A little less than a year ago, I was having a poke around on the Tapes ‘n Tapes site, looking for something or other, and saw that they were touring with some band called Cold War Kids. (Don’t worry, I’m not going to start gushing about CWK again.) As we all know, I ended up loving them. So when I got an email from the Tapes ‘n Tapes mailing list this week with names of bands they’ll be touring with this year, I thought I better check them out. Ladyhawk sounds interesting, but I couldn’t get their myspace page to play anything (don’t worry, I’m not going to start ranting about how much I hate myspace) and they’ve been around too long to count for New Band Day anyway.

Harlem Shakes, on the other hand, just released their first EP and I even like them! Like I said last week, it’s difficult finding a band that you’re excited about every single week, but these guys are pretty cool, especially considering “Burning Birthdays” is their first release. They have an indie 50s-pop thing going on here and there, which makes me happy. A wee bit like what Special Needs were doing before they imploded. You can listen to a couple of tracks off “Burning Birthdays” over at (sigh) their myspace page and a few other songs as well - I liked “Carpetbaggers” right away, so make sure not to miss that one. Or you could download the whole EP from emusic, which is where I’m headed right now.