No pressure, no crowds,
no owners counting heads and bar sales.
Just friends and instruments…
that’s what the Taco Tapes represent.
Ever since Led Zeppelin III. Ever since Eddie and the Cruisers II ‘Eddie Lives.’ Ever since I could play an instrument well enough to show people. I’m not sure when it developed, but I had a lifelong dream of taking my band and finding a cabin in the mountains to play music and record it. There is really something special about getting away from all of the hub-bub the world has to offer and focus on music. There is no pressure. No crowd. No owner counting heads and bar sales. It’s just your friends and your instruments. We are comfortable as we soak in the mountain air and stare in awe as the sky presents the Milky Way on a clear night with no city lights to blind us.
That is what the Taco Tapes are. Or at least… that is what they are for me. A fulfillment of a dream; dreamt by my eighteen year old self. It was my birthday weekend, and I wanted to get the guys up into the mountains to jam out. We settled on an acoustic thing, brought up our equipment – microphones, stands, instruments, and a big ole iMac, with Logic Pro. Headed up Friday, had some drinks, watched a bit of the original Karate Kid, and slept in a bit. Sarah made Chicken Tinga Tacos (hence the Taco Tapes). The title of our shindig is really a silent homage to the Pizza Tapes (click here for that story). Just a couple of friends jamming out to some favorite songs, stolen by a pizza delivery guy or given Jerry Garcia’s copy as a groovy tip.
We woke up on Saturday morning, the 19th of August. Sarah made a great breakfast out of some sticky, non-stick pans. Sabrina was ready to do some art and Annie drove Joe Bob all the way up from Denver so he could join his buds in a little recording sesh. Due to work the next morning, Annie drove all the way back home a couple hours later. After 22 years of marriage, they still do those things for each other . Dillow, Jack, and I had took our time in the morning setting things up, while the girls got the paints out. Our dog Atlas was the hit of the party and even made it into the band’s Bathtub cover art. Sarah’s friend Brynn was in town from Arizona, just to visit and it happened to fall on Taco Tape weekend! Hopefully, she had a true Colorado Blast! The only downside was that Taner, our drummer, wasn’t able to make it.
We set up some recording equipment on the back patio. The microphones did a great job picking up our instruments and voices, but also the birds, the crickets, and the wind. I wanted to try to capture Lazy Summer Home on a typical practice, having fun, exploring sound, and having music conversations. We recorded all day, and at one point swapped instruments. Songs like Layla, Rocky Top, and Rust ( a future LSH original) we have never played. We hit acoustic style classics, Bertha, Bird Song, You Were the Fool, Nine pound Hammer. We busted out a pretty good first try of Rubin and Cherise! We heard Jack’s first song, and learned that Layla, along with most acoustic Clapton stuff were part of Dillow’s formative years. I snuck in a couple of my old school originals and Joe Bob showed off his fingerstyle on that new bass of his, swapping to a Djembe before the night was over. We all had a laugh of admiration when it came to Sabrina painting a Charcuterie Board – so much so, that two tracks on the tapes are in reference to it! We recorded a moment in time, where we were all just friends in the mountains. That’s what the Taco Tapes are. Our sloppy, but lovable acoustic day can show strangers how fun we are and how good we can be. We are a growing band and for some reason or another are becoming pretty special. We were invited to play a music festival! We didn’t seek that out, we were sought; that’s freakin’ amazing!
No. We are not an acoustic band. We’re an electric boogalo, dance til you drop, rock n roll jam band from Colorado. This isn’t the best recording, but man, does it capture who we are as friends and what we love about playing music. We’ve laid down 36 songs and threw some dialog tracks in for a true feel of what it was like to chill out. Take a listen and laugh along with us. Then, be sure to come out to Sunnyside Music Fest on Sept 9th, 2023 and get the real deal!
A link to the Taco Tapes is right here: https://lazysummerhomeband.bandcamp.com/album/the-taco-tapes
http://www.sunnysidemusicfest.org. is our next gig Sept 9th, 3-4pm.
