Tennis Music Video: Cape Dory

The story attached to the married couple Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, otherwise known as the buzz band Tennis, is an interesting one. If you were a hipster-hating skeptic, you could say their back story is a shtick, but your reason just wouldn’t suffice because hipsters don’t care enough to make such an elaborate story up. Correct?

If you have no idea what I’m talking about then it’s time to acquaint yourselves with the history of Tennis, the lo-fi band who has gotten everyone’s attention from the New York Times to The Guardian within the last year. In a nutshell, Alaina wanted to live out her childhood dream by sailing on a boat and that’s exactly what they did. The interesting part about this story is that all the couple knew about sailing was information they gathered from one book and a lot of DVDs about seamanship. They also were very limited when it came to monetary sources. While they sailed along the East coast, they stopped at various places such as “Marathon,” Florida, “South Carolina,” and “Baltimore.”

What’s that, you say? These are all song titles off of their upcoming and already sold out EP? Ding, ding! You’re absolutely right. It is a bit reminiscent of Sufjan Steven’s 50 states quest but the difference here is that they actually wrote songs for each place they found significant. Some people write a book after traveling. Tennis writes an EP of songs. I like the latter better.

As for the whole shtick idea attached to a lo-fi indie band that’s had some hype – I couldn’t care less whether it’s all negative or positive. The only thing that matters to me are the perfect Shangri-Las-esque melodies in songs such as “Marathon.” All their songs including that one and “Baltimore” are damn catchy and if they continue to document their travels in song, I’m all for another trip on their behalf.

Check out their latest video, “Cape Dory,” which also happens to be share the name of their boat during this trip. There’s nothing nautical about it but the hazy images of some dude being pulled by a rope on a skateboard does offer a “summer breeze” kind of feeling. Watch that and take a listen to “Marathon” and “Baltimore,” afterward!