Keep your eyes on the guest list

Tell-all appearances to the contrary, the reminiscing on this page is selective: There are some things we’d rather keep private.  And were it not for an email from Judy from my home town of Croton-on-Hudson, NY, I don’t know that I’d be sharing this story.

The only thing I can think of is when YLT played at your brother’s wedding on Woodybrook Lane. What year  . . . hmmm?  Your parents invited us, knowing we (2 small kids and us, all wfmu fans, the children involuntary) were avid Yo La Tengo listeners.  Disappointment reigned.  We were on vacation in Maine.  But boy did we want to be there.

The year was 2000, fourteen years ago today.   My brother got married in our childhood front yard, after which we performed on our driveway.  The bride and groom were responsible for many of our selections. (“Don’t Blame Us–The Groom Requested It” was a sign I wish I had at my disposal when “Mighty Idy” plastered most of the guests to the rear of the tent.)  Just in case that was insufficiently emotional, we got one of my other brothers to sit in on organ for one of the two sets.  My mom (my dad could never have been a party to this) went rogue and invited Judy.  And not just her and her family.  Four days earlier, as we stood on the landing outside the Jane Street Theater awaiting our first song with Ray Davies, a stranger informed me that my mom had invited him to the wedding too!  This came as something of a shock to the married couple who had devoted much time to pruning their invite list to the bare minimum.  Anyway, not to rub it in, Judy, but you missed our one and only performance of Sammy Davis Jr.’s “Keep Your Eyes on the Sparrow (Baretta‘s Theme).”

 

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