The Old Origins of A Young Tennis

Those lovely retro kids that make up Denver band Tennis are set to release their hugely anticipated sophomore effort Young and Old on Valentine's Day next year, again through Fat Possum Records. For their forthcoming album guitarist Patrick Riley, vocalist Aliana Moore and drummer James Barone headed to Nashville to work with The Black Keys’ Patrick Carney. These sessions were very successful, with Carney coming out gushing about the band. Yet today we can make up our own minds with first taste 'Origins' streaming below! It will be available on a clear blue 7" through Forest Family Records on December 6. Once again, I cant quite finger the exact ingredient that lifts these guys above most of their contemporaries - but 'Origins' hits the target, and makes Young and Old an early contender for best album of 2012...

Origins by tennisinc

Finding Musical Nuggets In This Denver Goldrush

This is an incredibly exciting notion - a festival run by three ace of base blogs! Pity its in Denver...too far away! The rad dudes from Tome To The Weather Machine, Magic Teepee and Speaker Snacks have united to present the first annual GOLDRUSH Music Festival, in two weeks' time, September 16th and 17th at the Hi-Dive Rock Club and Sputnik in Denver, Colorado. This two-day event will cover a wide, varied selection of musical styles from across North America, featuring rock, electronic, pop, and ambient from over 30 nationally renowned artists, headlined by Tennis, CVLTS and How To Dress Well. The Tome's Crawf and Ryan H., Magic Teepee's Ryan P., and Speaker Snacks' Jake Martin are all longtime friends and avid supporters of all things music. Each site has had a careful hand in picking out the artists performing this year, making the artist invitations/acceptances and pending performances extremely personal and sacred. These musicians have been obsessively listened to, worshipped, and then subsequently written about—and for good reason. Its a veritable who's who od SM-endorsed artists like Vitamins, Junior Low, Tjutjana, School Knights, Candy Claws, Seven Feathers Rainwater, Slow Magic, StaG, the Kevin Costner Suicide Pact, Steffaloo and Teen Daze, plus a shedload more, GOLDRUSH promises to be something special.

The guys put together this compilation to showcase the event, and its pretty spectacular. You can get tix for the event here! Its uber cheap and will be an amazing weekend, so get on board!!

Over the Tennis Courts And Far Away...

I resisted Tennis for so long. As you may have picked up over the inception of Sonic Masala, or even yesterday's Brilliant Colors post, the glut of bands that share this similar sound have jaded me somewhat - well, certain bands amongst the ranks (it's becoming a low blow to mention Dum Dum Girls, isnt it?). And the deliberate 80s yacht rock stylings of the duo and the cover art of Cape Dory (out earlier this year on Fat Possum) had me on my guard from the get go. Yet I needn't have worried - these guys have somehow condensed the woozy doo-wop summer warmth guitar pop formula into a winsome elixir of youth. The best part? There is little if any filler, which most bands of their ilk have found hard to avoid. New single off the album 'Take Me Somewhere' is a perfect case in point. (NB - yes, this has been around since November, but this is the OFFICIAL RELEASE, so there).

In support of Cape Dory, Tennis will also be embarking on a UK and European tour encompassing London’s Cargo. You lucky gits...

Tennis - Take Me Somewhere
Tennis - Is It True

No Slumbering On Brilliant Colors

San Francisco’s Brilliant Colors have been doing their thing, stuck in the middle of the sun drenched girl-fronted garage bands that harken back to the 60s. With the amount of bands plumbing the depths of this sound in the past few years, and especially seeing this year has had some take it to new heights, it could be easy to pass them by. Their debut Introducing was OK without being great, yet its in the smaller format that they have made more of a statement, especially with their split release alongside Belfast's brilliant Girls Names.

Now Brilliant Colors hit the studio again to create Again And Again. Ill be frank - I havent been hanging out for it. I do give most releases on Slumberland Records a look in though, so I will do the same here. And whilst 'Value Lines' doesnt blow me away, it is effective at what it does, so that's a win. Ive heard favourable things, and the love that I feel for the likes of Cults, Puro Instinct and Tennis (there are a few more here that have raised the bar considerably too) may wash over to this one. We'll wait and see...

Brilliant Colors - Value Lines

Friday Cover Up - How About A Four-Way High Five?

Yep Things are about to get REAL messy around here...


First we have the widely praised duo Tennis. Cape Dory (via Fat Possum) has been very successful, yet rather than rest on their laurels, the band now brings us 'Is It True,' a Brenda Lee cover. Alaina Moore explains why they chose the cover... "Brenda Lee has been a great source of inspiration for me. We stumbled across the song 'Is It True', a less popular single she recorded later in her career and loved it not just for her more mature, crackly voice, but for the randomly awesome inclusion of a very young Jimmy Page on electric guitar. The song is such a jam, we really enjoyed the chance to record it ourselves. Despite the limitations of recording it on a 4-track cassette, and then having to mix it in a pinch on an 11 year old lap top, that crashed regularly, all the parts we love are there."

Tennis - Is It True (Brenda Lee cover)


J. Irvin Dally's new limited-edition vinyl 7" Sun Room / Teething comes out in a week, and it promises that there is more to come from the man who brought the excellent Despistado EP to us last year. So, along with a taste of the 7", here is a recent coer he did of the classic Stones track 'Wild Horses'...

J Irvin Dally - Sun Room
J Irvin Dally - Wild Horses (Rolling Stones cover)


Crystal Antlers - how you keep playing with me! I slated the first taste off their upcoming LP, 'Summer Solstice', then totally dug the track 'Two Way Mirror'. Now here comes another lovely scuzzy number in the form of 'I Slept In An Arcade', the Black Randy & The Metrosquad cover, which can be found on a compilation called Beat LA. The compilation is the result of the efforts by Narnack Records founder Shahin Ewalt, along with Toddrick Spalding and Angel mendoza of Greatminds Records, to help out the victims of the horrific earthquake that destroyed the nation of Haiti at the beginning of the year. A plethora of current LA artists (who also included No Age, Boom Bip, Imaad Wasif and Lucky Dragons) covered songs written by alternative, punk and rock musicians of the past that helped to define the LA sound (other covers are of The Germs, Gun Club, X, Minutemen, The Urinals and The Doors). Proceeds from the compilation benefit Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the leading relief organizations working in Haiti. You can buy one here - as you can see it's a very worthwhile cause, and you get a lot out of it too!

Crystal Antlers - I Slept In An Arcade (Black Randy & The Metrosquad cover)


The "money shot" in this cover whorefest comes from Digital Leather - two posts in one day big guy! He is also an interesting musician when it comes to reinterpreting covers, as the below Jay Reatard song 'Hurts So Bad' attests. Im sure Jay (who was a close friend of Foree's) would love it, as I know you will too!

Digital Leather- I'm So Gone (Reatards cover) by digitalleather

Video Vacuum - Cults, Tennis, To Disappear, Alphacloud

Well, it's that time of year again. That time when its perfectly fine to get all primitive, to become blindly prejudiced, publicly drunk, incessantly biased and just a little bit violent.

Yep, its State Of Origin time.

If there are any SM readers out there that dont know what State Of Origin is, Im not going into it now. Ill wax lyrical for hours, so much has the spirit of the game and my inherent adherence to all things Maroon taken root. But seeing as I have a full day of work ahead of me, I need to settle down - and these four music videos might do the trick...

Cults are just about ruling the world right now, arent they? Im not going to say that they should lay claim to enslaving the earth just yet, but the duo sure do know their way around a pop song. They also know how to construct arresting visuals with their tunes. I could take 'Abducted' literally - it does have a certain Pied Piper element to it, ie that the more I watch/listen, the more I fall under their thrall - but it is Wednesday, the day I devote all to the golden calf that is Wally's statue. So, here's the clip...



Alphacloud, otherwise known as William Besson, has a certain level of Junip to him. He also seems to have a polygon-related skin disease. You should really get that sorted dude. Nothing a few beers and 80 minutes of hard-hitting, manly rugby league couldn't fix...



Tennis, oh how you taunt us with your hard to find moniker! Their Cape Dory record was nevertheless enough to make up for this...except for today. Tennis? Really? Sure, the French Open is on and its on clay and stuff and kinda exciting, but doesn't hold a candle to the glory that State Of Origin brings. Plus, if you hear a player groan in this game, its because they have been cut in half by 120 kilos of muscle, not just faked the most unattractive orgasm known to man whilst feathering a fuzzy green ball. Just sayin...



To Disappear is essentially a Canadian indie rock project influenced by the likes of The National and 90s noise rock. It is also an international act - one member from Ontaria, one member from Spain, one from Britain...and one from Australia, the guitarist Ben Sharples, who gave me this video for track 'To Be By Your Side.' Its a lovely song to be sure, but I cant imagine Ben playing this as he would be too busy glued to the screen in some godforsaken Aussie-themed bar in Canada, frothing his Fosters as he yells, "GO QUEENSLANDER!"...or some such. He probably won't, therefore for the next 24 hours we won't be friends. But this track is still lovely, and come Thursday morning the air will be cleared...



Im off to lace the boots on. And unless you're joining me...get back to work!

Vitamins For The Weather Machine

I was talking to Crawf over at Tome For The Weather Machine before the Xmas break, mainly riffing over how amazing Tjutjana's self-titled LP was, and he threw me this video from his own act, Vitamins. They've been rocking Denver for about three years, so are well versed in all things Tjutjana, as well as getting chummy with Woodsman. they have been playing with the likes of Tennis and Gauntlet Hair too, which is pretty rad. There is talk of a new release in the works, and they may be doing a vid with Rob Feulner (who's done some wicked vids for CFCF and Hobo Cubes) so keep tuned...

Liquid Crystals-Original Score by Vitamins and Shyman from Matthew Daniels on Vimeo.