Cola, Parking
Kung Fu Necktie
1248 N Front St.
Philadelphia
July 19, 2026
My day was spent barbequing and day-drinking and watching the World Cup with European friends, draining my physical and social batteries down to near death – texting friends about going to this show, most of them were down for the count for basically the exact same reason – but I managed to recharge enough to force a rally for Cola’s headlining set. Speaking of running out of power: there was some kind of power outage on Frankford and Girard, afflicting Johnny Brenda’s and Joe’s Steaks more or less exclusively, so the show had to move a four-minute stroll away to Kung Fu Necktie: no biggie! Johnny Brenda’s has arguably the best programming and curation of any venue in the city, particularly for indie rock, and yet it’s always a treat when a band that would normally play there plays at a spot like KFN for a change of pace (I’m thinking of that great Chris Cohen and 22° Halo gig at KFN a couple years back); and what can I say, I like a stage that’s low to the ground.
Truthfully I want to spend the bulk of my gig recap today just geeking out about how great a band Cola is. The Montreal trio is one of those groups that’s been on my radar for years but for whatever reason I’ve never gone deep on, thinking I’d get around to it later; their song “Water Table” (which they played, beautifully, flawlessly) has been a mainstay when I need to scratch a particular minimalist post-punk itch, but after last night I think it’s safe to say I need to get more familiar. What I wasn’t quite prepared for is the extent to which the band’s brand of minimalism is actually a consistent devotion to great arranging: guitarist/singer Tim Darcy, bassist Ben Stidworthy and drummer Evan Cartwright play together with such distinct approaches to their instruments that you get that excellent effect of each part being endlessly interesting on its own, with a playful, delightful sense of on-off dynamics and live-instrument mixing. Like when the bass drops for a verse or the drums start exactly when the bass stops, not a moment sooner. It was so effective.
Cartwright in particular stood out, as his style makes the vast majority of other drummers look hopelessly flashy, with his patterned, pulsing, steady but herky-jerky beats that relentlessly behaved as hooks. It’s drumming that sounds programmed, that’s deeply attuned to the actual effect of each part of the kit, and for the duration of the set Cartwright was really dancing on his stool with drum-machine-like proficiency and angularity — floor tom consistently on the 4 only type shit, or hitting the closed-hi-hat in a pattern taken straight from Chic’s “Le Freak.” Unusual and attention-grabbing choices that nevertheless unfailingly served the songs, a kind of strict fun, like in "Haveluck Country" where the main beat is just a boom-snick of kick and snare and he kept alternating hands for the snare hits, just for fun, while Stidworthy supplied anxious, pushy triplets. (Also: something about watching Cartwright play reminded me of the eyes-darting focus and alert attention of watching someone juggle.)
This band plays cool, tight, wound-up attitude music. Rather than give it a name, let’s give it way too many: unexpected-and-dramatic-chord-changes-core, B-section-changing-to-an-unrelated-minor-key-core, melodic-Peter-Hook-bass-core, relentless-downbeats-and-odd-meter-core, consecutive-upbeat-core, four-melodies-at-a-time-sculpture-core, downtown-city-at-night-invigorated-by-streetlights-and-feeling-the-possibility-core. How could you not get your energy back from that? If only you could charge up and store the energy of a great band for when the power’s out, Cola could keep KFN's lights on for a year and change.
