Cassette Review: Cool Tara "Michael Ceramist" (ZyNg tapes)

[£4.20 // Edition of 40 // http://music.zyngtapes.co.uk/album/michael-ceramist-zyng013]

There aren't really a lot of artists I can tell you that I enjoy based upon only a few songs.  I think an EP is a nice sample of a band but doesn't always do it justice.   When I was growing up listening to music in my teens I'd often buy full length albums after only hearing one song and only end up liking the single song I heard on the radio and the rest of the album was a bust.   This is one of the reasons why I don't really like to review "singles" because anyone can have a good song it's what the rest of your songs sound like that make the difference.  (And likewise, there are albums I could pull a handful of songs off that I really like but wouldn't consider to be great albums overall)

Luckily for Cool Tara they start this cassette loudly and with the line "I fuck it up" before going into crazy rock n roll.   The first song really has that fast paced punk rock feel of The White Stripes' "Fell In Love With A Girl" or one of those bands from that time when everyone had to start their band name with "The". (The Vines, The Hives, etc.)   The second song has more of a pop rock feel to it, but I'm still digging it and so just by having that same underlying rock feel and yet the differences between the two songs I can tell that Cool Tara could put together a solid album.

The two songs on Side B are both live and exclusive to the cassette (the way that I like it!) and so it makes you wonder how much people are going to like this because it seems like something one day people will pay obscene amounts of money for just to have those live versions.  (I know I've purchased cassingles and even CD singles before because they contained songs only on them.  Pearl Jam made quite the career off of it)

Somewhere between Supergrass and Piebald with a little bit of funk the two live tracks show just what Cool Tara is made of as it has a raw and very natural sound to it.    When I was much younger than I am now my primary way of hearing new music would be experiencing it live.   This was also because the internet was younger and so things such as Bandcamp did not exist yet, but still, I'd hear bands play live and then buy their CD based upon that performance.    This has that same sort of idea to it where you should be sold on Cool Tara as a band simply because of that live sound.

Whenever I see the name Cool Tara I wonder who exactly Tara is and why she is so cool.   It makes me think of "Cool Ethan", which is a reference to the movie "Slackers" and the character of Ethan was actually played by Jason Schwartzman who once was the drummer for Phantom Planet and as such you think I'd come back to them but I don't because the music styles are different.    So I just like to imagine that Cool Tara is a reference to Tara Strong which makes me think of cartoons and thus makes me as happy as I believe this music will make you.