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Meet Iowa City Noise Rock Trio the Tanks

The Tanks

Tanks frontbro Kevin Koppes is so intensely opposed to the idea of band bios, he once “gave an online reviewer a bio that was a verbatim Mötley Crüe bio with the band names interchanged.” They never heard back. But, in a recent lapse of judgment, Koppes did provide us with a weirdly illuminating set of conversational guide posts, topics on which he and any of his Iowa-born, Iowa City-based bandmates (bassist Adam Luksetich and drummer Joe Ross) could hold court should the occasion demand it. They were so good, a response wasn’t all that necessary. That was likely his plan:

– LA hardcore (’79-’92)
– Black metal
– “The 90s”
– Magnetic Fields
– “Rockumentaries”
– Collectible card games
– “Everybody Loves Raymond” fan fiction
– Kate Bush
– “Bands from the Midwest”
– House shows
– Horror movies
– “Where Jeff Nelson Lives”
– Lou Reed
– Sports
– Candy

While each of the two tracks streaming below — the indigestive slipping and sliding of “I Can’t Believe I Broke Edge Again” and Jawbreaker-indebted throwdown “24 Hour Revenge Fantasy,” both from this year’s excellent Epic Loads — have more in common with the misanthropic guitar tantrums of Mclusky and Arab on Radar than say, Kate Bush and Magnetic Fields, they do indeed feel like an electric glimpse of the web-friendly personalities responsible for the list you should have just read, a band who’s been quietly grinding away in their corner of the Midwest for the past seven years without the Internet taking proper notice. “I was dead serious about that list, too,” Koppes claimed in a later e-mail. “Except for the Everybody Loves Raymond fan fiction. We don’t watch that show. We can, however, go to the mat on anything else listed. And I loooooove going to the mat. On that note, pro wrestling could also be added to the list. And contemporary politics. Just saying.” :audio=1:

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