Tennis - Cape Dory

Let's pretend the band Tennis is actually called The Tennis Balls, and that Cape Dory was actually released in the 60's as a set of 45's instead of a full length album in the 2010-2011 wave of the return-to-the-coast trend. There would be A-sides and B-sides, and if you've been picking up whatever free downloads you could find of Tennis songs throughout 2010, you probably already know and love all of the A-sides. In that case, the only new material Cape Dory offers is those B-sides, which we probably would have loved as much as Take Me Somewhere and Marathon if we had heard them first.


Cape Dory doesn't falter because it doesn't take any chances, instead choosing to remain directly in the middle of the kind of pop music that will always be that kind of pop music. As such, Cape Dory will only be talked about when it is being played, because there simply isn't much to say. It is a reminder of what the pop music formula used to be before rock and disco, before big hair and drum machines, before Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus.

Cape Dory will be good until something else comes along, at which point Tennis can either chalk up another adventure to remind us of what we would be hearing on the radio if this actually were the 60's, or fall into the obscurity of the occasional random play on iTunes' shuffle.

Tennis OR Enchantment Under the Sea Dance (Be There or Be Square) OR I'm a sucker for...

I saw the band Tennis at the Holocene last night.


It is kind of weird how people can just decide to make a band and launch into the music you must hear world from the very moment they hit the stop button on their recording device. Tennis is a perfect example of this. Thank you Deus Ex Hype Machina. This whole situation was highlighted even more by the fact that the band that opened, The Rainy States, has a couple of years of music making as well as 2 albums (I think) under their belt. Unfortunately, they seemed to suffer from the our-guitarist-takes-this-way-too-seriously problem which has plagued bands at least as far back as 1964 when The Oneders saw their 15 minutes of fame with their hit single, That Thing You Do.


(Sidenote: Regarding The Rainy States' set, I heard someone in the audience say, "I think their was an underlying theme of depression" which I thought was pretty funny.)

But, when you're good, you're good, and with some bands it doesn't take 3 albums before people start coming to your shows.

After what seemed like 15 minutes of adjusting the keyboard and microphone height for his 4 1/2 foot tall wife, Tennis played, and it was wonderful. I wish I could have seen them in Des Moines when Maid Marian played with them.

Although the show looked kind of like this:


It reminded me of this:


Or maybe this:


Or maybe this:


Or maybe all three.

I'm such a sucker for all of this ocean-drenched, reverb-packing nonsense that is getting mass produced these days, and I hate that I fall for it. It's kind of like that feeling you get when you realize you are craving a Snickers bar after watching a Snickers commercial.