Reminder: Eight is Enough Benefit Concert

Times via More Cowbell:

SKOAL KODIAK (1:15AM)
STNNNG (12:30AM)
POS (11:45PM)
LOW (10:30PM)
DOSH (9:30PM)
KILL THE VULTURES (8:45PM)
TAPE N TAPE (JOSH GRIER AND JEREMY HANSEN OF TAPES N TAPES) (8:00PM)

Tickets are sold-out, but if you bumrush the show, you might be able to get them at the door.

Tapes N Tapes Announce Summer Tour Dates, Play NPR's "World Cafe"

The Minneapolis quartet, who are hopefully licking their wounds and are keeping on ticking after the response that Walk It Off got in the blogosphere and in print (though the Minneapolis-Star Tribune listed it as one of the best local releases of the year), have announced more summer tour dates in support of the LP. One of those dates happens to be a fundraiser for Barack Obama, the details of which you can read here.

7/19 san francisco, ca @download festival
7/20 los angles, ca @ download festival
8/5 baltimore, ma @ 8X10,
8/7 brooklyn, ny @ mccarren pool w/the black keys,
8/8 pittsburgh, pa @ club cafe,
8/9 indianapolis, in @ radio radio,
8/14 davenport, ia @ the redstone room,
8/15 madison, wi @ the majectic theater,
8/16 chicago, il @ The Raven at Chase Park,
8/27 st paul, mn @ turf club ** Josh and Jeremy will be playing a special acoustic set at the “EIGHT IS ENOUGH: THE CONCERT TO END OUR LONG, NATIONAL NIGHTMARE” fundraiser for Barack Obama
8/31 seattle, wa @ bumbershoot

Additionally, the band recently played NPR's "World Cafe" program. Listen to their segment here.

Tapes N' Tapes MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

Stream New Albums From Tapes N Tapes, Man Man, and The Breeders, All In Their Entirety

Download: Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"
Download: The Breeders - "Bang On"
Download: Man Man - "Top Drawer"

With all of the talk surrounding the political significance of Super Tuesdays in the past few months or so, it might be easy to forget that indie-fans have their own Super Tuesdays to anticipate. Namely, this coming Tuesday, April the 8th, will see the release of not one, not two, but five--Three, Sir!--um, three of indie-rock's most highly anticipated albums of the year. First off is MPLS's very own Tapes N Tapes, who are following their highly acclaimed debut The Loon with Walk It Off; The Breeders, who are releasing their first album in six years, Mountain Battles; and Man Man, who are also following up their own highly acclaimed 2006 release with a record called Rabbit Habbits, their third.

What's an indie-fan/cheap bastard to do?

Why, when life gives you lemons, you...stream...those albums...online...?

Yes, yes, behold the cluttered, visual clusterfuck glory known as MySpace Pages. Two of the three can be streamed at the band's MySpace homes: those would be Mountain Battles and Rabbit Habbits, respectively.

Stream Rabbit Habbits here
Stream Mountain Battles here

As for Walk It Off, head over to a little thing called MTV!, where you can hear all of the tracks for the price of zip-point-shit.

Stream Walk It Off here

All three records come out this Tuesday, the 8th.

Man Man MySpace Page
The Breeders MySpace Page
Tapes N Tapes MySpace Page

Read Rolling Stone's take on Walk It Off here.

(Jonathan Graef)

Stream Tapes N Tapes Walk It Off In Its Entirety For 24 Hours

Download: Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"

Tapes N Tapes' second album,Walk It Off is one of the most highly anticipated albums of the spring. How badly do you want to hear it? Pretty badly, don't you? Well, for 24 hours, you have your chance to see if the MPLS-quartet have beat the sophomore slump. Go to this website to hear all of Walk It Off. Then come back to MFR and leave a comment about what you thought. Sounds good? Sure it does.

Walk It Off is out on April 8th.

(Jonathan Graef)

The AV Club Reviews Secret Tapes N Tapes Show

(via the A.V. Club)

Download: Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"
Download: Vampire Hands - "Wolf Skin Pose" (Live at the 7th Street Entry via Schedule Two)
Download: The Blind Shake - "Calling All Horses"


The fine folk over at the AV Club posted a review a few days ago of the secret Tapes N Tapes show at the Turf Club. Here's what writer Christopher Bahn had to say about the show:

the new Tapes songs are pretty clearly moving somewhat away from the quirky jangliness of The Loon toward a more intense, harder-rocking sound. I'm not sure if that's a good thing; I didn't hear anything that grabbed me with the immediacy of "Insistor" or "Cowbell" from The Loon. But there were still a lot of interesting angles in what I heard, and I'm guessing that hearing the disc itself will bring that out even further; Tapes have always been a better-in-the-studio band for me.

Additionally, Bahn had some kind words for Minneapolis bands VIP and Harems Vampire Hands and The Blind Shake, whom he called his "favorite Minneapolis bands"

Vampire Hands have a heavy psychedelic vibe, a little like Syd Barrett backed by the Stooges, with dual vocalists trading off between a spacey falsetto and a punky rasp, and a pair of drummers that both attack with relentless energy....The Blind Shake are a punk power trio fronted by two brothers, Jim and Mike Blaha. They made a terrific collaborative record with criminally unknown underground guitarist Michael Yonkers last year called Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons. On their own, they create a furious, squalling wall of noise.

Read the rest of the write-up here.

Tapes N Tapes MySpace Page
Vampire Hands MySpace Page
The Blind Shake MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)

The Top Ten Tracks On Elbo.Ws Reviewed In 50 Words Or Less: Extra Super Bonus Edition

Bi-monthly, MFR reviews the Top Ten tracks on music-blog aggregator Elbo.WS in 50 words or less. For the weeks of February 1st through February 18th (plus a few more songs due to the fact that it's been a while - when you're unemployed, job search takes precedence over everything else), here are the ten most popular songs:

1. Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"

Download: Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"

A funky, yet mournful, minor-seventh guitar riff propels "Hang Them All" to an almost impossibly energetic start. An uncomfortable anxiety permeates the song but thank goodness we have the organ-fueled chorus to relieve our stress. By the time it’s done, one can't help but feel the experience was a little anti-climatic. Please don’t hang me.

Grade: B-


2. Amp Live - "Video Tapez" (ft. Del The Funky Homosapien)

Download: Amp Live - "Video Tapez" (ft. Del The Funky Homosapien)"

By directly sampling, and syncopating, both the piano and vocal line from "Videotapes", the AmpLive remix doesn't really do anything completely new or unexpected with Thom's favorite track, but, once again, Del's singular flow proves to be irresistible.

Grade: B

3. The Grand Archive - "Torn Blue Foam Coach"

Download: The Grand Archives - "Tom Blue Foam Couch"

Like Broken Social Scene (or Matt Brooke's previous ensemble, Band of Horses) playing a 50s themed prom night, The Grand Archives bring layers of ethereal guitar tones and brass to give texture to what is otherwise just another classic pop chord progression. It's by no means revelatory, but there's a reason why this stuff is, to a degree, infectious.

Grade: B-

4. Man Man - "Top Drawer"

Download: Man Man - "Top Drawer"

Man Man never struck me as a band that would strut its stuff down the musical catwalk, but "Top Drawer" proves us all wrong. That said, the slinkly, sultry Tom Waits-esque groove remains too stagnant and thus becomes a little monotonous. Still, one can't help but sing along to the howls and calls.

Grade: B

5. British Sea Power - "Waving Flags"

Download: British Sea Power - "Waving Flags"

When you, as a band, start out at ten, it's hard to be able to build to an anthemic exultation, but somehow British Sea Power manage to accomplish that feat quite nicely, using a whole lot of reverb-and-chorus heavy guitars in the process. The title may sound nationalistic, but intoxication is a nation-state ruled equally by almost everyone. "Welcome in", the band says. Don't mind if I do.

Grade: A-

6. The Dodos - "Fools"

If Visiter, the upcoming second album from San Franciscans The Dodos, isn't one of the best albums of the year, I will eat my own hat. "Fools" is so great that it inevitably makes one out of the listener. Try not to dance around in blissed-out merriment. It simply cannot be done.

Grade: A

7. Throw Me The Statue - "About To Walk"

Download: Throw Me The Statue - "About To Walk"

MFR's very own soothsayer April Wright posted this back in November, but it's only now, with the release of their album, Moonbeams, that the band has started to receive attention. And rightfully so. The band's brand of folk-tronica is dreamy, but also grounded in bouncy, effervescent melodies.

Grade: B+

8. Basia Bulat - "In The Night"

Download: Basia Bulat - "In The Night"

While there's a hint of gospel influence in Basia Bulat's brand of folk-pop, there's precious little to rejoice about in her song "In The Night." Part of the reason is that while the song moves at a nice clip, the brisk tempo also prevents any sort of lasting enjoyment. The night's young. Why such a rush?

Grade: C


9. American Music Club - "All The Lost Souls Welcome You To San Francisco"


Download: American Music Club - "All The Lost Souls Welcome You To San Francisco"

Lying somewhere between vintage Al Green and Nashville Skyline-era Bob Dylan, the first track from AMC's second reunion LP is a perfectly pleasent, mellow bit of blue-eyed soul (though the bridge toward the end gives “Souls” some needed edge). Now that the lost souls have welcomed us, can we hang out at Cafe Du Nord?

Grade: B

10. The Raveonettes - "Dead Sound"

Download: The Raveonettes - "Dead Sound"

One of the many dreamy highlights from their best record yet, The Raveonettes don't really re-invent their sound with this second single from Lust Lust Lust. Instead, they perfect the boy-girl harmonies, white-noise, and fuzzed out guitars. No longer beholden to artificial constraints, the band has finally learned to use simplicity in a smart, compelling way.

Grade: A-

Bonus Tracks Galore

Here's some stuff we missed, in no real order:

1. Megafaun - "Lazy Suicide"

Download: Megafaun - "Lazy Suicide"

The bluegrass flavor is a nice foundation with which to work, particularly since so little bluegrass flavored tracks show up on Elbo.ws. charts. But ultimately, this is more of an intriguing experiment than an actually enjoyable song. Still, there are a lot of provocative elements, particularly toward the song's country-cum-post-rock conclusion.

Grade: B-

2. Vampire Weekend - "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"

Download: Vampire Weekend - "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa"

Like the motion picture Juno, Vampire Weekend often confuses cute with cloying ("Kwassa" beats you over the head with its own West-Afro indie-pop precociousness) but also manages to partly win over its audience by being genuinely clever and charming. That said, I roll my eyes every time I hear that Peter Gabriel couplet.

Grade: B-

3. Say Hi - "Northwestern Girls"

Download: Say Hi - "Northwestern Girls"

It goes without saying that any group who writes concept albums about vampires probably needs some desperate gains in the maturity department. It also goes without saying that, with its tasteful electronics, slow-burn dynamics and subdued vocals, Say Hi''s "Northwestern Girls" does the trick and then some.

Grade: B+

4. MGMT - "Time To Pretend"

Download: MGMT - "Time To Pretend"

MGMT's breezy, sunny, satirical blast of psychedelic synth-pop starts out with a ringing keyboard line before another, more sweet sounding line compliments. And thus begins the immaculately layering of "Time To Pretend", a track which combines New Wave and Rentals-style bass buzz to create a ridiculously hummable tune.

Grade: A-

5. The Helio Sequence - "Keep Your Eyes Ahead"

Download: The Helio Sequence - "Keep Your Eyes Ahead"

The Helio Sequence mine the same territory as fellow early post-punk spelunkors Interpol. The minor-key arpeggios and haunting keyboard lines seem to indicate a similar doom-and-gloom atmosphere as that New York band. However, the band also adds showgazer ambience and Beatles-esque vocals for much needed warmth. Sounds pretty average, but at least the ending is nicely warped.

Grade: C+

(Jonathan Graef)

Surprise! Tapes N' Tapes Tonight at the Turf Club

Download: Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"
Download: Vampire Hands - "Opium Typhoon"
Download: The Blind Shake - "Midnight Scream"


Tapes N Tapes sent this email out to their newsletter subscribers fifteen minutes ago, literally. It's a surprise show at the Turf Club!

Here be the details:

that's right kids, we're playing a show tonight (thursday 2/21) @ the turf club in st. paul. we can't tell you how excited we are. it's true that we're always talking about how excited we are about things, but we're REALLY excited about this show. it's with two of our favorite MSP bands, vampire hands and blind shake. and it's gonna rule! we hope you can come on down. we're gonna be playing all of "walk it off" (minus one song), and just straight rock-rock-rawkin!
be there or be square,
tapes 'n tapes

show details:
where: turf club, st paul, mn
when: tonight, 9pm
who: 21+
with:vampire hands and blind shake
how much: $5

I would assume that tickets are first come, first serve, so get there ASAP! Opening are Vampire Hands and Blind Shake, both of whom put on a raucous live show. This should be an excellent rawk show.

Tapes N Tapes MySpace Page
Vampire Hands MySpace Page
The Blind Shake MySpace Page

New Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"

Download: Tapes N Tapes - "Hang Them All"

For a band set to Walk It Off come April, the pace at which the Minneapolis-based Tapes N Tapes are working these days - whether its setting up secret London shows, conducting interviews with Pitchfork, or conquering the masses all over again with a massive spring tour - suggests a group that's operating at a full-speed sprint rather than a casual stroll.

But now that the band has released a new single, "Hang Them All", for its upcoming album, that already fast pace should become even faster. See for yourself whether or not Tapes N Tapes beat the sophomore slump by taking a listen to the single up at the top of the post.

Walk It Off will be released on April 8th.

Tapes N Tapes MySpace Page

(Jonathan Graef)