Alas No Califone

A few weeks ago I asked my friend Matt Myrick to do some sort of write up for the upcoming Califone show at Workplay this Wednesday. Unfortunately that show has now been canceled. Still, it would be a waste not to give you this, even if these words do sting a bit now:

Sam, I couldn’t really come up with anything to say. Asking me to write about Califone is like asking a priest to talk about God or a mechanic to discuss his favorite car. Surely, neither can separate his love and devotion for the thing from what s/he has to say.

I tried to write, but there are only so many variations of the word ‘awesome’ out there, and ultimately the piece amounted to clichés and senseless, unscientific praise—much like a song I wrote to my ex-girlfriend when I was 15. So I ran a bunch of Google searches and perused shelves of music magazines until I collected a collection of quotable quotations from what others have said about Califone. Here ‘tis:

“Califone combines the Mississippi delta and hill country with the sonic wizardry of a Luc Ferrari piece or Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Armed with open-tuned guitars, banjo, fiddle, rattling percussion, thumb pianos, organs, synthesizers, and just about every other noise-making trinket you can imagine, each Califone album deconstructs popular Western music by tearing it down to its roots if only to bury it beneath a sea of fuzz and decay. This music is sophisticated.“

~Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune and
author of Califone: a short history of manifest destiny
and the sea who killed it
(forthcoming)

Surely at least one critic has used the term “deconstruct” to describe Califone’s music, though he probably understands very little about Deconstruction.

~Stanley Fish, American literary theorist and legal scholar

“It’s not hard to defend the claim that popular music audiences, at least in general, aren’t very discerning listeners. I’m not making an attack here. Person A doesn’t listen to Kings of Leon for the same reason that Person B listens to John Adams. Each wants music to do something different for him. But there is a distinction to be made: it’s a distinction about ‘A’rt and art—about finding more interesting ways to push air than the next person. And that Califone doesn’t receive the same critical attention as bands like Arcade Fire and My Morning Jacket or the goddamn Artic Monkeys—well, it’s just proof that music journalists know very little about music as Art.”
~Thom Yorke, lead singer of popular rock band, Radiohead

“Califone is kind of weird, but I can’t help but dance when I hear ‘A Chinese Actor’. They might benefit from similar electronic handclaps in their other songs.”

~Richard James

“The first time I heard ‘Wingbone’ was one of those unforgettable musical moments. You know, no one really remembers the first time they heard Beethoven’s 5th. It’s like you never heard it for a first time. It was just always there inside you, like you could sing that opening sequence since the day you were born. ‘Wingbone’ is like that, which is why that moment was so paradoxical: I remember hearing it for the first time—I was conscious of it as it happened—but I’d known that song since the day I was born.”

~David Fricke

“Jay Z thanks Califone for all of his success, and he has more #1 records than Elvis.” ~Jay Z

“Califone is a band of wandering gypsies. They steal cars, chop them up, and sell the parts to the Russian Mafia when the group makes its seasonal trip to Brighton. Califone is stealing your car right now. By the time you go check, the car will be gone, and Califone will have replaced your car with an identical car, with identical trash on the floor. They never forget the garbage, and they always get it right.”

~ Alvin Kersh, former FBI Deputy Director

“Califone is more American than Bruce Springsteen.” ~Willie Nelson

“Califone sounds like an unnerving landscape scene from a civil war film, set in the south, summer heat radiating from the screen, an empty field surrounded by oaks or pines, no clouds, dry as a dead tree—someone could make a violin from its wood, but no one would know how to tune it.”

~David Foster Wallace, Author

“everything you think you know about califone is wrong” ~Tim Rutili, Califone founder

“When Reprise rejected Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, the media readily latched on to the story. Everyone loves a great ‘band takes on big bad record label’ scoop. We love to cheer for the underdog. Anyway, you all know the rest. Reprise releases the band and essentially gives them the album, band shops it around, band signs with another Warner subsidiary (who has now essentially paid for the album twice), and the record turns out to be the best selling of the band’s career. In addition to being the biggest critical success of 2002 (often referred to as the best rock/pop album since Thriller), the album eventually goes gold and ‘Califone’ becomes a popular household term for ‘Awesome!’ and a synonym for ‘Badass Underdog!’ Never again will Reprise reject an album because it’s ‘too adventurous’.

~Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune
and author of Califone: the
Morricone of Indie Rock (but
there ain’t much competition)

“Califone is the Beatles of our generation.” ~Paul McCartney, former Beatles member