Tapes ‘n’ Tapes
Orlando, Fl • Oct. 26, 2006
Jen Cray
[[Tapes ‘n’ Tapes]]
A quick rush down the block, straight from The Casualties show, and I arrived into the much more spacious confines of The Social for Minesota’s Tapes ‘n’ Tapes. It was a completely opposite vibe from the madness of the punk show, and I welcomed the more relaxed atmosphere of an Indie Rock crowd.
Starting earlier than scheduled (“Do you want us to start now, or in 15 minutes?” the band asked the crowd after setting up.), T ‘n’ T opened with “Just Drums” and played through pretty much every tune on their debut release, The Loon. Compare them to Pavement all you want, but what I really hear in their complex song structures, nonconformist vocals and driving beats is the Pixies. The band’s irresistible songs (the spaghetti western rockabilly of “Insistor,” the sexy and chaotic rhythms and ah-oooh-ooh-ooh lyrics of “Crazy Eights”) are worlds better live than on disc. The highlight for me was when the quiet keyboardist, Matt Kretzmann, busted out a tuba on one of the greatest songs of the past year, “Cowbell.” A song so catchy I had to resist the urge to scream out “More Cowbell!” when it ended!
[[Tapes ‘n’ Tapes2]]
The set is short (one album’s worth of music, ya know), but satiates my thirst for good Indie Rock. “Good” in the sense of meeting the bar set by bands of Alternative’s past, before the saturation of the underground marketplace, when you didn’t have to sift through mountains of shit to find a diamond. Tapes ‘n’ Tapes bring me hope for a genre that can very easily become mundane, or at least repetitive.
To see more photos of this, and other show, go to [www.jencray.com](http://www.jencray.com/bands_live.htm).
