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Music

Listen to Two New Tapehead Songs

The Rochester punk band made up of members of Brown Sugar and Rational Animals have a new 7’ and appearance at New York’s Alright.

Image: Rob Nuuja

Tapehead play my favourite kind of punk rock. Like a faster Dead Boys, it’s hardcore with a decidedly rockin’ 70s edge. It can get messy but it’s not total slop rock and comes with a good dose of humour. That probably doesn’t make much sense but a track like “(My Life) Shot on Video ” that we are premiering below isn’t meant to make a whole lot of sense.

Made up of members from Brown Sugar, Rational Animals, Love Pork, Ivy and Aaron and the Burrs, the band pretty much owns the Rochester, New York punk scene.

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With a new 7’ and an upcoming appearance at [New York’s Alright](https://www.facebook.com/events/1542916039296923/ t) that reign looks set to continue.

Noisey: So you feature members of the great Brown Sugar?
Cameron Dean: Yeah, Brandon played guitar in Brown Sugar. Unfortunately they're not playing anymore. Eddie who sang for The Shug lives in New York now and plays with Ivy who are one of my favorites from the city right now. Biff plays with a few different bands in Buffalo including Aaron & The Burrs and Blobs. Brandon, Rich and I all started jamming tunes that would become Tapehead songs around June 2013, around the time Brown Sugar and Rational Animals stopped playing. How does Tapehead differ from Brown Sugar and Rational Animals?
I guess a major difference for me is that I'm singing, and I played drums in Rational Animals. In terms of sound, it's kind of hard to explain. I was talking to someone a few weeks ago about Brandon's guitar playing, like if you isolated the guitars in every band he's ever played with it would all sound like one cohesive group, but with different members playing along with him in each group it takes on a completely different identity and a lot of the times ends up sounding nothing alike. I like to think of Tapehead as continuation of what both Rational Animals and Brown Sugar were doing, but crashed and burned before the job was complete. It's good time music played in the weird fucked up tumultuous times that we're living in. Ya know? What's the best dive bar in Rochester?
Rochester is full of great dive bars. I'd feel bad leaving out our most well known clubs that I feel qualifies, the world famous Bug Jar, but there are a lot of greats. There's this place called Sandra's that's really cool. They have a house band of like 50-year-old dudes that play rock n' roll hits like “Mustang Sally” and “Smokestack Lightning” and shit. One time I tried to order a gin and tonic there and Sandra, the owner told me that they don't serve "foo foo drinks with umbrellas in them". Fair enough.

Catch Tapehead Saturday, April 18 in Brookyln at The Acheron with Sheer Mag, Vanity, Bad Noids, and Gowanus Mutant Komandos. Tickets available here.