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Underground > Radio & Music >

Yo La Tengo

Matthew Fluxington

12:58 / 15.03.02

Yo La Tengo will be performing their annual call-in covers show on WFMU tomorrow.

The annual Yo La Tengo covers-fest happens on Saturday, March 16th from 5-7pm, with Hova and Gaylord Fields. Once again, Ira, Georgia, James and their pal Bruce support the freeform radio cause by playing live on WFMU's airwaves. Pledgers get to call in and put in their request for any cover song at all! Listen, pledge, view it on the webcam! (Not necessarilly in that order...)

Seriously, check this out - people call in the most obscure, insane requests, and Yo La Tengo is never stumped, they always work something out. It's highly amusing. You don't even need to like Yo La Tengo, really..

Please note: this is EST time, five hours behind GMT... WFMU's live stream comes in various forms, check the site to figure out if you can listen to it on yr computer.

[ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: Flux = Sweet City Woman ]

The Natural Way

13:56 / 15.03.02

Apart from 'Let's save Tony Orlando's house' I find them pretty boring really. Am I missing something? Are they good?

Matthew Fluxington

14:17 / 15.03.02

What's yr exposure to YLT? They have a pretty big discography, especially when you consider that fans have been documenting these sort of events for a while.

I think some YLT is better than others - but they have two records which are clearly heads and shoulders above the rest of their discography. I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One and Painful are both classics, I think... well worth giving a shot if you aren't familiar with them. The most recent LP, which "Tony Orlando's House" is on, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is pretty good, and has some really wonderful songs on it ("Tony Orlando", "Our Way To Fall", "Cherry Chapstick", "You Can Have It All") but it's soooooo indredibly slooooooooow that it gives a bad impression of the band, I think.

14:29 / 15.03.02

I agree with Flux about the above 3 records, but would like to also nominate Electr-o-pura as one of YLT's best. It includes my favorite song by them, Tom Courtenay, the delirious Sugarcube (the video of which featured David Cross and Bob Odenkirk), and two really good slow songs whose names I forget. It's a great record. Really.

14:30 / 15.03.02

also, yo la tengo are wicked live. they do dance routines and everything. i remember seeing them a while back with my boyfriend at the time who was not all that into them, till he saw them live. it was fun and loud and quiet and calming and beautiful.

14:33 / 15.03.02

I saw them do the second stage at lollapalooza in 1995 (year SOnic Youth headlined, I think), they started out all soft and then Ira Kaplan just started wailing on the keyboard. Went out and got 'electro-pura' that next day.

[ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: invix ]

Matthew Fluxington

14:35 / 15.03.02

Todd, "Sugarcube" is on I Can Hear The Heart... It does have one of the funniest videos ever, for sure.

I think Electr-O-Pura is just so-so...I really love several songs on it, especially "Pablo & Andrea" and "Tom Courtenay", but it doesn't all add up to me.

Surely the one of the great slow numbers on Painful that yr thinking of is "Nowhere Near", right?

That song always does it for me...

Note: one great thing about YLT live that Suds does not mention - they are hilarious, especially Ira Kaplan. Witter stage banter and anecdotes galore...

one bad thing: when they play shows comprised mainly of slower material, they really ought to provide seating for the audience...

[ 15-03-2002: Message edited by: Flux = Sweet City Woman ]

17:24 / 15.03.02

one bad thing: when they play shows comprised mainly of slower material, they really ought to provide seating for the audience....

Yeah, that's pretty much why I haven't really seeked out their music--too mid-tempo & no distictive lyrics. It certainly could just be my ignorance, but that's the way they seem to me.

For anyone that's interested, they have a cameo in "I Shot Andy Warhol" as the Velvet Underground. They also did a hilarious video 6 years or so ago w/ Bob & David from Mr. Show. It consisted of Yo La Tengo going to "Rock Star College" (sample dialogue: "Remeber the Foghat rule: Every 4th release must be a double live album!").

17:35 / 15.03.02

Fakebook is one of the best records ever.

The only other album I have is Painful, which I can't remember anything from except "Nowhere Near," which I wish I'd written.

Matthew Fluxington

09:13 / 17.03.02

Yo La Tengo's WFMU call-in covers set just ended - it's been really fun. A partial list of what they played - nearly everything is in here, save for the handful that I didn't know, and didn't catch the titles...

The Kinks "Johnny Thunder"
ESG "You're No Good"
Patti Smith "Dancing Barefoot"
The Ramones "Rockaway Beach"
T-Rex "20th Century Boy"
w/ DJ Hova - Rod Stewart "Do You Think I'm Sexy?"
Three Dog Night "Old Fashioned Love Song"
The Monkees "Pleasant Valley Sunday"
The Stooges "Search and Destroy"
"Meet The Mets"
The Rutles "Cheese and Onions"
Tiffany "I Think We're Alone Now"
w/ a little girl on vocals on the telephone - The Ramones "I Don't Wanna Walk Around With You"
Big Star "September Gurls"
Prince "When Doves Cry"
Four Tops "Build Me Up Buttercup" (excellent!)
Bacchmann Turner Overdrive "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (also excellent!)
Cheap Trick "I Want You To Want Me"
a big medley including a big chunk of Sonic Youth "Schizophrenia"

If I had the enough spare cash to offer up the $60 it would take to get YLT to play a song for me, I think I would choose one of these four songs - I'd probably just pick my choice out of a hat :

Pavement "Rattled By La Rush"
Jandek "European Jewel (Incomplete)"
Destiny's Child "Bootylicious"
Michael Jackson "Man In The Mirror"

There's always next year...

09:37 / 17.03.02

quote:Originally posted by Flux = Sweet City Woman:
And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is pretty good, and has some really wonderful songs on it ("Tony Orlando", "Our Way To Fall", "Cherry Chapstick", "You Can Have It All") but it's soooooo indredibly slooooooooow that it gives a bad impression of the band, I think.

That's the only album of theirs that I've heard, and I love it (except for the very first track, which skirts too close to 'willfully obtuse' in the context of the rest of the album). Other people have mentioned to me that it's not really representative of the majority of their stuff.

If it's the quieter YLT sound that I'm after, what else should I get hold of?

Matthew Fluxington

09:37 / 17.03.02

If it's the quieter YLT sound that I'm after, what else should I get hold of?

I'd still recommend the previous three LPs - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, Elecr-O-Pura, and Painful. Most of the songs on those records wouldn't be entirely out of place on And Then Nothing..., really. The thing is, the sequencing/tracklisting of And Then Nothing... is so consistently sloooooow throughout that it feels a lot more same-y than the other records, which are slightly more eclectic.

YLT don't really have many fast numbers...just some that are noisey. The only noisey song on And Then Nothing... is "Cherry Chapstick". "Cherry Chapstick" sounds like it belongs on Painful.

Randy, I strongly suggest you go after I Can Hear The Heart next, and then move backwards through the catalog. It'll make a lot more sense that way. I Can Hear The Heart has some brilliant songs that you are sure to like a lot: "Moby Octopad", "Deeper Into Movies", "Autumn Sweater", "Shadows", "Damage", "Stockholm Syndrome"... check it out.

16:17 / 18.03.02

Weird - I only know "Cheese and Onions" from a Galaxie 500 version on a Rutles tribute.
I'd *love* to have heard YLT do it!

Do they archive these shows online?

Matthew Fluxington

16:40 / 18.03.02

Yes, they archive most everything... It's not up yet, but it will be at this link within the next few days.

Ira performs with the man who wrote "Cheese and Onions", Neil Innes of the Bonzo Doo Dah Dog Band & The Rutles here. The Galaxie 500 version of the song is played, plus there's a six song live set with Clinic.

I can't emphasize this enough: all of you who can listen to real audio on yr computer should be listening to WFMU. Raid their archives! There's a wealth of music and information and live performances there, you will never regret it!

23:19 / 10.04.02

From those irrepressible cads @ The Onion: "37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster"

09:10 / 16.04.02

"julie christie, the rumour was true"

>wistful sigh<

that's one of the most perfect tunes ever.

A

12:33 / 16.04.02

---Tiffany "I Think We're Alone Now"---

wasn't the original of that Tommy James and the Shondells? or something like that, anyway.

21:08 / 16.04.02

From those irrepressible cads @ The Onion: "37 Record-Store Clerks Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster"

A friend emailed me that today with the comment "this is so relevant to our lives it's sad". And it is .. the references are so spot on, it's just ..OUCH! "I haven't seen this much senseless hipster carnage since the Great Sebadoh Fire Of '93," .. hehehehe.. even the pictures look like us..