INDY'S WEEKLY ALTERNATIVE NEWSPAPER HIGHLIGHTING ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

Tapes ’n’ Tapes, Win with Willard, The Broderick

When Tapes ’n’ Tapes burst onto the indie rock scene in 2006 on the strength of glowing coverage from influential blogs like Gorilla Vs. Bear and a positive review from Pitchforkmedia.com, they helped legitimize the growing power of music blogs.
“I can never discount the effect that blogs have had on us,” Tapes ’n’ Tapes frontman Josh Grier said. “When nobody had heard of us, they were the only people who were actually writing about us.
Lost in most stories about the band’s success was the strength of their debut.
The Loon, a delirious mix of essentially two influences — Pavement and The Pixies — didn’t earn many points for originality. It succeeded, instead, on the strength of its songs, particularly the slow-burning “Manitoba” and the frenzied “Insistor.”
For their second album, the band went into the studio looking to embolden their sound. They hired former Mercury Rev bassist and Flaming Lips producer Dave Fridmann, whose expansive, open production style helped liberate fellow indie blog darlings Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah’s sound.
Frontman Josh Grier felt the change was needed. With The Loon, the singer felt the rushed, self-recorded process sometimes hindered the album. But under Fridmann’s direction, the band took their time.
“Recording with Dave, we have this huge studio,” Grier said. “We record live and we can get Jeremy’s drums to sound what they sound like live.”
Three months after the release of Walk It Off, the band is done with the bulk of the support behind the album (their upcoming Indianapolis stop comes during a short one-week jaunt across the United States).
Next up, the band will begin work on a follow-up.
“We haven’t figured out what it’s going to sound like,” Grier said.