Today’s song is “Holy Roller” by The Blank Tapes. This song is off their LP Vacation. The Blank Tapes is made up of 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 records on his trusty home eight-track. 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.
In SF, Adams continued on this DIY path, with a rotating cast of backing members for The Blank Tapes live band and a string of self-recorded, self-illustrated, and self-released albums, all accompanied by self-booked tours. By 2010, this approach was paying off, with a pair of 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 Record’s Weiner Dog Benefit comp, doing his utmost to help a little puppy pay a vet bill.
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 and Burger Records, who released a Blank Tapes full-length in 2012. The next step is 2013’s Vacation LP (releasing via Oakland’s Antenna Farm Records), the first-ever full Blank Tapes album recorded somewhere besides Adams’ home studio. Ever since the birth of The Blank Tapes in 2003, Adams has figured out the classic part of classic rock—the kind of songs that feel like they’ve always been there, 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.
Listen below and for more information check out their official website, Facebook, and Twitter pages.
Catch The Blank Tapes on tour from “Coast To Coast”:
05.23.13 – Oakland, CA @ The New Parish
05.24.13 – San Jose, CA @ Cafe Stritch
05.25.13 – Leggett, CA @ Hickey Fest
05.27.13 – Pacifica, CA @ Winter’s Tavern
05.29.13 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
05.30.13 – San Diego, CA @ The Void
05.31.13 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Satellite (Album Release Party!)
06.04.13 – Phoenix. AZ @ the Trunk Space
06.06.13 – Houston, TX @ Fitzgerald’s
06.07.13 – Tulsa, OK @ The Vanguard
06.08.13 – Dallas, TX @ Bryan Street Tavern
06.09.13 – Austin, TX @ The Mohawk
06.11.13 – Kansas City, MO @ The Riot Room
06.12.13 – Chicago, IL @ Schuba’s
06.13.13 – Detroit, MI @ Garden Bowl
06.14.13 – TBA
06.15.13 – Toronto, ON @ NXNE at The Cameron House
06.17.13 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Wonder Bar
06.18.13 – Brooklyn, NY @ Union Pool
06.19.13 – Brooklyn, NY @ Knitting Factory
06.20.13 – Philadelphia, PA @ North Star Bar
06.21.13 – Arlington, VA @ IOTA
06.22.13 – Raleigh, NC @ The Pour House
06.23.13 – Asheville, NC @ The Double Crown
06.25.13 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
06.26.13 – Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
06.28.13 – Des Moines, IA @ Vaudeville Mews
06.29.13 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
06.30.13 – Denver, CO @ Hi-Dive
07.01.13 – Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
07.02.13 – Reno, NV @ Chapel Tavern
07.05.13 – Santa Cruz, CA @ The Crepe Place