Author: Ira

Day two of our tour with Refrigerator, and Tym was there:  It was the spring of 1996 and I was having bizarre pains in my abdomen.  After a few failed diagnoses, the doctors cut me open and discovered testicular cancer that had metamorphisized to my lungs.  I started chemo treatments in early summer where I would stay in the hospital for 5 straight days and get a heavy dose of chemo, with the other 3 weeks more of an outpatient-type therapy.  This really zapped me of my energy (and of course my hair) and it was mentally and physically challenging.  I don’t know the exact date, but Yo La Tengo played at the Trocadero in Philly that summer and my girlfriend at the time (also a HUGE YLT fan) drove the two of us to the show.  We didn’t stay the entire set since it was very draining on me just to make the trip, but to this day it was the biggest highlight of the summer of ’96, seeing my favorite band on the planet rock out.  I made a full recovery and just this past summer saw YLT play the outdoor stage at the Mann with Belle & Sebastian.  Great show by both bands!!!

Good thing the premiere of “Sugarcube” was third in the set.  Before I go, I also want to mention that on this day in 1985, we played for the first time with Mike Lewis on bass.  Mike would hang around long enough to record Ride the Tiger with us.

 

Eighteen years ago today, we begin a six-show Northeast tour with Refrigerator at D.C.’s Black Cat.  At its conclusion, we head for Nashville to record I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, so we’re trying out many of the songs.  On this night, “Little Honda,” “We’re an American Band,” “Autumn Sweater” and “Deeper Into Movies” are all played live for the first time.  In fact, there’s an unscheduled delay before the start of “We’re an American Band” as we remind ourselves how it’s supposed to begin.

 

 

Nine years ago today, we bop up the M6 from Leicester to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, where we’re reunited with The Scene Is Now.  Our pal Eugene Mirman is in town, so he’s added to the show.  Pretty much the entire TSIN join in on the encore of “Speeding Motorcycle,” and then we empty the bench for the one and only 2005 appearance of “Emulsified.”

 

1988–The trio of Georgia, me and Tony Maimone plays its farewell performance, at Hoboken’s River City Fair.  Also on the bill: Vince Brnicevic’s Air Force.  Rumors throughout the years that Ringo is in attendance have never been confirmed or denied, but the evidence speaks for itself–within 12 months he has inaugurated his All-Starr Band tour.  Seventeen years later, we go on before Patti Smith and her band at the Summer Sundae in Leicester.  Not a particularly memorable set for us, but I pick up a 45 of “This Strange Effect” by Dave Berry and get to watch Tom Verlaine constantly on the move in his on-stage chair, trying to avoid the lights, so the day is far from a total loss.

 

We have never played indoors on August 13.  In 1986, we split off from Camper Van Beethoven and headlined the old Ziggy’s in Winston-Salem.  This would appear to be the ideal moment for us to meet Phil Morrison, but Georgia tells me we already had been introduced.  Be that as it may, I can recall watching the skies, as the weather was threatening, and our tenuous tour finances depended on this Wednesday night payday.  (As I think I’ve made clear, I rely on years of notes for these reports, but somehow I did not have to consult a calendar to come up with this show being on a Wednesday, only to confirm my recollection.  I wish I could summon up similar reserves of memory to locate the missing disc of my copy of Roots of a Revolution.)  Twenty years later, we were in Saratoga, CA for what appears to have been the one and only Bleeding Edge festival.  Due to a dispute with the community, our stage was abandoned mid-construction, and we performed on a patio, creating a Bobby Fuller Four/Ghost in the Invisible Bikini vibe (although I don’t recall the necessity of insect repellent in the AIP movie).  Great set by Matmos with guest Zeena Parkins.

 

Ten years ago today, we played a fundraiser for John Kerry’s presidential campaign at the unsurprisingly defunct Spirit New York nightspot.  It was quite the eclectic bill–music from the artist formerly known as  John Wesley Harding and French Kicks; comedy from Lewis Black, Demetri Martin, Rachel Dratch and Paul Scheer; not to mention–are you getting a feel for how long this event was?–Jonathan Lethem, before-the-fall Eliot Spitzer, then-Manhattan borough president C. Virginia Fields, and the candidate’s stepson Chris Heinz.  We dug deep for some hard-hitting political material and came up with Bobby Marchan’s “Rockin Behind the Iron Curtain.”  I’ve managed to block pretty much this whole night from my memory, and just in case Georgia or James remember it better, I’m not asking.

Finally for today, a PS to our post of August 10, courtesy of Bob Bannister: Ah – a marvelous YLT history post because, as current bass-player in TSIN, I know Chris Nelson well enough to report that the tail-bone tumble actually cracked a vertebra which, tough guy that he is, was not revealed until an X-ray for an unrelated problem a decade later. Also I was at the 1990 Maxwell’s show and, tough guy that he is not, the bottle smashing was amazing in a “true punk-rock moment” way.  The fact that a “true punk-rock moment” could still be had in 1990 is testament to Chris’s genius.