as if he really wanted to be the other percussionist in the band) (cd back covers help) who both sing, the wonderful singer Jane Kidder (who has the best accent and most beautiful voice in the band) and two other guys, Chips and Candy Bubble maybe (cd covers could be misleading?)? who sing and play the guitar as well, right? But not on a regular basis, right? Well, anyway. Let's say they sound a bit like a brilliant young rock band who'd have spent a long summer in a lovely and quiet isolated cottage in a lovely and quiet British sort of countryside (their own homeland, Haute-Savoie, could do as well), eating and drinking and… Well, having plenty of organic healthy stuff, spending their days boating on lovely little rivers, picnicking in the middle of lovely flowery meadows, taking naps in the shade of giant oaks (insert a "The Wind in the Willows" drawing here), relaxing, relaxing… Leaving all that stupid "angst" behind as well as tapping into the energy of such elementary things as the sun, rocks, bumblebees… Without becoming any sort of hippies, no ("if you are a hippy get out", kindly sings Bear Creek): going somewhere not planning to stay and spend the rest of their life on their ass, just taking in all the fun and relaxation and pouring it into their music to take it back to town. The Solvents are a guy with an acoustic guitar and a girl with a violin but their website says they can play lots more instruments and, by the way, they're sorry about their President. They do a very sweet soft sort of folk or folk/indie/exeprimental as their website says and they are from Anacortes, Washington. On the Saturday evening, some time around 10:30pm, the author being a bit tired, she ended up craving for a bed while listening to them (don't you dare think it's a critic!) and yet got quite well woken up, as already mentioned, when they finished their set with a Sweet Child of Mine cover, a song that is usually more associated with the Guns'N Roses than considered a lullaby… and a lullaby they surely didn't turn it into. It's funny how well a violin can do the part of an electric guitar and how you don't have to wear tight leather pants to rock. Kymia played some flute with them during their Sunday afternoon set. It was beautifully weird to arrive in view of the bar, at 4pm on that Sunday bright afternoon and find the three of them rehearse in a little square across the street, the gravelled floor soaked with what was left of the heavy rains of the previous night. The Larsen stage is underground. That evening, it poured yet in there no one heard anything of that storm. Schwervon!, garage duo or "psyche duo guitar drums" from New York are a guy with a guitar and a girl with a drum kit. They're fun and they rock. At antifolkonline, it says Nan was never a cowgirl but a ballerina and girl scout and it's Matt who's from Kansas (although he wears no ruby red shoes). Two musicians definitely full of energy who wouldn't make noise with such a pleasure if it wasn't all about love. Schwervon!, instead of throwing plates at each other when they're not happy with something, grab their guitar and drums and make a new silly funny song about it all. Or so it's what one can gather from both their music and the web. They have a theme song that all their friends came to sing along with them at the end of their set : "Schwerv!… On!" And that's what you may find when you make a web search for "schwerv": a post at Cheap Bottle titled "Schwerv on and on". There's a cool easy to listen live recording of one of their songs (that guy have some other cool stuff there)… and then you get to learn "schwer von" could be German for "heavy of"… ?? Now, Kymia Dawson from... everywhere, she's a nomad, will sit down, grab her acoustic guitar and sing her songs, eyes closed, soft voice, bright lyrics and… nearly everyone will end up sitting down as well to listen, even on a dirty floor. She gets wild when she dances, even when she sings and all of her friends along with her "I am fine!" but most of the time it feels she's opened a door to kindly show you into her heart and soul and you feel like coming in just as kindly, tiptoe with your shoes off. And she does invite friends on stage to play some songs with her, whether a mysterious friend called Mace as bass player, Nan as drummer or Leo, even though they had never played that song together, it didn't matter, "he's a genius", she says (people should take more care of that boy: no one would want his head to inflate too much)… and all of her musician friends got invited on her song "I'm fine" which sung with such a choir behind her or at her feet can be nothing but uplifting, especially when she ends up singing it nearly screaming as a weird opera singer. Beware! Soft delicate child-like songs may contain hazardous lyrics and may be the camouflage of wild creatures! (will you dare check Kymia's bio at myspace for proof?)
Howard Hugues, Jeffrey Lewis, Angelo Spencer and Schwervon! By the way, a show in the afternoon is a brilliant idea and it should happen more often so that music freaks wouldn't end up always so tired when the week isn't even finished yet… For shows that start way past 9pm finish late, sometimes too late for those who live a bit further than just next door, like the author on the Saturday evening, or rather morning, the author who felt so tired at nearly 2am that she (knowing Jeffrey Lewis would be playing the next day and since she was too far from the stage to see anything anyway)… didn't stay for that last set. And she's sorry about it… Well, not so much since it probably saved a cat's life… Anyway, be assured she was well there and much closer on the Sunday afternoon. Jeffrey played with his brother Jack, a drummer (name unknown), Emily, of The Solvents, who played violin on a few songs and with what he's famous for: his comic books. He started with the history of Punk… what was it… From 1960 to 1975? And he told a long story about a magic rock (no clapping during this one for you'd get tired before the end)… and they were other stories and songs like one about the year that the river floods… And it was beautiful, even for one who doesn't understand each and every word, because for most French people… Yes, no matter, it's just beautiful… For whatever mysterious reason… Jeffrey turns the pages fast, a line chases another: it feels like he's reading some invisible book suspended in mid-air in front of his eyes or maybe in his own mind, a story written somewhere for it's essential, it must be told and therefore you listen and try to catch each and every note, each and every word, and what you manage to catch is so brilliant that you can only feel like trying to catch more. So, that's it. The author is finally done with it (Friday, 04 November 2005). She heard that at least most of them will be back someday. They have to!! Elsewhere are going to be some great photos of that Sunday afternoon. Now, if you didn't know about anti-folk, you may want to learn more about it. You can start here and here. |
