Category: News

Let’s start today’s post with an apology to our old buddy Jeff from NYC.  I neglected to include his reminiscence in my July 6 post.  Better late than never, and I hope Jeff will agree: At the risk of being like about a million OTHER Yo La Tengo fans, “Our Way To Fall” was our first wedding dance, back at Kilkea Castle, County Kildare, Ireland, July 6, 2003.  I get a bit misty whenever I hear it but that’s a product of getting older, I am sure.  And sure enough, fellow New Yorker Matt writes: The first album I bought my now wife was And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out in 2000.  Six plus years later when we were married (July 8, 2006), “Our Way to Fall” was the song chosen for our first dance.  It was the perfect song for a wonderful day in our lives.

That July 6 post, you’ll recall, found us on tour with the Sundays, but playing different rooms in Minneapolis due to a scheduling snafu.  There was no show the following day, but it was hardly time off.  We spent most of it hightailing our way to Denver, where we were to be reunited with the Sundays at 23 Parrish on this day 24 years ago.  We got within striking distance of Denver on the 7th, splurged on a single hotel room for the five in our traveling party, and hit a flea market on our way into town on the show day.  It was only then that we bothered to call the club, to find out what time we should arrive.  And therefore it was only then, in that time long long ago when dinosaurs walked the earth and cellular telephones did not, that we found out that the Sundays had been forced to cancel not just Denver, but the remaining west coast dates of their tour.   We were looking at an unscheduled trip home having unnecessarily added a 550-mile detour.  After much cajoling, the club agreed to let us play anyway, making the whole thing worth it.  I’m kidding, of course–nothing was going to rescue that drive back to New Jersey.

 

The following is by no means the worst thing that ever happened to the band, and in fact, if you want to tell me it barely qualifies as a thing at all, I won’t argue.  Fourteen years ago today, we appeared at the Quart festival in Kristiansand, Norway.  When Pan Am went out of business, they took the direct flight from New York to Kristiansand with them, so our route to Norway on Air France included not one but two connections.  Unfortunately our bags took an even more circuitous route to us, and by the time we went on at the Quart festival, one of Georgia’s cymbals had still not arrived.  Nor did it reach us during the ensuing week we spent in Europe.  (We were given the opportunity of looking through an unclaimed/lost baggage room in .  . . Copenhagen? . . . and not only was the search fruitless, but looking at the mountains of luggage, it was hard to believe that anyone in the history of commercial aviation had ever met their suitcase on the carousel.)  We filed a lost item report (never responded to), and Georgia replaced the cymbal.  Three months later, we came home to a message on our answering machine from Air France, saying–in a tone that suggested that they had been out of touch for three hours instead of three months–they had found our bag and would be delivering it.  Not even a fake “sorry for your inconvenience.”  Can’t remember which Bob Newhart Show it is where his mild-mannered to a fault patient Mr. Herd finally snaps, over nothing.  “I was red with rage,” he says with glee.  I know the feeling.

 

I don’t think we ever played with a group who inspired the pandemonium of the Sundays in 1990.  The shows were hopelessly sold out, and only our unimpeachable integrity kept us from a lucrative sideline in backstage pass and guestlist sales.  Given the nature of tour routing, this date 24 years ago and this date only was earmarked for Minneapolis.  Problem was the desired venue, First Avenue, was not available, having already been booked for Loudon Wainright III.  First Avenue’s small room, the Seventh Street Entry, had Big Dipper and the Sneetches that night.  I think most any promoter other than Steve McClellan would have found some way to get the Sundays, a guaranteed sellout, into the big room.  Instead, he honored his commitment to Loudon Wainright, and shoehorned the Sundays onto the top of the Entry’s bill.  In so doing, Steve inconvenienced the Sundays (playing to one-third the audience with lesser production), Big Dipper and the Sneetches (forced down the bill), and us (our opening set for Loudon Wainright had a fraction of the audience that we would have had if the Sundays were headlining), not to mention him and his clubs (lost revenue and disgruntled bands).  Even at the time, I thought it was an incredibly un-weasel-ly move, and my admiration has only increased in the ensuing years.  Apropos of nothing, Steve McClellan would later attempt to emulate Fred Flintstone’s windmill bowling technique at a charity event and break his arm.  One of a kind.

Heading south, Daniel F. from Melbourne (Australia, not Florida) writes about this day: In July 2008 my friend Lynsze bought me the Nuclear War 12″ for my birthday.  (She then became my girlfriend, and is now my best friend). 

 

On this day in 1990, our acoustic lineup opens for the Sundays at Chicago’s Cabaret Metro, and then we dash over to the Rainbo, and play two more sets.  Two years earlier, we perform “Drug Test” for the first time, at the Mitternacht in Hamburg.  And speaking of drug tests, and in the spirit of the World Cup, international competition has captured our attention right now.  In 1992, our tour with My Bloody Valentine concludes at the Palace in Hollywood, former home of, what else, the Hollywood Palace tv show.  At a post-concert soiree, Kevin Shields rolls a joint and then asks our tour manager Joe Puleo if he should roll another.  Little realizing the import of his words, Joe replies that if Kevin keeps rolling, he’ll keep smoking.  Some time later, most of us are ready to call it a night, and since we do everything as a group, we tell Joe it’s time to go.  He says his goodbyes, to which Kevin answers, “I win.”  Joe of course had forgotten about the challenge, if he ever took note of it in the first place,  smoking pot out of sheer love of the game.

 

In New York’s Battery Park nine years ago today, on a bill with Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks and Laura Cantrell, we get into the holiday spirit by opening with “We’re an American Band” from I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, followed by “We’re an American Band” by Grand Funk.  Both “The Weakest Part” and “The Story of Yo La Tango” are played for the first time.  And did you know that Sanjay from Los Angeles has the same birthday as Rick Rizzo, Eva Marie Saint and my dad?  He writes:  My wife, then my girlfriend, bought me And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out for my 27th birthday (July 4, 2001); I knew then she was the girl for me.

 

 

 

Eighteen years ago today, we are in Denmark for the Roskilde festival, and have a pretty good time.  Our set goes well, and features a guest appearance by 18th Dye’s Sebastian Buttrich in his adopted home town.  We see Stereolab and Elvis Costello & the Attractions–one of which ends with the lead singer screaming at his band.  Not that we’re regulars on the festival circuit, but this is the mellowest one we’ve ever seen, depending on your feelings about rampant public urination.  Our take is that it could be worse, so long as it doesn’t get to the point when men are peeing where they stand while watching a band, beer in hand.  And when it does get to that point, during ZZ Top’s festival-concluding performance, we take our leave.  But nobody feels too bad about that–we liked them better when they were a four-piece.