Month: October 2014

Before we start trick or treating, we traveled to Iceland for the first time last year, playing our first date since the death of Lou Reed, and opened the show with “I’m Set Free.”  Another Velvet Underground song closed our set in Minneapolis 27 years ago today.  We were the odd band out on a cover band bill at the 7th Street Entry and not particularly thrilled about it, so we decided to share the love with 45 minutes or so of feedback as a lead-in to “Sunday Morning.”  We’re much more in the Halloween spirit in Albuquerque 1995, so much so that we decide to masquerade as someone else.  Admittedly it’s a spontaneous, last-second decision that comes about at the end of the night when one of our touring party backs the van into a parked car and is witnessed doing so by a policeman.  Somehow said driver gets away with providing a fake name, convincing the officer that he or she (it wasn’t she) has no ID.  As believable as the story no doubt was, one can’t help but think that the success of the ruse depended on the Albuquerque police having better things to do on Halloween than talk insurance with us.  Especially since we don’t recall causing any actual damage, but if we dented your car, we apologize profusely.  And that’s not even my favorite memory of the day.   I can’t come up with the year, but Georgia and I were flying to the west coast with an acoustic guitar as part of our carry-on baggage.  The airline told us we had to check it, which wouldn’t have pleased me under any circumstances, but was especially worrisome given the decidedly non-baggage-handler-friendly case I had.  I argued with the all the gusto I could summon, an argument I of course lost.  No shame in that, but it’s a little embarrassing to be bested by a ticket agent dressed for Halloween as a bunny rabbit.  (The guitar made it through unscathed.)

 

A four-day run at NYC’s Westbeth Theater begins 17 years ago today.  We are honored to share the stage with an all-too-rare appearance by the guitar duo of Jody Harris and the late Robert Quine.  For our part, things really get going on night 2.  We take the stage with sheets over our heads and sing the Shaggs‘ “It’s Halloween” a cappella, at the conclusion of which the three of us enter from the wings, revealing that it wasn’t really us under the sheets (though I don’t think anyone was fooled).  Wake Ooloo and The Scene Is Now play too, so Glenn Mercer joins us on a half dozen songs, including the Dream Syndicate‘s seasonal selection.  Peter Stampfel and Will Rigby‘s Unmentionables usher in November, and Peter, Will, and Dave Schramm all help us out during our Fakebook-heavy set.  The last show is a hardcore matinee with Magnetic Fields.  Stephin Merritt’s version of “Attack on Love” was such a success at its out-of-town tryout the previous June in Minneapolis that we bring him back for an encore on the big city stage.  Brian Sides is retiring from life on the road with Yo La Tengo at the end of this show, so we invite him to play guitar on the last two songs, “Cast a Shadow” and Blondie’s “Dreaming.”

 

In Tucson 19 years ago today, we encore with the Meat Puppets’ “Big House,” as heard at our debut show at Maxwell’s on 12/2/84 and not since.  Making our way north by northwest, to coin a phrase, in 2007 we Freewheel at the Aladdin Theater in Portland.  M. Ward plays a surprise opening set, and then joins us for an extended encore that concludes with “Satisfied Mind,” sung in tribute to the recently departed Porter Wagoner.

 

Twenty-seven years and three days ago, we devise a plan for the next time we feel taken for granted, not imagining just how soon that would be.  And then we arrive at the Blind Pig in Ann Arbor, where we are to open for Volcano Suns for the second consecutive night, to discover that–as was always threatened on Mission: Impossible–the club has disavowed any knowledge of us.  I’m not sure they ever concede having booked us (we definitely don’t appear on any posters or in any listings), but eventually it’s understood that we will perform (and maybe get paid).  Our response is to take the medley of “A House Is Not a Motel” and “The Evil That Men Do” that frequently comprised the last 10 or so minutes of our set and extend it and then extend it some more.  It’s practically all we do (save for segueing into “Lewis” for the final three minutes).  All the shitty feelings we’d had all day–driving for hours to beg some person to honor their deal and maybe sell you a half-price beer–disappeared.  We felt in control, and even got brought back for an encore.  Some time later Peter Buck showed up and told us that when he called the club to ask who was playing, there was no mention of us.  To be fair, based on subsequent visits to Ann Arbor, when Joe Puleo was known to answer the house phone after umpteen rings (“Pig.”), it’s possible that it was Jeff Weigand who kept our appearance under wraps.

 

Volcano Suns                                                                                                              The Three Suns

 

After months of acoustic shows, on this day in 1990, we dust off the fuzzboxes and perform a set at CBGB, after which one satisfied customer looks me up, down, then up and down again before asking disbelievingly if we’re the Yo La Tengo that opened for the Sundays at the Marquee a few months ago.  Ten years later, we conclude our Japanese tour with a performance at Club Quattro, and it’s a wild one.  Salon Music is on the bill and they join us at the start of our second encore for a version of “Rocket #9” that becomes a medley with “Muck Muck” before it’s over.  I surf the crowd during “Love Power” and live to tell the story.  We return for two quiet songs; Georgia sings “Take Care” and that’s that.

 

Of the dozens of times we played at Maxwell’s, the oddest might have taken place 22 years ago today.  We’re set up in the front room to provide some between-speech acoustic entertainment at a Clinton/Gore campaign event, and it turns out that my political rally default setting–basically less talk, more music–is not as universal as I once thought.  The only two people who don’t appear impatient for us to finish are Chris Knox and Alec Bathgate–I know they enjoy my mom’s rendition of “Griselda” (almost as much as they enjoy taunting my brother afterwards about missing it).  Three years later, our tour with Run On concludes at the Alligator Lounge in Santa Monica.  All four members of the band find their way on stage before the night is over, most spectacularly in a death-defying (perhaps I exaggerate) guitar handoff from Alan Licht to Sue Garner during the segue from “A House Is Not a Motel” to “Bad Politics.”