Author: Ira

Our one and so-far only appearance in London, Ontario takes place 17 years ago today (native Justin Bieber’s third birthday).  But first it’s a matinee at the Toronto HMV.  Honestly, what I remember best about the day is purchasing the Velvet Underground box set Peel Slowly and See (shrewdly waiting for the deep discount of an in-store and taking advantage of the then-favorable exchange rate).  But looking over the setlist in London, it’s clear we’re taking advantage of it being a Sunday night in what we in the industry refer to as a “secondary market”: as many covers as there are songs from our new record, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One (and even one of those is “Spec Bebop,” a band favorite though not exactly one of the album’s emphasis tracks).  Having approached much of the set like it was an encore, the encore is more like the end of a regular set–for the only time all year (and I wonder how often this has happened, period) we play no covers, choosing instead a guitar version of “Sudden Organ” and “I Heard You Looking.”

 

If I polled the members of Eleventh Dream Day and Yo La Tengo, I suspect no one would have predicted that Discoteca Y in Certaldo, Italy would still be a going concern in 2014, but apparently it is.  No thanks to the night we played there, 23 years ago today.  It was a select gathering of music lovers on hand, especially when it came time for our opening set.  Professionalism as ever our watchword, we took some precautions to ensure that we didn’t take our performance lightly.  First we fortified ourselves with a healthy serving of Cynar, the artichoke liqueur that we were making our first acquaintance with.  Then we made sure to hit the stage running, opening with an adrenalizing cover of Roky Erickson’s arrangement of “Heroin.”  Expecting to slam right into our next number, “Upside-Down,” I was instead startled to see Georgia had vacated the drums, and was in fact standing beside me, whispering in my ear, “I feel like I’m tripping.”  I don’t believe she’s drunk Cynar since.  A more lasting relationship began two years earlier, the occasion of our first-ever appearance in Spain.   The show in Barcelona nearly resulted in the cancellation of our other three dates in the country (a long, confusing story!) and that has nothing to do with the copious amounts of liquor spilled during the tumultuous evening.   Velvet Underground songs–“Sweet Jane” and “I Heard Her Call My Name”– on the setlist once again, in tribute to our pal (and the evening’s promoter) Ignacio Julia.

 

Twenty-three years ago today, the Eleventh Dream Day/Yo La Tengo caravan pitches our tent in Bern.  We’re met there by Rick Brown, and we put him right to work: he sings “It’s Too Late” and “Neutron Bomb” with us.  The audience, understandably, wants more, so utilizing a twin Rick lineup with the addition of Mr. Rizzo on guitar, we close the evening with “What Goes On.”  (To be completely accurate, we arrived the day before, the 22nd being the first off day of the tour, and went to the cinema to see Madonna: Truth or Dare.)

 

One day after John Hubley’s centennial, it’s Sun Ra’s.  Last year, we acknowledged his 99th in Kansas City by closing our Crossroads show with “Somebody’s in Love.”  Did we know it was his birthday the two previous times we played on May 22?  Maybe yes, maybe no–“Nuclear War” ended our set in 2003 (then again, it ended most of our sets that year) in Madrid, where we shared the bill with the Go-Betweens.  Three years earlier, in Munich, “Rocket #9” found its way onto the setlist.  Tomorrow: Jon Benjamin turns 100!  (Unless I misread the fine print.)

 

Today is the 22nd anniversary of our appearance in Gent with Seam, the second of 28 shows in 33 days in Europe we’ll be spending together.  Eight people–among them John McEntire, who you’ll remember from such records as Fade, taking over from original drummer Mac McCaughan–are shoehorned into a van that whatever number it holds comfortably, it definitely isn’t eight.   In a bit of foreshadowing that I’m pretty sure is coincidental, our second song that night is “Cubist Grid,” (“Hey, James?” “WHAT!”  “Are you used to it yet?” “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it”) and we encore with “Shape of Things to Come.”   Last year, when members of our touring party are walking around Boulder before soundcheck and see something, they opt not to say something, but later that afternoon someone else does.  (Fortunately it turned out to be nothing.)

And speaking of anniversaries, today is the centennial of the birth of John Hubley.

 

City Slang macher Christof Ellinghaus suggested that Eleventh Dream Day and Yo La Tengo tour Europe together in the spring of 1991, taking turns opening and closing.   Twenty-three years ago today we played our fifth show together, all in Holland.  The night before we were the headliners and had brought Rick Rizzo up during the encore for a couple of Neil Young songs.  Now, at the Burgerweeshuis (which I’m told translates to “burger weeshuis”) in Deventer, it was our turn to support.  We played our set to palpable indifference, the first and only sign of life from the audience being the perversely persistent clapping for an encore.  Our first thought was not to bother, but then we reconsidered.  For the last three weeks, we’d opened most of our shows with a new song, a slow, dreamy instrumental, as-yet untitled.  We hadn’t played it in Deventer, so we decided this was the perfect moment–seemed to strike the right passive aggressive note.  Afterwards, I went to the merch table . . . you know, now that I think of it, with the details that follow, perhaps we were the headliner on this night too.  Anyway, Eleventh Dream Day guitarist Wink O’Bannon was making a rare appearance as salesman, aided by a bottle of bourbon and two Dutch drinking buddies.  Upon my arrival, one of them sneered at me, “Your music is like a sleeping pill to me.”  I don’t remember my response, but presumably I was insufficiently chastened because he added, in the withering tone the Dutch have mastered, “Burger eater!  Burger eater!”   Naturally the instrumental soon acquired the name “Sleeping Pill.”

Elsewhere in Europe, Todd drops us a line:  Greetings from the very small village of Jettenbach, Germany (population 900 – salute!).   May 20 is my birthday; it also marks the first time I saw the band live, in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2000.  I had been a fan since I read a concert review in one of the San Francisco area weekly alt-papers, probably in autumn 1993.  The review was celebratory, and within a week I had purchased Fakebook, Painful, and May I Sing With Me.  I missed the show, but I caught the fever.   My career path sent me to off live in various locations around the world, unfortunately none within striking distance of a live YLT show. Nonetheless, and sometimes with great difficulty, especially in the pre-internet days, I managed to keep track of my favorite band, buy your records, and, as many commenters have already noted, you’ve become the soundtrack to my life.  Fortune smiled in my direction when I moved to Germany in 1999, and  on  May 20th, 2000, I embarked on a short hour drive to Karlsruhe, Germany for the best birthday present a YLT fan could ever ask for – a show!  The show exceeded all expectations and I mustered the courage to talk to Ira afterwards.  I mentioned it was my birthday and Ira, ever the quick wit, signed my ticket “Happy 18th!”  (My true age was somewhere just slightly north of 40 at the time.)  Fast forward three years and on May 20th, 2003 I found myself at your show in Frankfurt, Germany, at the Mousonturm.  Once again I approached Ira after the show, mentioned that it was my birthday, and when I produced my ticket from the Karlsruhe show, Ira gleefully grabbed the ticket and proved that the intervening three years had not diminished his wit, as he signed it “Happy 21!”  No YLT show in Germany on my birthday this year; however I will enjoy the wonderful memories of the 2000 and 2003  shows as well as the many other YLT shows I’ve attended here in Germany and Switzerland in the past 14 years.  Thank you Georgia, Ira, James for the amazing performances and the music!  Thanks also to the YLT extended family of musicians, sound crew, engineers, producers, road crew, Matador, etc., for all they do.   Looking forward to seeing you all again soon.