Mission Mission

OTR hasn’t toured in like 10 years, but chateau gonflable they’re back, at the Chapel! And Rocky’s band Turqouiz Noiz is opening!

RSVP and invite your friends!

By Valerie Luu / Photos by Ruchita Lalmalani

I knew nothing about Tennis before going to their show on a Tuesday night at The Chapel.

All I had was this memory: listening to “Young and Old,” their sophomore album released in 2012, which was on heavy rotation at Reveille Coffee in North Beach, where I would go for a pot of tea and to chat with my cafe crushes.

Their song “It All Feels the Same” reminds me of continuing that soundtrack as I put on headphones after leaving the cafe. I’d skate down Montgomery toboggan gonflable Street while the fog lifted and the sun filtered through skyscrapers and commuters emerged from BART with freshly ironed clothes and washed hair.

When I hear that song, I think about what a luxury it was to have all that time to banter with baristas, to push up Howard Street to the Mission and to witness the morning sunrise. Where have those days gone?

I was curious what memories Tennis holds for other people, so I went into the show with this question: “Is there a Tennis song or album that reminds you of certain time in your life?”

Liz O’ Neal, 30, was the first person I spoke to. She was holding down a spot in front of the stage with her friend Hanna Steinberg, 29.

“How would you describe their music?” I asked, realizing that I hadn’t thought about how to classify their sound up until that point. “It’s dreamy, sexy rock,” she said. “It makes you want to go to the beach.”

Beaches and boats are a big part of the band’s mythology. Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, the husband-and-wife duo of Tennis, met in a philosophy class at the University of Colorado, Denver. After graduation, they took sail for half a year along the Atlantic Coast. “Cape Dory,” their debut album, was written on their trip and is a diary of the places they visited — Maryland, South Carolina and Florida.

For O’ Neal, “Marathon” brings back memories of her sailing trip in Greece. “We hired this old sea captain, who looked like a sexy dad from ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding.’ He took us to all these tiny Greek islands for a week,” she said. “It reminds me of being happy and carefree.”

I had recently come back from island hopping in the Cyclades, the group of Greek islands known for their whitewashed and blue domed buildings, so I was able to imagine how “Cape Dory” could be a perfect soundtrack to hanging out on a boat, grilling fish on the secluded beaches and feeling your cares dissolve away in the saltwater and Mediterranean sun.

For others, the songs are less about actual memories and more about a image.

For Serratia Krank, 22, “Baby Don’t Believe,” from Tennis’ most recent album, is a love song from a “wingman’s perspective.”

“When I hear the song, I see a guy with flowers at a woman’s window,” she said. “Or a guy in the back of a crowd watching his woman playing on stage. The crowd is going wild for her, but he doesn’t mind. He’s there for her.”

To Krank, an inspiring filmmaker, the song is about someone rooting on the sidelines — even if it’s yourself. Sometimes she’ll listen to the song while she looks at herself in the mirror. “I’m your biggest fan,” she says to herself, becoming the person in the crowd.

Her friend Jamie Banks, 24, said “10 Minutes 10 Years” resonates with him. “I think about their relationship,” he said of the married musicians. “If I ever wanted a relationship I would want to be like theirs.”

With that, the show started. Moore came out in a silver sequined dress and sat at a piano across from Riley, who was on guitar. Without speaking, they opened with “10 Minutes 10 Years,” blue lights illuminating her blonde afro.

Their current acoustic tour was inspired by an experience they had opening for Father John Misty. At one of his shows, he spontaneously went onstage without his band and played an unplugged set. “I was shocked that it was my favorite [part of the tour],” Moore said.

That inspired Tennis to strip embark on their “Solo in Stereo” tour with just the two of them — which required the couple to do things outside their comfort zones — for Moore it was playing the guitar and Riley, the drums.

The aim was a more raw, stripped down version that sounds closer to their demos. “It’s the most minimal, just like how we wrote it,” she said. “It’s four chords and the truth.”

In trying to be minimalist, Moore realized her true nature. “Five minutes later, I found myself with five pianos and 20 drum machines,” she laughed. “Turns out I’m a maximalist — I tried to bring it down to zero and ended up with an afro and a 100 percent sequined dress.”

In addition to the acoustic set, the stage design also made me feel like we were in their home recording studio. On stage at The Chapel was an upholstered green bench, vanilla shag rug and a side table with a velvet rose tablecloth which sat unused until “Island Music,” the last song on “Yours Conditionally” and the closing song of the night. Moore took a seat on the table and pressed a button, which turned it into a rotating pedestal.

Before the show started, I overheard Jamie Banks making a bet with Serratia Krank: “For every song you don’t dance to, you owe me a dollar,” he said. After Tennis finished “Island Music” and the house lights turned on, I turned to the two friends and asked if they had danced to every song.

“I did,” said Krank. As for Banks, he was coming out of a haze. “I didn’t dance to the last song,” he said. “I was so stunned by her beauty.”

As was I. “Island Music” now holds that image of Moore spinning onstage looking and sounding ethereal as she sang the lyrics “through the living and breathing and dreaming / like a daze” with tropical guitar sounds looping in the background. It was a magical ending, something out of a ’70s daydream.

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Thanks to The Chapel, Allan Hough, and Tennis for the lovely, memorable show.

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Valerie Luu chases grandmas for Chinatown Pretty and hustles at Rice Paper Scissors. She’s probably listened to “10 Minutes 10 Years” a hundred times.

Ruchita Lalmalani is a portrait and concert photographer. She’s available for prints, press and shoots at electric.spaceinvader@gmail.com.

[Editor's note: The Sadies are playing at the Chapel on Sunday afternoon and they are the BEST! Thanks Val!!!]

Here’s the deal:

CLAMPED DOWN/PUMPED UP
A Night of ’70s & ’80s toboggan aquatique gonflable Punk + New Wave

• SPACE FORCE ’77 live debut!
• DJ Nick Pal (Pal Family Records, BFF.fm, KALX)
• DJ Nutzeffekt (Hard-Boiled Babes, American Tripps, KDVS)

$3 before 8pm
$5 after 8pm

RSVP and invite your friends!

It’s at the Chapel and here’s the deal:

Celebrating the 45th anniversary of Grammy winning dub & reggae pioneer Lee “Scratch” Perry’s landmark 1973 parcours obstacle gonflable album “Blackboard Jungle Dub”, the world’s first dub album, Scratch, now 82 years young, will embark on a tour across North America performing his studio masterpiece live in its entirety for the first time, aided by the technology of NYC’s Subatomic Sound System, his hybrid band of new school electronics and veteran Jamaican musicians from the Black Ark era recordings.

RSVP and invite your friends here. Get tickets and more info here.

This year’s Treasure Island Music Festival takes place across the bay at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, amongst the Port of Oakland’s iconic bigass cranes. Here’s what the view will be like probably:

The lineup is stacked with a tente gonflable mess of our favorite Australians: Tame Impala, Courtney Barnett, and Alex Cameron (who we first discovered in the Mission opening for Thee Oh Sees a few years back). Here’s the whole thing, organized by day:

Transportation works thusly: take BART to West Oakland and hop on a special free shuttle.

Lots more info here. Pick up your tickets at the gate, or online here.

[Photo by Julean]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUdyuKaGQd4

The first time I heard that was on the radio in a rental car in traffic in Atlanta, and everybody in the car was like WHAAAAAAT IS THIS?????

Well it’s Alice Merton! Here’s the deal:

Platinum-selling English born, German-based singer-songwriter Alice Merton releases her most commercial and exciting single to date with ‘Why So Serious’, along with intriguing official video taken from her upcoming and much-anticipated debut album ‘Mint’ out in Jan. 2019 via Mom + Pop Music (Pre-Orders 21st Sept.).

After rising to fame two years ago in 2016 with her explosive debut single ‘No Roots’ (Mom + Pop), written about her constant moving homes as a child becoming such as huge debut, it’s safe to say it’s been a whirlwind for Alice Merton with 124 Million YouTube hits and millions of views up to date. With an early mission statement to perform and write music she has a passion for, to be an artist she’s proud of and to keep an Independent way of thinking, she took things into her own hands and started Paper Plane Records Int. with her best friend and manager Paul and together formed some huge plans.

Can’t wait. Show is 8pm this Thursday at August Hall. More info and tickets here.

Here’s the new single:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Fvy5h38KI

First up it’s the Scientists — on their first ever US tour! From the tour announcement:

With a sound that was swampy, primal and modern-urban all at once – as much in the tradition of rock and roll and punk rock as it was a rejection of those things, the Scientists’ formula was as universal as it was specific to their own experience. They were about what it was like to be young and living in modern times in an Australian urban/suburban environment. The themes of getting wasted on alcohol and drugs, driving round in hotted up cars, being trapped in crap jobs and paranoia were their subject matter.

CHeckit:

More info and tickets here. (Ty Segall is one of the opening acts btw.)

Next up is the Church. It’s on a Monday night, sure, but here’s all you need to know:

And guess what: they’re on tour celebrating the 30th anniversary of the album that legendary song is on, what more do you need to know?

More info and tickets here. Big thanks to the Chapel for hosting all these great shows!

P.S. The Aussie onslaught continues at the Treasure Island Music Festival in a couple weeks! More on that soon!

Eleanor spent the summer in Greece a couple years back and came away with some good ideas:

After a month in Athens I asked my friend, the Greek musician Σtella, “What’s one thing I have to do before I leave?” After some long and careful consideration she smiled and said, “you have to go to Rebound. It’s a time warp; kind of an 80s goth disco where everyone does the chicken dance; you’ll love it… but it’s only open on Saturdays after 3:00 AM.” Rebound proved to be a revelation in terms of finding the sound and energy for my fourth album. The club was very dark and despite the no smoking signs, like everywhere in Athens, it was very smoky. The “chicken dance” Stella mentioned was a solitary one. I copied the slouchy strut, moving back and forth in line, swinging my arms in time to the music that at first sounded like Joy Division or maybe The Cure, but never revealed itself– one could only assume it to be knock-off by an unknown Baltic band. It was alienating and exhilarating. “In Between Stars” is an attempt at a song you could hear at Rebound. It’s a dark and disorienting; my warped version of 80s goth disco.

Have a listen:

The opener Pill sounds pretty good too. Show is this Wednesday night at the Chapel, 8pm; get tix and more info here.

[Photo via Eleanor on Instagram]

Here’s their latest:

8pm tonight at the Chapel! Tix and info here.

….and an oldie:

Nothing against Make-Out Room at all, but I figured it’s worth noting that he’s played Make-Out Room multiple times a year for at least the last 15 years I can remember — but very very rarely anywhere else in the neighborhood. Thursday night he plays the Chapel, with Tommy Larkins on drums of course.

Get tickets and more info here.

Here’s a recording of Talking Heads covering “Pablo Picasso” a long time ago:

[Original photo by Night Fog Reader (RIP)]