Stuff Like That There

Fresh off celebrating their 30th anniversary, Yo La Tengo will release Stuff Like That There on August 28th via Matador Records and will embark on a world tour starting September 23rd in Troy, NY (see dates here).

The trio of Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew now return as a quartet, reuniting with former member Dave Schramm on electric guitar as they revisit the original concept of their beloved Fakebook (a mix of cover songs, “covers” of Yo La Tengo songs, and brand new originals) on its 25th anniversary. This unprecedented live set-up — Ira on acoustic guitar, Georgia up-front on a small kit, and James on upright bass — marks the first occasion of this particular Yo La Tengo incarnation touring together (and since it took them 31 years to get around to doing so, could very well also be the last).

Pre-orders of Stuff Like That There are available via Matador’s webstore. While supplies last, pre-order customers can opt to purchase a Yo La Tengo full-print tote bag containing a circa 2015 cassingle (with new unreleased songs) and mystery Stuff.

The (in)formal bio for Stuff Like That There, penned by Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner, can be found below.

Tracklisting:
A1: My Heart’s Not in It (Darlene McCrea)
A2: Rickety
A3: I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams)
A4: All Your Secrets (remake of track from Popular Songs)
A5: The Ballad of Red Buckets (remake of track from Electr-o-pura)
A6: Friday I’m in Love (The Cure)
A7: Before We Stopped to Think (Great Plains)
B1: Butchie’s Tune (The Lovin’ Spoonful)
B2: Automatic Doom (Special Pillow)
B3: Awhileaway
B4: I Can Feel the Ice Melting (The Parliaments)
B5: Naples (Antietam)
B6: Deeper Into Movies (remake of track from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One)
B7: Somebody’s in Love (The Cosmic Rays with Le Sun Ra and Arkestra)

“There is power in knowledge learned and perceived jointly then presented as an original sin” (1)

Dear Miss Knishkowy,

It seems like almost every other spring one of the robins in our front yard builds a nest on our front porch. It’s always in the same spot above a column in a corner. This is one of those years. A nest appeared as it always has and in time three baby robins poked their heads above the lip of the nest with their beaks pointed to the sky, open wide and requiring. I took to calling those chicks Georgia, Ira, and James. They are in my eyes.

Like the nest, the arrival of a new Yo La Tengo record is a wonder of nature indeed. Constructing in their own fashion a nest for the making of recordings in a comfortable, familiar setting. Assembled from a variety of materials both natural and synthetic, their nest is a strong one. Yet unlike the bird’s nest held together by poop, theirs is a nest that rarely needs such an adhesive to some relief. With occasion, the splendid nature of both endeavors requires the new and its relations.

Between us I honestly wondered if either would in fact return at all following Fade and a tough winter. But I’m a dumbass. The robins showed up again this year and the trio has returned to a concept from which in nineteen ninety they made another F-word-titled record: Fakebook. It was the first record by them I ever heard.

That was nineteen ninety three or four.
It’s now twenty fifteen and I’ll be damned.
Stuff Like That There.

Time has an unfunny way of moving pretty fast as we move with it. As artists we benefit from the accumulation of experience. A professor once told me “most artists only have maybe two or three ideas through the course of their lives. Try as they might they are doomed to repeat and refine those ideas. Sometimes they turn out to be good ideas.” That guy was full of beans but the notion of it gives me pause from time to time. What if he’s right?

Stuff Like That There may well be a 25th anniversary sequel to the idea of Fakebook but to my ears it makes a case for simply returning to what moved Yo La Tengo to make things in the first place: embracing the people who they still hold close and making a spirited noise about it.

Does it not sound like fun to work with old friends like guitarist Dave Schramm and engineer Gene Holder? It also seems like a good way to try something “McNew,” like James McNew on upright bass, an elemental contribution whose significance cannot be overstated. With Fakebook as template, Stuff Like That There is a record with ties to the past which contribute to the sound they make furthered by an affinity for the sounds they love. Somehow they compose the already composed by return. It’s clear-eyed. It’s clever and concealed.

Rare is the band that can cover themselves. Rarer is the band that would even think of it and rarer still is a band that would return to the conception and re-imagine its first breakthrough record. Someone may have read recently that old quote about how “in not knowing history one is doomed to repeat it.” There’s not another band that I know that is less doomed than Yo La Tengo.

I thought it would be a good idea to listen to this record while writing the bio for it. It’s not. It is distracting. I drift away from the virtual page and fall deep into the virtual sound. Suddenly all sounds are amplified all around me, my dogs are barking and I’m in love all over again. “All Your Secrets” is playing and I hallucinate that the intro is from one of my old songs. I searched “Automatic Doom” to see what “cover” it was and it appears to be a song by either @mistersparrow or Special Pillow. My money is on the pillow though both are in the same key.

“Awhileaway” has got to be an original, I wrote one recently with the same title. Lucky for me I abandoned it. “I Can Feel The Ice Melting” turns out to be a Parliaments song. And “Naples” seems pretty dang original to me and it was originally by Antietam. “Somebody’s in Love” is a Sun Ra song. Darlene McCrea’s “My Heart’s Not In It” kicks things off and The Lovin’ Spoonful gets a nod with “Butchie’s Tune” (I still wonder who Butchie was). For me, my favorite track on the record is “Before We Stop To Think,” a cover of the great Great Plains. In a way it is the one that sums up their approach at its best.

One thing I’ve noticed is that once you learn who these songs are by originally it some how makes you seem much smarter when you can reveal its origin to another listener. Imagine yourself saying, “yes, it’s a great song and it’s by Great Plains!”
It makes you the wiser. Yo La Tengo choose sources that make you enriched if not empowered. There’s a word I swore I’d never use.

Power up, people, this is stuff like that there.

Cordially,
(1)
Kurt Wagner

Extra Painful

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On December 2nd, Yo La Tengo will release Extra Painful, a deluxe 2XLP/2XCD reissue of their classic 1993 Painful LP with a whopping 12 bonus tracks (plus many more via download coupon), in celebration of their 30th anniversary as a band.

Pre-orders via the Matador store that correctly answer a trivia question will be eligible to win tickets to the Town Hall shows and a copy of every in-print YLT vinyl album.

Formats:
1. DoubleLP + 7″ + download coupon with extra tracks
2. Double CD + download coupon with extra tracks
3. Digital release is regular and bonus disc tracks (does NOT include download coupon bonus tracks)

Vinyl:
Disc 1: The original Painful album (not remastered)
Disc 2: Extra Painful – the bonus tracks
7″: “Shaker” / “For Shame Of Doing Wrong” – exact reproduction of original single
Download coupon: all the album tracks + 15 extra bonus tracks
Packaging: Double LP + 7″ (in picture sleeve) with ephemera, photos, reproduction of original ‘band-aid’ sticker, the first ‘YLT Gazette’ in 14 years, liner notes by Gerard Cosloy and the band

CD:
Disc 1: As on vinyl
Disc 2: As on vinyl
Download coupon: includes the 2 tracks from the “Shaker” 7″ as well as the 15 extra bonus tracks
Packaging includes a booklet with all the artwork in the vinyl package

Track listings:

Painful:

1. Big Day Coming
2. From A Motel 6
3. Double Dare
4. Superstar-Watcher
5. Nowhere Near
6. Sudden Organ
7. A Worrying Thing
8. I Was A Fool Beside You For Too Long
9. The Whole Of The Law
10. Big Day Coming
11. I Heard You Looking

Extra Painful:

1. Nowhere Near (demo)
2. From A Motel 6 (live acoustic)
3. Tunnel Vision (unreleased instrumental demo)
4. Sudden Organ (demo)
5. Smart Window (unreleased Painful session)
6. Big Day Coming (live acoustic)
7. Slow Learner (unreleased demo)
8. Double Dare (demo)
9. A Worrying Thing (demo)
10. I Heard You Looking (live)

Shaker 7″:

A: Shaker
B: For Shame Of Doing Wrong [8-Track Version – the CD single contained a different version which is on the download coupon]

Presenting the Jim Woodring Presspop Figurines

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Jim Woodring has taken the artwork for Fade and interpreted it into The Tree, a set of three figurines and a DVD produced by our friends at PressPop! We’ll let them describe the rest:

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Experience the magical collaboration of Yo La Tengo and Jim Woodring. The three band members, Ira, Georgia and James come to life as 3 original characters in the land of “the Tree!”

Present/past/future, the real/unreal, visible/invisible, sadness/joy…… “the Tree” will grow, enveloping all. And the ecstatic creatures that inhabit “the Tree” are the 3 beings blessed by the god of music. The curtain has been raised for Woodring’s mysterious and psychedelic dream land. But the story has just begun……

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This product is a set of DVD and 3 soft-vinyl dolls. The DVD contains an original animation (5:20 minutes) of a mind-blowing colorful dream world that centers on “the Tree” and the 3 whimsical characters. It is made by a Japanese production company that specialize in hand-drawn animation: drop. And of course, All NEW music by Yo La Tengo! The 3 colorful soft-vinyl dolls were sculpted by Japanese master sculptor: Tomohiro Yasui. Beautiful packaging design by Jim Woodring with a bonus comic on the back.

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all pics by James McNew

You can order the figures through Matador Records or direct through PressPop. Watch a commercial below:

Out Now : Fade Deluxe Edition 2CD

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In stores now is the double CD version of Fade, featuring outtakes, extra tracks and alternative versions, plus there’s a download card for the “Stupid Things” (12″ version that preceded the album), plus the “Oriole” b-sides from the recent “Ohm” 12″ triple-pack.

1. Ohm (live 1) 6:08
2. Two Trains (demo) 5:40
3. Note to Self
4. Move to California (Times New Viking cover)
5. Is That Enough (live at NPR music) 4:21
6. Cornelia and Jane (instrumental) 4:48
7. A Day in the Life of a Tree 3:46
8. Super Kiwi 3:19
9. Stupid Things (EYヨ remix) 5:27
10. I Saw the Light 2:49
11. Stupid Things (instrumental) 12:05
12. Ohm (live 2) 8:58
13. Oriole 5 11:05

Click here to get it from our fine friends at Matador.

October 1, 2013

Who Asked You?
A Collection of Interviews & Press What-Nots compiled by Nick “Stewey” Morehouse, YLT personal chef/webmaster

• Georgia talks about her “first time” to Film Forum — check it out here.

• Ira recently spoke to Ohio University about quantum physics — I mean, music. (Same diff.)

• And in news that should shock no one, especially your ol’ friend Stewey here, the band chatted it up with Food & Wine magazine.