Month: April 2014

The San Francisco International Film Festival invited us to score a silent film for their 2001 edition.  We batted around ideas for awhile, and then someone suggested the underwater documentaries of Jean Painlevé.  We weren’t familiar with his work, but as soon as we watched them on the VHS tape the festival provided, we were sold.  Beautiful and hilarious . . . but not silent.  Not to worry, they were the next best thing: French.  Thanks to subtitles, we had the option of turning the sound off, sparing the audience the work of hacks like Pierre Conté and Darius Milhaud.  Our performance, dubbed The Sounds of Science in a transparent attempt to fool people into thinking the Beastie Boys were involved, took place 13 years ago today at the Castro Theater.  Georgia and I did a little location scouting the night before, enjoying the pre-show medley of organ hits, followed by Cobra Woman introduced by Kenneth Anger.  In fact, the whole festival was a blast–the highlight may have been when we found ourselves pretty much the only people not dressed for the opera at a reception for Clint Eastwood at a Bulgari store.

 

Stephen from Boston writes to us about 11 years ago today.  (Actually, he thinks it was 12 years ago so I’ve done some very minor editing–anybody with the semicolon skills of Stephen requires only the least bit of tweaking.)

This stands as my favorite concert memory of all time, Yo La Tengo related or no:

In 2003, when I was an undergrad at UMass Amherst, I managed to get tickets to see Yo La Tengo.  Without belaboring the anecdote with too much needless personal context, I’ll say that being able to go to the show was deeply personal to me, and that my excitement for it preceded the show by several days.  It didn’t let up, either; by the time I took my seat near the back of the theater I was already grinning in anticipation.  The couple seated next to me asked politely, “Would you be offended if we made out during the show?”  I think I told them I would be “too happy to notice.”

So Beachwood Sparks, I think, played [not according to my memory or my notes], and then Portastatic played, and finally Yo La Tengo took the stage, and I immediately became unable to stop smiling.  I laughed when they ad-libbed in “Nuclear War”  and I wept when they played “Tom Courtenay,” then my second-favorite song of all time, and the whole time I couldn’t help grinning like an idiot.  Remember that I hadn’t seen them yet—hadn’t even heard whether they were good live—so primed though I might have been for disappointment, I was instead on cloud nine, the band peeling off song after perfect song.

When they came out for encores, I don’t think I could have asked for anything more than a cursory pair of hits and a “goodnight.”  To my surprise, though, they started asking the audience for suggestions.  I completely forget what the first request was [“Artificial Heart“], but I’ll forever remember what Ira said after they finished it:

“OK, wait a minute. I want to know what the guy in back who’s been smiling this entire time wants to hear.”

It took me a second, and then I remembered why my cheeks hurt so much.  “M-me?” I asked, experiencing the disbelief particular to every audience member who’s ever hoped against hope to be selected, and is.

The band nodded: Yes, you!  So I told them: I wanted to hear “Deeper Into Movies,” which was my first-favorite song of all time.  Ira joked that he’d have to retune his guitar to play it, and I immediately apologized, racking my brain for a less imposing request.  “Well, no, that’s okay—but if I have to retune,” he reasoned, “then you’ll just have to come up to the front while I do it.”

I cannot adequately express how it felt to walk from my budget, rear-of-theater seat, all the way down the aisle, and through the crowd gathered at the front of the stage, only to look up at the band that meant so much to me, and to realize that they, too, were happy to see me walk up to greet them.  I tried to write them a letter that night to express my gratitude, and it was beyond impossible.  Eleven years later, I have experienced nothing comparable to being given such a personal gift, from a band who mean so much to me, and who only knew me fleetingly as “smiling guy in rear of venue.”

It’ll be my favorite song for the rest of my life.

 

Seventeen years ago today, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One was released.  Inspired by inner sleeves from our various record collections, we decided it was high time that Matador had its own custom dust jacket.  Unfortunately, between the three of us, we couldn’t recall a single record on the label other than our own.  Mother of invention: James and our buddy Peter Walsh came out to our Hoboken apartment one night and we spitballed a fake Matador catalogue.  I can still see the face that Matador’s overworked art director Mark Ohe made when we told him that we wanted to create 12 imaginary record covers.  We tried to calm him down with the assurance that they’d be so small that they didn’t have to look that good, and it must have worked, because Mark Ohe poured himself into the job, slaving over details that neither you nor I have ever noticed.

If only we had the benefit of Mark Ohe’s attention to detail with the posting of these recollections.  Two weeks after the fact, I just discovered that I neglected to mention Shawn from Apex, NC’s letter: When my wife, Beth,  and I were married after dating for 7 years (4 of which was long distance – Ft. Worth, Texas to Washington DC and later to Raleigh NC) our first song we danced to at our wedding was Our Way To Fall.  Probably 5 people total at the wedding knew the song (our parents and family aren’t too hip) but the song wasn’t for them.  It was for us!  We were married on April 7th, 2007 and she still hasn’t gotten tired of me yet.  We were married near Raleigh, NC and we live in Apex now.  I’m happy to say I’ve never missed YLT when they come to town (Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro) but my wife takes one for the team and stays home with our two kids.  I’d watch them if she’d go to a show by herself but she won’t.   . . . What are you gonna do.
 
Other favorite YLT memories are just show specific.  Tom Courtenay and Sheena is a Punk Rocker performed at Trees in Dallas about 13 years ago . . . WOW! Walking to the front row of Memorial Auditorium (general admission) in Raleigh after the Jesus and Mary Chain’s performance in the main plaza at Hopscotch 2012 in Raleigh . . . unbelievable.  The Dump set at Cat’s Cradle . . . great!  Can’t wait to see them again.

Thirteen years ago today, Yo La Tengo pay a visit to Utica, NY.  I remember it was an outdoor show, lousy weather, a sparse turnout (who could blame anyone who stayed away?), a sizable percentage of whom are amusing themselves with an improvised slip ‘n slide, not much else.  My notes for a given show don’t usually amount to more than the set list, and this one raises more questions than it answers–“We’re an American Band” is a reasonable opener, and covering the Troggs’ “66-5-4-3-2-1” next sounds plausible.  But “It’s Alright (the Way That You Live)”?  Third?  “Mack the Knife”?!  I needed to know more about this show than my memory was providing.  A little research revealed that apparently we were doing pretty much all requests (that still doesn’t explain “Mack the Knife”).  I continued to dig and found this unsigned article from Ithaca College’s Accent:

Yo La Tengo search ends with bongo bash

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April 26, 2001

It is 9:55 on a Saturday night in Utica, N.Y. The rain is spilling down on a makeshift trailer-hut, where Yo La Tengo are playing a cover of Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” to the smallish crowd that has braved the weather to watch the indie rock icons. And I’m on stage, playing bongos with a band that I love.

I’m not really sure how I got here or where I’m going afterwards. I remember passing a punk rocker on my way to Park, two weeks ago, and catching just a few words of the conversation he was having with his friend.

“… nic Youth and Yo La Tengo are playing Syra …”

I stopped.

“Did you just say that Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo are playing in SYRACUSE?”

“That’s what one of my teachers said in class.”

I remember searching Pollstar for tour dates, and the screen coming up blank. Yo La Tengo’s Web page said that the band wasn’t on tour. Sonic Youth were scheduled for Germany.

With a little more searching, two dates came up for Yo La Tengo. The Utica one said that it was at “Mohawk Valley College.” Syracuse’s Sonic Youth date was also listed, but it conflicted with Cornell’s Jurassic 5 show. It seems like this happens a lot – three weeks of weak, middle-grade shows and then a weekend of hard-to-make compromises.

I remember entering “Mohawk Valley College” and “Yo La Tengo” into the Google search engine. One match. A message on Yo La Tengo’s postboard, from February. “I am trying to contact Yo La Tengo,” it reads, “regarding playing a concert at Mohawk Valley College …”

There is no response listed, so I send a message to the e-mail link, requesting information and press tickets for the show, hoping I can find a way to legitimize the tickets. There is no need. I receive a response later in the day. “The show is free, but it’s at Munson Williams Proctor Institute.”

I remember pulling into the Arts Institute’s parking lot in Dave’s car, looking at the dark building and feeling a knot in my stomach. “The show was canceled,” I thought, until I got out of the car and heard blasts of distorted guitar from behind me.

I remember walking over, stunned by the rain, stunned by the small number of people watching the band, stunned by their energy, their humor, their songs.

I remember requesting “Green Arrow,” a soupy, intense slide-guitar-driven instrumental, whimsical and gorgeous. I remember them playing the song — one in a number of requests that they granted — and me raising my arms up, greeting the water that fell on my body.

I remember being shocked when their guitarist asked for a volunteer to play bongos with them. Energetic when they picked me. Buoyant as I bounded up on stage, ready for anything. All of a sudden I found myself anxiously pushing through the crowd, walking up the stairs on the side of the stage, shaking guitarist Ira Kaplan’s hand, manipulating my way around the very long but-not-quite-wide-enough platform to a spot on stage, front and center, blocking the bass drum’s soundhole.

I remember hearing drummer Georgia Hubley count off “1 … 2 … 3 … 4” on her drumsticks, not knowing what was coming, but bashing the hell out of the band’s bongos (and my fingers) anyways, hoping that whatever song the band chose to play would be an uptempo rocker instead of a downbeat mood-swinger.

And right now, in the middle of “You Sexy Thing,” I remember what it means to be alive.

My notes are good for one more thing, our correspondent/bongoist’s first name: Jeff.

 

Eleven years ago today was also Easter Sunday, and found us playing Towson, Maryland with Portastatic, a show that went considerably better than our previous holiday experience.  We opened with a seasonal number, “The Little Black Egg.”  (Four years later, we would once again perform on Easter, this time in Dallas on April 8.  We expanded our holiday repertoire by adding “White Rabbit” and a second-coming salute, “Here She Comes Now” and reprised “Little Black Egg.”)

 

 

Lambchop tours of the U.S. are all too rare, but they took to the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in April and May of 2012 to support Mr. M.  When they asked if we’d be willing to open for them at (Le) Poisson Rouge two years ago today, we came up with the pseudonym Charlie Horse, and made our way to Bleecker Street.   Our ten-song quiet set (played on Lambchop’s instruments and amps) included rearrangements of Popular Songs’ “Nothing to Hide” and “I’m on My Way” and featured Tony Crow on piano on the back five.