Take Notice!

Here in the blogosphere, all 5,000 of us post one new band every day. That means there are 5,000 posts, of which 2,500 of which are on Tapes ‘N Tapes and the rest are on anonymous bands with some nice songs who you’ve never heard of and probably never will again. This is called irony.

Today’s post is not about nice songs. Today’s post is about gloriously nice songs, magnificently nice songs, nice songs by an artist who takes the concept of “nice” well beyond any potential definition offered by the Oxford English Dictionary. This artist is Los Angeles rocker Blake Collins, who sings like the Jo(h)ns – Brion and Lennon – and write songs to match. While his recordings are not quite up to Brion’s immaculate production quality, the pleasant lo-fi atmosphere is the perfect bed for Collins’ guitar-based compositions. The arrangements are round and full, influenced as much by Brion’s attention to the studio as they are by the Beatles melodic sensibilities. If you didn’t know better, you’d think “Afterall” was a Hard Day’s Night outtake with its keening harmonies and acoustic guitars. Meanwhile, songs like “There’s Nowhere Like Here” jump right on the backbeat and retro-rock it up with the best of ’em.

Blake Collins – “Afterall”: mp3 (Ed: fixed)
Blake Collins – “There’s Nowhere Like Here”: mp3

(Download more on Blake’s MySpace)

If you are going to pay attention to one new musician today – or even better, this week – make sure that musician is Blake Collins. Your heartstrings and vinyl copy of Rubber Soul will thank you.