Tennis Live on MBE – “Mean Streets”

Alaina and Patrick Moore are the couple behind Tennis, whose artful, breezy, R&B influenced pop has been a favorite at KCRW, particularly their new EP.

For their live MBE session, they started their set with a brand new track called “Needle and the Knife” that has never been recorded and will likely make it on their next full length. Also, they played “Traveling” a favorite from their previous LP “Young and Old”, which they’ve never performed in a live session before.

Aside from these special songs, we were just thrilled to hear the new EP live, particularly “Mean Streets” which was produced by Richard Swift.

Alaina has such a unique vocal style that is hard to pin down and I was determined to get to the bottom of it, so we had some “girl talk” after the session about her favorite female singers, which you can hear below.

Hint: it’s a combo of 90’s R&B (think SWV) and singer-songwriters of the 70’s like Judy Sill and Laura Nyro, who was a big influence for the sound on “Mean Streets”.

Tennis Live on MBE Set List

Needle and the Knife

Mean Streets

Cured of Youth

It All Feels the Same

100 Lovers

Timothy

Traveling