Tapes 'N Tapes at the Fillmore in San Francisco on Saturday.
The recent release of Tapes 'N Tapes' second full-length album, Walk if Off, met with lukewarm reviews from critics but their fans don't seem to have gotten the memo. The band continues to build a name for itself with solid, kinetic performances as they finish up their U.S. tour and prepare for Europe.
"Music is so subjective," says singer and guitar player Josh Grier, "everybody hears it differently. If I took everything that was ever written or said about us to heart and was like, 'Oh they're right, we just can't do it right,' I'd go crazy and it wouldn't be any fun for me anymore."
Based in Minnesota, Tapes was a classic example of what has become a common story: After a few key blogs started hyping the band's first independently-produced album, their careers were put into hyperdrive almost overnight. They now seem to be weathering a bit of a critical backlash on top of the standard stigma of the sophmore album slump. In their galvanizing live shows, however, Tapes prove that the accusations of clumsy rip-offs and thin song-writing are based more on misguided expectations rather than the band's music.
The excitement of Grier's performance is all the more surprising given his geeky background. When not touring, he works in a cube as a data analyst and helps build the band's website, including a homebrewed interface for remixing their songs online. He majored in Math, and plans to return to grad school after his music career.
"I was really into number theory," says Grier, "and when you got into that realm of things I definitely had my mind blown on many occasions. I was like, how is this working? What are we even talking about? This is crazy. But you have to stop questioning it. You have to be like, 'if I can write a proof for it then it's true and I can't think too hard about how I got from point A to point B or else I'll just get really confused and doubt everything.'"
The same might be said for Tapes 'N Tapes' songs. Don't question how or why, just enjoy.
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