Covers

This new EP (extended play, which is shorter than a CD) by the Brooklyn band French Kicks, featuring Josh Wise ’96 on vocals and guitar, Nick Stumpf on lead vocals and keyboard, Lawrence Stumpf on bass, and Aaron Thurston on drums, is a collection of the band’s interpretations of songs originally written by Lindsey Buckingham, the Ramones, Colin Blunstone, and the Shirelles. Wise describes his band as “pop music that has an experimental bent to it.” The band’s second album, Swimming (Vagrant Records) was released last year. On vagrant.com, Wise said, “On this record, we hoped to capture the joy of friends playing together in a relaxed way. We 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. It’s bolder, and at the same time more intimate, than anything we’ve done.” (http://www.myspace.com/frenchkicks)