Mystic Braves, The blank tapes

It's no wonder why The Zombies asked Mystic Braves to open their L.A. show last year. While the hometown favorites were barely even a blip on their respective parents' radars when Odessey and Oracle was released, the psych-steeped five-piece sounds like they stepped straight out of the '60s. And not in an obvious, someone's-been-studying-their Nuggets-comps-until-the-grooves-give-out sort of way, either. We're talking a richer, fuller plot of references (garage-borne greats like The Electric Prunes, The Chocolate Watchband and The Music Machine) that filter the band's hook-centric purple haze through robust organ rolls, runaway guitar riffs, heat-stroked horns and a rhythm section that can only be described as "restless".

Especially on Desert Island, a scrappy extension of the self-titled debut Mystic Braves dropped in 2013. From the ravenous opening remarks of "Bright Blue Day Haze"—the first song frontman Julian Ducatenzeiler wrote for the outfit, making it their mission statement in more ways than one—right on through the wild-eyed melodies of "Earthshake," the filler-free effort is more aggressive than their last album yet about as immediately accessible as vapor-trailed rock music gets these days. It's sunshine in a bottle, really, which can only be expected from a group with such deep California roots.

"The west coast has it all really—beaches, mountains, deserts, cities, suburbs," explains Ducatenzeiler, who's rounded out by drummer Cameron Gartung, guitarist Shane Stotsenberg, bassist Tony Malacara and organist/tambourinist Ignacio Gonzalez. "Our sound is merely a byproduct of the environments we grew up in and the experiences we had. We're not trying to deliberately channel '60s music, either; we simply write sensible pop songs from the heart with psychedelic textures and tones. It just comes natural to us."

THE BLANK TAPES is the moniker of Los Angeles & San Francisco based musician & artist, Matt Adams, who has produced over a dozen albums of 1960's inspired psychedelic-surf-pop-folk-rock on an old 8 track cassette tape recorder in various garages, basements, sheds & bedrooms across the California Coast. Lately he's been polishing up his sound in pro recording studios as can be heard on his latest 7" single "1000 Leather Tassels / Mr. Mister" released by VOLCOM & 2013's full length VACATION released by Antenna Farm Records/Burger Records. Along with his band mates, they've toured throughout America, Brazil, Europe, & Japan. Other releases have been on White Noise, 20-Sided Records, Curly Cassettes, Dome of Doom, and VOW Records. Matt is also the artist behind his band's posters & album covers.

"Evokes Belle and Sebastian, Pavement, and The Black Keys – in a San Fran coffeehouse (just like the old days)." – ROLLING STONE?

"'50s and '60s pop classics with ramshackle warmth." – SPIN

"Yoke a garage-pop sensibility to ferocious rock riffs." – THE NEW YORKER

"Perfectly classic sound." – SF BAY GUARDIAN

"Awesome every time." – LA WEEKLY

Bio by Chris Ziegler, 2013

The Blank Tapes is now and always has been Matt Adams, a soft-spoken kid from a Southern California suburb who learned to play practically every instrument a good garage band needs, and then started making beautifully idiosyncratic records on his trusty home eight-track because … well, why wait? When he first heard the Beatles and the Kinks, he knew he needed to make his own songs, too, and so in 2003 he did, with the kind of inspiration and confidence and personality you'd think have faded out in 1967. By the time he left his home in Orange County for San Francisco in 2005, he'd put dozens if not a hundred of his own songs on tape, all lovingly and painstakingly and perfectly recorded in a series of ever more modest bedrooms and sheds. The local press loved him and when he landed in the Bay Area, the press there loved him just as much, too. ("Somebody sign him, quick!" said Rolling Stone.)?

But the funny thing is this is all the ancient history of Blank Tapes now—or maybe just the prelude. Adams is the kind of guy who writes a song just as natural and as he wakes up everyday. He's got … maybe almost four hundred originals hovering inside his head, he says, and he remembers them all perfectly. He's got lost albums and unreleased albums and more albums for the future planned out to the last detail. He paints his own albums covers and posters—with talent enough that he worked for Mad Magazine!—and booked all his own tours and makes the show go on whether its him and a portable amp on a lonely bridge in Austin or him and eight other rock 'n' roll powerhouses cracking the stage in half.

In 2010, he got not one but two surprise smash hits in Brazil, leading to his first tour outside North America. He shared bills with sci-fi garage legends Thee Oh Sees and home-taper extraordinaire R. Stevie Moore in Europe. He provided much of the soundtrack to the cult surf film 'Stoked and Broke' and took a stripped-down Blank Tapes to Japan to tour with the film. And he custom-wrote a special song for Burger Records Weiner Dog Benefit comp, doing his utmost to help a little puppy pay a vet bill.?

Now he prepares to release his newest LP Vacation on Oakland's Antenna Farm Records, the rightful next step after 2010's Home Away From Home and a string of singles and cassette albums on Burger, White Noise, Dome of Doom, Curly Cassettes and 20 Sided Records. It's the first-ever full Blank Tapes album recorded somewhere besides Adams' trusty 8-track. Ever since the birth of the Blank Tapes, Adams has figured out the classic part of classic rock—the kind of songs that aren't so much written as revealed. And Adams lately gets his revelations while traveling, so Vacation is an album written on the road with a little nod to the rootless spirit of the actual On The Road. ?

His songs are alive with style and sentiment of immortals like Ray Davies and Robyn Hitchcock ("Earring") or Kris Kristofferson and Terry Allen ("Working," "Vacation") or even Lou Reed ("Pearl," written about girlfriend and Blank Tapes drummer Pearl Charles the night he met her) and Buddy Holly (the adorable bridge of "Coast to Coast") or even Os Mutantes on "Brazilia," a bossa-delic song inspired by Adams' informal park jam sessions on his Brazilian tour. With studio help from drummer Will Halsey and a series of bassists, Vacation is an everything-old-is-new-again album—a record chasing down timelessness in its own time. ?

Now relocated back to Los Angeles, Adams finds the music he's loved since that first borrowed guitar is now the new sound of Southern California, thanks to standard bearers like the Growlers, Nick Waterhouse—who played the same off-the-path bars as Blank Tapes, waaaaay back when—and Burger Records, who've already released an earlier Blank Tapes full-length. After a year of low-key shows, he's secured a spot with the Danny Rose booking agency and debuted what he calls the most fully realized version of the Blank Tapes yet—a lean and pristine trio with D.A. Humphrey on bass and Charles on back-to-basics Moe Tucker-style drums, with the kind of three-part harmonies the Wilson brothers used to love. There's a new energy, he says. For the longest time the Blank Tapes has just been him, writing and recording as time and circumstance allow. But now, after almost exactly ten years and a new album and a new line-up, the Blank Tapes have finally become what he's always wanted.?