Electric Blankets
On several blustery nights during another seemingly endless winter
in Minneapolis, two art grads hatched a plan for keeping the cold at bay: Electric
Blankets. No, not that hazardous flat, warm square; rather, a legendary fictitious
rock and roll cover band. Discussing this band over cheap beer at Triple Rock,
the Leaning Tower or wherever the hell it was, a common sentiment emerged: a
sincere admiration for certain songs they saw as either too popular to be cool
or too obscure to be widely known—and coincidentally—all from the
80s. The concept became a project and thus sprung Electric Blankets from the
frostbitten imaginations of these two, uh, aging hipsters? Graying indie rockers?
New Wave aficionados? Intro to Art TA’s…?
The project would need some guidelines: no rehearsal, no fussing with second
takes, no synthesizers, no outside musicians, etc.
And so Rich Blanket (Flaneur
founder, Heliotrope
organizer, and guitarist of the perennially reclusive local act The
Pins) and Marc Blanket (off-again, on-again bassist for the perpetually
active Portland-based band The Minders)
flung themselves headlong into numerous sessions of 8-track recording. Since
the recording took place late into more than a few Sunday evenings (they had
classes to teach and all that grad stuff during the week), and because they
rarely planned ahead, cases of 3.2 beer were “settled for” during
most sessions. These not-actually-very-grueling sessions proved to be a challenge
to Rich and Marc’s ability to play drums for a whole song before petering
out, and to their honest attempts at delivering a slam-dunk vocal performance.
As for finishing off a can of beer or a stray Heineken, they rose to the challenge
every time. This, along with the mostly first-take nature of their approach
and questionable musical talents led to a few Monday morning headaches and the
first classic Electric Blankets EP.
The results of this endeavor, though curiously in tune with currents in popular
culture, have nothing to do with calculated stylistic planning. All of Electric
Blanket’s choices are guided by a single principle: shared enthusiasm
for an amazing song. If this enthusiasm hasn’t been wasted, you’ll
revisit your own record collection with a fresh ear.
Debut self titled EP out July 15th on Intermediary Records
Tracklist: