Presented byAmoeba and Converse Rubber Tracks are proud to present Tennis System! Join us for a live set and signing of their album, Technicolour Blind. Get a FREE split 7' of Tennis System & So Many Wizards at this very special in-store performance, only while supplies last.Tennis System's new album, Technicolour Blind is out now on PaperCup Music and you can also catch them live at Jewels Catch One on January 31st.' Warmly distorted West Coast anthems' - SpinBio:Tennis System have thundered their way through their adopted city with a reverb-drenched ferocity that has, in short order, made the East Coast transplants the city’s band to watch.Tennis System are masters of unhinged, lo-fi psychedelia, laced with the inescapably pop DNA of Jesus and Mary Chain, Nirvana and Ride. Behind the sweat-drenched performances, behind the Orange amps and squalling anthems is a coolly leather-clad trio, composed of front man Matty Taylor, drummer Hector Gomez, and bassist Zach Bilson.
Arriving at the current lineup, however, was spirit quest that took Tennis System from one coast to the other: It was in gritty Washington, D.C. That a young Taylor steeped like tea in the music of Fugazi and Bad Brains, Black Tambourine and Nation of Ulysses. He decamped for Los Angeles, where denizens Gomez and Bilson joined the band, propelling the band forward as a full-fledged L.A.
Black Tambourine Complete Rare
These days, everybody seems to be getting back together. Whether it’s something in the air, this current generation’s infatuation with yesteryear (late 80s/early 90s reboot, now with less ), current project purgatory, reconciliation of feuding members, or boredom, there is little to indicate exactly why everyone is giving their old projects a second (or third) go.
Maybe it’s for money; maybe it’s a way to reinsert their place in history — the case varies from band to band.None of these reasons really fit the recent Black Tambourine reunion and recording of OneTwoThreeFour, a four-song double 7-inch of Ramones covers. All members of the band have tended to downplay their role in both noise pop’s and twee pop’s history. They played very few shows during their first time as a band and made very few recordings. They called it quits rather ambivalently and unremarkably. Yet despite all this, they’ve been cited as an influence by bands like Vivian Girls, Dum Dum Girls, and The Crystal Stilts. They’ve been placed by critics into twee pop’s canon alongside Tiger Trap and Beat Happening. The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart absorbed their twee-est aspects so densely that it garnered them a spot on Black Tambourine member Mike Schulman’s label (Slumberland) and a mixdown on their first record from another Tambouriner, Archie Moore.
Black Tambourine’s sound, a furious wall of noise juxtaposing the sweetest of pop sentiments (made indelibly so by vocalists Pam Berry’s reverb-y, sweetly-buried vocals), as well as their blend of influences, clicked into later consciousnesses. Still, there’s been much reluctance for any member to either admit this or embrace their historical place. As guitarist Brian Nelson (who also played in DC bands Velocity Girl and Whorl during that early-90s timeframe) said in an:It’s very flattering to think that we are — at least in the conscious of the critics, if not the bands — part of the stepping stones along the way. Although I definitely think that a lot of those bands are more influenced by the same people we were, rather than by Black Tambourine.
We share the same aesthetic. I don’t necessarily think that we were some pivotal groupAlthough the above could be accurate (as it’s obvious that Dum Dum Girls are as enamored with girl-group doo-wop as Black Tambourine were), the members of Black Tambourine seem to downplay what exactly influenced these bands. One of Black Tambourine’s most remarkable abilities was how they channeled their influences. Their songs can be easily picked apart for their love of The Jesus and Mary Chain, the C86 set, the early Motown thread, and a band they shared with their D.C. Punk counterparts (to separating degrees): The Ramones.So what is there to add to this Black Tambourine growth with their semi-reunion OneTwoThreeFour some 20 years later after the band called it quits? Not much other than to restate why people find this band so incredible.
Their sound is much more unique than the respective bands that other Black Tambourine members were involved in, a combination of what was the poppy-ness of Velocity Girl and the noise wall of Whorl. Their signifying sound translates the songs and spirit of The Ramones better than any dogmatic punk rendition could. Not only that, but they specifically picked the love songs out of The Ramones’ early catalog, which makes more sense considering where they’ve been critically placed.
“I Want You Around” is bombast, but still a love song, and works much better than something like “Beat On The Brat” or “Pet Cemetery” would.Maybe one could say the same of The Ramones that Black Tambourine seem to consider of themselves: that their influence extended more out of the influences that made The Ramones than The Ramones themselves. But that would be silly, like saying that the guitar influenced music more than the people who played it, understating the importance of execution.