Saturday at the WestCo Café, several of Wesleyan’s own rock, ska and pop groups took the stage before an audience of eager students and panic-stricken pre-frosh. The Mathematicians, a group from upstate New York, opened the show. Originally a trio of particle physicists, the Mathematicians did much more than warm up the crowd with their brand of techno-retainer-rock. Albert Gorhythm, Pete Pythagoras and Dewey Decimal instantly won themselves a place in the hearts of those present. The audience, a cheerful collection of the un-hip, were easily wooed by songs such as “Input/Output” and “X-Y Axis.”
“Next up is Franny,” said Pythagoras at the end of The Mathematicians’ set. “Which I think is short for Francine. Which is a girl’s name. Or maybe Francis. Which can be a girl or a boy’s name. It’s unisex.”
Franny, consisting of Lee Pender on guitar and vocals, Caley Monohan-Ward on drums and Ashraf Rijal on bass, took the stage to a considerably smaller but enthusiastic crowd.
The band’s fan base has been steadily growing at Wesleyan, owing in part to the multitude of shows the band has played since the beginning of the year. Alhough the bill categorized Franny as “Hot Rock,” Pender’s sardonic and languid delivery accompanied by the group’s wrenching and sincere performance taps into something deeper than the typical college rock band can ever hope to achieve. Rather than presenting the audience with the triumphant, self-righteous bombast usually reserved for university shows, Franny revels in the grimy and somewhat weary realities of youth in America.
As Pender sighs, “I ‘heart’ you when you hurt me,” there is a primal understanding of love reduced to juvenile symbolism, internet jargon and Hallmark slogans. There are countless pop/rock tunes about love triumphing over soulless sex, but when Franny tells you “Take your hands out of my pants / There are things we can do with our eyes that are so much more intense,” you believe it.
After a staggered set up, the band opened with “Fucking Loneliness” and proceeded directly into “Love Song.” During “Two Chords,” one of the more mellow tunes on the Franny continuum, the band locked horns with the bane of every performer: a poor sound system. About halfway through the song, Pender’s guitar began making noises like a family of rabid, psychotic cockroaches. The song came to a tumbling halt as Pender quipped, “Do you hear that? Is that not the craziest sound you’ve ever heard coming out of a guitar? Does anybody have another guitar?”
Luckily, Jack Riley, fellow musician and guitarist of “The Ottoman Empire” had another guitar handy.
“Here,” Riley could be heard just off mic. “You can use my guitar. Just don’t break it.”
Franny has a history of destroying equipment. At a previous Franny show, Ashraf Rijal’s bass amp caught on fire causing one of the most dangerous and thrilling rock-and-roll performances WestCo has seen this year.
“It would be a lot cooler if we broke stuff on purpose,” Pender said.
The band came back with a rollicking rendition of “Let’s Get Drunk and Make Out,” finishing off the set with “Long Island Railroad,” “Squid” and one song whose title rivals even The Mathematicians’ bizarre nomenclature, “Kung Fu Katie.” Later, standing under the orange streetlights, Pender was less than thrilled with the set.
“I can’t believe I keep breaking guitars,” he said.
Franny’s connection to something fundamental in the university-psychology is obvious in their fans loyalty and enthusiasm. The euphoric and spastic crowd could be heard screaming the lyrics to “Love Song,” “Let’s Get Drunk and Make Out” and “Fucking Loneliness,” three of the group’s most accessible and popular tunes.
“I think they may be better than sex,” said Owen O’Connor ’07, a fellow musician.
A crowd of admirers, including Al Gorhythm of The Mathematicians, one of Franny’s newest fans, followed Pender across campus in search of food. An hour later Pender held court over pancakes and marshmallows in the kitchen of Sign House.
“There are so many great art forms working together on campus,” said Pender. Then, bursting out laughing, “Oh, man. I just love music. That’s it. Quote me.”
Despite Pender’s affable self-deprecation, Franny has no reason to sell itself short. With a big enough push, the band has everything it needs to expand beyond Wesleyan University: sincerity, excellent musicianship and accessibility. Like so many other college groups, they play songs about heartbreak and teen-angst, but Franny takes their music into a different realm, elevating the true emotions beneath the whiney misery of love and youth, broken guitars and all.
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