Starry-Eyed & Laughing - Yo La Digest Volume 1, Number 7

Starry-Eyed & Laughing - Faves

Form Over Function

Volume 1 , Number 7	Yo La Digest	Apr 18, 1994

hold your applause, georgia has quit the band. we have retired
from the road. so i'm just up here to say that we're not - we're 
sorry, we're glad you came, but we're not gonna play. so um, with
out georgia there's no real point in going on. but we have so many
beers up here that stephan and i are just gonna probably like 
stand up here and drink and for awhile. so have a good time tonight
and thanks again for coming. ya know. we're sorry, ya know, these
things happen, this is kinda rock & roll  NO! i've never - i don't
really have a sense of humour, so i don't tell jokes. oh, that's
right we have t-shirts available.
...ira, 9/19/89

in this issue:
editors note Stache's 2nd Story Culture Shock




 a few things,

 i've been running into city slang's new wave hot dog's/president yo
 la tengo rerelease. slightly different back cover but setlist looks the
 same. 

 the upcoming issue of taper's quarterly has a yo la tengo interview
 conducted at the band's recent gigs in athens. contact jeff at
 lava@well.sf.ca.us for details.
 
 thanks to the kind folks at the indie list for letting me feed off
 their fine publication.

 tim
 tim@vestek.com




 from: John G Norman <jgn+@osu.edu> 
 
 Last night (29 Mar 94), Yo La Tengo played Stache's, that perfect rock 
 dive located north of the Ohio State Campus. Great crowd; much bigger 
 than the last time Yo La Tengo came to town. Many local band luminaries
 in attendance--Marcy Mays (Scrawl) was standing just feet from me--I
 could hardly bear it! Pinch me! I also saw people from Gaunt, Log (!),
 and a few others.

 Anyway, I missed the opener--those new critics' darlings, the Coctails,
 but was told that they were tres cool with jazzlike touches and 
 instrumentation (including vibes).

 Yo La Tengo was in fine shape; tighter than their last live show here. 
 Georgia Hubley (drummer) was especially fine, and she came out front to
 do a beautiful rendition of one of their slower songs--might have been 
 "Swing for Life," but I was pretty right-brained last night and can't 
 quite remember which tune it was. "Motel 6" was the 2nd song, and it
 blazed. There were calls for songs from New Wave Hot Dogs, but I don't
 think they went that far back into their past. There were really no 
 surprises in the show--just superb feedback pyrotechnics by a guitarist 
 who understands that the amp is a musical instrument in its own right. 
 The last encore was a version of the Dream Syndicate's "Tell Me When 
 It's Over"; in the stage-chatter, Ira Kaplan claimed that Steve Wynn 
 once told him that he (Wynn) hated "Sweet Jane." Ha ha.

 Maybe Dream Syndicate is the "Big Star of the 80s"! I was thinking this 
 as I realized that Luna does a cover of "That's What You Always Say" on 
 "Slide." Is this critical mass? I must say that during the whole show I 
 kept thinking about affinities between Luna and Yo La Tengo--they have 
 a lot of similarities, except in so many cases Yo La Tengo goes "hard,"
 while Luna goes "soft." And they both have songs entitled "Sleeping Pill"
 What does it all mean?

 They didn't do their cover of "Speeding Motorcycle," which they did do
 last time; I guess the big crowd this time was a little intimidating.

 In sum: Great band, in a superb performance--after their last show, 
 which was dour and a bit bleak, I was relieved to see a tight set.

    John N.



 From: jdryden <jdryden@indiana.edu>

 Yo La Tengo/Sleepyhead
 
 Second Story, Bloomington, IN 4/9/94

 The Second Story, a consistent source for decent national and local 
 bands, brought an impressive double bill to town.  A big draw was 
 apparent despite the extremely British weather (rain, rain, rain) that 
 was socking in Bloomington for the weekend.
 
 Sleepyhead, a Jazzmaster wielding threesome from NYC [I think] took 
 the stage early and did their own interpretation of the tornadoes 
 tearing it up in the Midwest this Saturday night.  This trio got going 
 amid some heavy crowd indifference, but soon set the record straight 
 with a melodic tease straight out of the Only Ones' book.  They sounded 
 pretty haggard, but the mix was steady and the leads were sloppy, and 
 the drummer sported a fine Kool Cigarettes T.  At times they could 
 sound like a faster Codeine (Codeine on Speed?).  I think a CD is due 
 out on Matador in May.
 
 Having played Chicago the previous night and doing an impromptu--and 
 wet--outdoor set in the afternoon, Yo La Tengo, looking tired and 
 feeling loose, immediately made it clear that the pedal was going to 
 the metal as they opened up with "I Was the Fool Beside You for too 
 Long." Many of the other songs were also from Painful, but Yo La Tengo 
 were also throwing punches from the entire catalog, doing modified 
 versions of "Cone of Silence," and "Yellow Sarong." They know how to 
 carefully balance a half-spoken/half-whispered line with a blast of 
 electric hum, and it's precisely this tightrope act that makes the 
 band such a presence on stage and threatens to push every song over 
 the emotional edge.  On record, the songs sound well recorded and 
 somehow precise; yet live, the songs start in steps, end in pieces, 
 and in between, all heck breaks loose and Ira Kaplan goes into his 
 Woody Woodpecker act, head going nuts, wrapping himself around the 
 guitar, and never missing his phase shifter.  This night, Yo La Tengo 
 was easily one of the most dynamic hard/soft, loud/quiet bands around 
 and the fact that they pull this trick off consistently from night to 
 night is no mean feat.
 
 Their whole methodology of making goosebump-inducing rock music was 
 revealed when the band invited the Sleepyhead guitarist up to do 
 Jackson Browne's "She's Gotta be Somebody's Baby." Ira told him the 
 chords, tentatively kicked off the song, and stopped it a couple of 
 measures later, telling the Sleepyhead guy to not play chords, just 
 make a racket, which he gloriously did.  No pretension, no MTV 
 Unplugged, no fame-whining, no futile last gestures with a shotgun.  
 Just pure, wildass, flame-throwing rocknroll.
 
 Jim Dryden
 


 from:  Anne Zender <azender@indiana.edu>
 
 Culture Shock: More than a Feeling?
 
 One of Bloomington's more lively cultural traditions (aside from the 
 annual dwarf toss, but I have been advised not to discuss that) is 
 Culture Shock, an outdoor music festival on the Indiana U campus every 
 April.  It's usually a pretty fun event, and it's also a chance to see 
 how long one's favorite local bands can stand gallantly around waiting 
 for miscellaneous technical problems to clear up.
 
 This year, some of the more annoying planning problems seem to have 
 been worked out.  For instance, in the past there have been two 
 stages: the large, well-equipped "Big Deal" stage and the small, 
 badly-equipped "Poor Relation" stage.  This year, both stages were of 
 comparable size.  Moreover, the bands on both stages performed at 
 different times instead of being forced to compete against each other, 
 saving the audience members considerable crises of loyalty.
 
 I missed some of the festivities, and eventually things got rained 
 out, but here's a brief overview of some of the bands (all from 
 Bloomington, with one obvious exception) I saw:
 
 % El Nino
 % The Smears
 % Antenna
 % Squash Blossom String Pullers
 
 % Yo La Tengo: Some wise person remembered that Hoboken, NJ's finest were 
 playing in town that night and edged them onto the bill. It rained 
 throughout the band's performance, which seemed kind of appropriate 
 for the low-key acoustic set they played.  Mostly the songs were from 
 "Painful" and "Fakebook," closing with the Dead C's "Bad Religion." 
 Melodic yet goofy? Charming yet sensitive? Choose your adjective, 
 write it down, and don't show it to anyone.
 
 [This performance proved to me yet again that Ira Kaplan et al. are 
 the finest re-interpreters of primitive-juvenalia rock currently 
 around.  They performed J. Richman's Astral Plane with a delicacy 
 and technical deliciousness that was astounding, as pure as their 
 rendition of Speeding Motorcycle.  Not to say that Richman and 
 Johnston have the same sorts of outlooks on life, mind you.  But 
 their works betray the same lack (and hidden high quantity) of 
 technique  -es]
 
 Sadly, illness prevented me from going to see this band later that 
 night.  I am still sad about this; in fact I'm so cut up I'm going to 
 have to go lie down.
 
 az
 

 Tour Dates

 Fri   Apr 29      Some College   Buffalo (NY)
 Sat   Apr 30      Thread Waxing Space     NYC




Contacting the Band

 Yo La Tengo can be reached at:

 Yo La Tengo

 P.O. Box 6028

 Hoboken, N.J.

 07030 USA

Contacting the Band
Yo La Tengo can be reached at:
Yo La Tengo P.O. Box 6028 Hoboken, N.J. 07030 USA

Every time I make a move to love you, lots red light.
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