{"id":9964,"date":"2016-01-21T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2016-01-21T05:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=9964"},"modified":"2016-01-22T13:11:49","modified_gmt":"2016-01-22T13:11:49","slug":"the-handcuffs-a-tale-of-the-tape-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2016\/01\/21\/the-handcuffs-a-tale-of-the-tape-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Handcuffs: A Tale of the Tape (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Midwestern rockers The Handcuffs are fronted by songwriters Chloe F. Orwell<\/b> (guitar\/vocals) and Brad Elvis<\/b> (drums); they first came to my attention via their 2011 album. In my capsule review of Waiting for the Robot<\/i><\/a>, I described their music as \u201cnot so much powerpop as plain ol\u2019 (if very good) rock.\u201d And that description suits the Chicago-based group just fine: the term \u201cpowerpop\u201d \u2013 even when it’s meant in a positive sense \u2013 is something of a third rail with them. (\u201cTo me,\u201d Chloe says, \u201cpowerpop means a rock band that plays bubblegum music.\u201d) With an unassailable rock pedigree \u2013 both were in the group Big Hello<\/b>, and Brad was one-third of the criminally-overlooked Elvis Brothers<\/b> \u2013 The Handcuffs make music that is sexy, swaggering, and full-on rock’n’roll.<\/p>\n

Though The Handcuffs have released three full-length albums (Waiting for the Robot<\/em> being the most recent of those), their latest release takes a different approach: it’s on cassette. Yes, cassette tape: that long-thought-obsolete physical format that offers only the advantage of portability. Why on earth would a band do such a thing in the middle of the 21st<\/sup> century’s second decade?<\/p>\n

\"handcuffs\"<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, actually,\u201d explains Brad Elvis, \u201cwe got asked. There’s a thing called Cassette Store Day…there’s not really such a thing as cassette stores…and this is like the second or third year. That’s what the kids are doin’ these days,\u201d he laughs. \u201cA small label out of east Nashville, Semi-Pro Records, wrote us: ‘We really dig The Handcuffs and all you’re doing. We think you guys would be a good candidate to release a cassette.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were like, ‘We’re in<\/i>!’,\u201d says Chloe. \u201cBut then they said, ‘We need the stuff in two weeks.’ And we said, ‘Oh, fuck! But we’re still<\/i> in.’\u201d Brad adds, \u201cIt was two days before I was leaving to go out on a tour.\u201d (An in-demand drummer, Elvis tours with The Romantics<\/b> and does live and session work for many other bands.) \u201cSo we were scrambling: what are we going to release? What are we going to do? Chloe was left here to mind the fort.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pair made the strategic decision to make the cassette, titled All the Way from <\/i>Memphis<\/i><\/span> Chicago<\/i>, a best-of sampler of the group’s music. This made sense, because the market for the cassette format would include people unfamiliar with The Handcuffs’ music. \u201cAnd we had an almost-complete new recording in the can,\u201d Chloe says. \u201cIt’s one of the beloved covers we do, Mott the Hoople<\/a><\/b>‘s \u201cAll the Way from Memphis.\u201d The Handcuffs are not<\/em> a cover band, but the Mott the Hoople song fits seamlessly into the group’s glam-informed musical aesthetic.<\/p>\n

\"handcuffs_cassette\"<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you put your existing songs on a different format, it makes it new,\u201d Chloe says. \u201cAs an artist, it’s fun to revisit that stuff. And I think a lot of our our fans enjoy the \u2013 dare I say \u2013 kitsch factor of being able to hold a cassette. And there’s stuff inside! It’s almost like when you were a kid, and you got a cassette or record album. You’d pull things out of it that were unexpected, like trading cards. You can take out the j-card and look at it, read things. Nobody does that any more, because everything’s downloads.\u201d (All the Way from Chicago<\/i> does include a download card, too.)<\/p>\n

And although the cassette medium isn’t generally held in high esteem when it comes to sonic quality, the group made a special effort to ensure that All the Way from Chicago<\/i> sounded as good as possible. \u201cWe had it remastered for cassette, actually,\u201d says Chloe. \u201cIt gave the sound a nice analog [warmth], which is missing in a lot of music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our conversation turns inevitably to the subject of MP3. \u201cThe internet and MP3 are both the best things and the worst things to happen to music,\u201d Chloe says. \u201cOn one hand, they made music accessible to anyone and everyone. And on the other hand, [MP3] made it all sound like…shit.\u201d There’s also an old-fashioned (yet completely valid) school of thought that argues in favor of the artistic\/aesthetic importance of albums-as-a-whole, a quality that’s often lost when music is in a downloadable format. \u201cLike an artist,\u201d Brad suggests, \u201cYou don’t do a painting and then leave it sitting in your house where no one sees it. You make an album, and you hope people will hear it and like it, get used to it, and like the ‘brand.’ And our brand is The Handcuffs. It’s a full package, like a storefront.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Midwestern rockers The Handcuffs are fronted by songwriters Chloe F. Orwell (guitar\/vocals) and Brad Elvis (drums); they first came to my attention via their 2011 album. In my capsule review […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9965,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,49,62],"tags":[2591,963],"class_list":["post-9964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-new-release","category-rawk","tag-cassette-store-day","tag-handcuffs","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9964"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10153,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9964\/revisions\/10153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}