Month: April 2014

In the early years of our band, the only time we had ever been to Canada was a single 1990 show in Toronto, supporting the Sundays.   So we were especially excited about ending our April 1992 tour at the Horseshoe in Toronto.  Sure, we were once again the opener, but none of us had ever heard of the Waltons, and consequently were completely taken aback when we arrived and appeared to be nothing but an anonymous nuisance to the club.  We were told by the house soundman (and we were no longer traveling with our own) that not only wouldn’t the headliners move any of their equipment on the small stage to accommodate us, we wouldn’t even get a soundcheck.  Neither was unheard of, but the combination of how-dare-we-expect-more and the glorified dive ambience of the Horseshoe was infuriating.  (And don’t get me wrong–I mean glorified dive as a description, not an insult.  I’d characterize Maxwell’s the same way.)  The Waltons were the headliner, end of story: “It’s their night,” we were told.  We tracked down our booking agent, who got ahold of his Canadian counterpart, who in turn sent someone to run interference for us (and found someone else to mix us, because by then we were definitely off the house guy’s Christmas card list).  But meanwhile, we were instructed that if we weren’t happy, we should leave without playing, and we’d be paid either way.  But after traveling all the way to Toronto, who wants to leave without playing?  It’s not like there was an all-night SCTV museum to distract us.  Things gradually improved, although our local booking agency representative never lost the look of someone who’d eaten some bad poutine.  Our set went fantastically well, but there was no thought of an encore, not on the Waltons’ night.  So as the house music played, James, Georgia, Joe and I set about breaking down our equipment . . . while the audience continued to cheer and cheer.  Finally–and I have no recollection of whether we were told to do this, or it was so obvious that no one stopped us–we plugged the bass and guitar amps back in and Georgia sang “Cast a Shadow.”  We had our first experience with the toothsome Toronto hot dog cart, and hightailed it out of Canada, with a little too much gusto, as Georgia got nailed with a speeding ticket.

 

Lots of college dates over the years on April 29.  In 1989 it’s but a short drive from Cambridge to Storrs, CT, and a good thing, for it’s pouring rain and our station wagon is missing the passenger-side windshield wiper.  All that remains is a stump wrapped by a t-shirt, which is kinda hilarious, but 100% ineffective.  Also kinda hilarious is the show, held at the UConn field house and attended by slightly less people than a typical Huskies game, despite a bill that includes Otis Day & the Knights.  Without question, the highlight is that we can drive ride up to the stage for an easy–and dry–load-in and especially -out.  Five years later, we travel to SUNY Buffalo with Rick Brown and play as a quartet.  The next year it’s Haverford with Luna.  Don’t remember much about that show, unlike the following year, when we play with Luna again, this time at the Tunnel in NYC, at a party for the opening of I Shot Andy Warhol.   We’re a quintet: Tara Key who you’ll remember from such films as I Shot Andy Warhol , is on hand, as is Hamish Kilgour.  Method actors to the end, our set is comprised entirely of Exploding Plastic Inevitable-esque instrumental freakout, resolving into “Demons,” our song that plays over the movie’s closing credits.

 

On this day in 1989, we perform at Harvard University.  I don’t remember much about this show, except that we had some friends in the audience, including visiting dignitary Phil Morrison, destined to be a director of such music videos as “Sugarcube,” “Tom Courtenay” and “I’ll Be Around,” but at the time in the employ of our booking agency, the Labor Board.  He spies someone in the audience wearing a t-shirt promoting a Camp Lawton, which just happens to be the namesake of his boss, and works out a trade of some YLT merch for literally the shirt off this guy’s back.  Two years later, we’re in Albany, on a bill with Boston’s Big Dipper, with whom we’d played roughly a half dozen times before.  Original bassist, Steve Michener, whose name may very well re-enter these pages next month, was no longer part of the band; in fact, this was to be drummer Jeff Oliphant’s final show.  I have an awkward recollection of both groups appearing at WCDB at SUNY Albany, of Jeff not being remotely shy about how happy he was to be free, contrasted by Gary Waleik slumped in a chair, not bothering to remove his sunglasses.  Georgia and I sang “Balancing Act” by his first band, Volcano Suns.

 

Twenty-one years ago today we check out the scene in Newport News, VA, performing at the current home of The Alley.  Back then it was known as Heartbreak Alley.  Upon entering, one could make a left into the country bar packed with line dancers, or turn right to find us in the Happy Days-inspired rock room, with its stage modeled after a giant jukebox (my memory may have switched left and right).  At the time we frequently began our sets with Georgia by herself making a racket on a guitar, eventually joined by me, and finally by James before finding its way into a song.  But first, the promoter wanted to introduce us.  Though never our preference,  I must admit he knocked it out of the park.  Describing us as “MTV recording artists,” he kept up the play by play even after Georgia’s entrance: “It’s the drummer!  Playing guitar!”   We provided our own absurdity seven years later in Schondorf, Germany, encoring for some reason lost to time with “Ca Plane Pour Moi,” and then playing it again when we returned for a second encore.

 

Recently, I recollected the debut of “Big Day Coming” at Maxwell’s, Tim Harris on bass.  Even more recently (minutes ago), I realized that that was in fact the second time we played the song–the first one being exactly a month earlier, with Gene Holder on bass, opening our show at Club Babyhead in Providence.  Obviously we need a little more research and a little less development here at YLT R&D.  Consequently, no unsupportable claims for our appearance at Reckless Records in Chicago 22 years ago today.  Instead of our usual acoustic record-store strategy (as heard two days earlier at Let It Be in Minneapolis and two days later at Used Kids in Columbus), we play electric: a one-song set comprised of a l-o-n-g “Big Day Coming.”  How else did we spend our day off between Lounge Ax and Champaign?  Cubs-Pirates?  Leon’s?  I must yet again admit inadequate research.

 

In 2007, we were asked by someone at NYU to deliver a lecture, and yes, that’s “we” as in the three of us, not in the royal sense.   Confused about what this could mean, we were assured that we had free rein to define lecture however we chose.  How could we turn this down?  On this date seven years ago, the three of us assembled at the Skirball Center, with an acoustic guitar, an electric bass, a snare drum, a floor tom and a cymbal.  We played two songs, and then announced that the lecture was over, leaving us time for a Q and A (seems to work for Jerry Lewis).  For the next 90 minutes,  we answered questions and let the conversation steer us to another nine songs, at least one of which we’d never played with that instrumentation.  It was slightly terrifying and a lot of fun.  Six months later, we took the “lecture” on tour, and have been doing it off and on ever since, dubbed “The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo.”

 

Four years earlier, we were booked to play the Beacon Theater with Portastatic.  A week earlier we had played for the first time with members of the Sun Ra Arkestra, and we wanted them to join us in New York as well.  Arriving so late, we were seconds away from going on without them, Tyrone Hill, Danny Ray Thompson and Dave Davis joined us on the opener, “Nuclear War,” and two more songs, then returned later for four more.   The set concluded with a second version of “Nuclear War,” accompanied by nearly a dozen nieces, nephews and other teens and tweens (I believe that’s the first time I’ve ever used that word).  I hope every one of them remember the night as fondly as I do.