Category: News

Thirteen years ago today, Yo La Tengo pay a visit to Utica, NY.  I remember it was an outdoor show, lousy weather, a sparse turnout (who could blame anyone who stayed away?), a sizable percentage of whom are amusing themselves with an improvised slip ‘n slide, not much else.  My notes for a given show don’t usually amount to more than the set list, and this one raises more questions than it answers–“We’re an American Band” is a reasonable opener, and covering the Troggs’ “66-5-4-3-2-1” next sounds plausible.  But “It’s Alright (the Way That You Live)”?  Third?  “Mack the Knife”?!  I needed to know more about this show than my memory was providing.  A little research revealed that apparently we were doing pretty much all requests (that still doesn’t explain “Mack the Knife”).  I continued to dig and found this unsigned article from Ithaca College’s Accent:

Yo La Tengo search ends with bongo bash

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April 26, 2001

It is 9:55 on a Saturday night in Utica, N.Y. The rain is spilling down on a makeshift trailer-hut, where Yo La Tengo are playing a cover of Hot Chocolate’s “You Sexy Thing” to the smallish crowd that has braved the weather to watch the indie rock icons. And I’m on stage, playing bongos with a band that I love.

I’m not really sure how I got here or where I’m going afterwards. I remember passing a punk rocker on my way to Park, two weeks ago, and catching just a few words of the conversation he was having with his friend.

“… nic Youth and Yo La Tengo are playing Syra …”

I stopped.

“Did you just say that Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo are playing in SYRACUSE?”

“That’s what one of my teachers said in class.”

I remember searching Pollstar for tour dates, and the screen coming up blank. Yo La Tengo’s Web page said that the band wasn’t on tour. Sonic Youth were scheduled for Germany.

With a little more searching, two dates came up for Yo La Tengo. The Utica one said that it was at “Mohawk Valley College.” Syracuse’s Sonic Youth date was also listed, but it conflicted with Cornell’s Jurassic 5 show. It seems like this happens a lot – three weeks of weak, middle-grade shows and then a weekend of hard-to-make compromises.

I remember entering “Mohawk Valley College” and “Yo La Tengo” into the Google search engine. One match. A message on Yo La Tengo’s postboard, from February. “I am trying to contact Yo La Tengo,” it reads, “regarding playing a concert at Mohawk Valley College …”

There is no response listed, so I send a message to the e-mail link, requesting information and press tickets for the show, hoping I can find a way to legitimize the tickets. There is no need. I receive a response later in the day. “The show is free, but it’s at Munson Williams Proctor Institute.”

I remember pulling into the Arts Institute’s parking lot in Dave’s car, looking at the dark building and feeling a knot in my stomach. “The show was canceled,” I thought, until I got out of the car and heard blasts of distorted guitar from behind me.

I remember walking over, stunned by the rain, stunned by the small number of people watching the band, stunned by their energy, their humor, their songs.

I remember requesting “Green Arrow,” a soupy, intense slide-guitar-driven instrumental, whimsical and gorgeous. I remember them playing the song — one in a number of requests that they granted — and me raising my arms up, greeting the water that fell on my body.

I remember being shocked when their guitarist asked for a volunteer to play bongos with them. Energetic when they picked me. Buoyant as I bounded up on stage, ready for anything. All of a sudden I found myself anxiously pushing through the crowd, walking up the stairs on the side of the stage, shaking guitarist Ira Kaplan’s hand, manipulating my way around the very long but-not-quite-wide-enough platform to a spot on stage, front and center, blocking the bass drum’s soundhole.

I remember hearing drummer Georgia Hubley count off “1 … 2 … 3 … 4” on her drumsticks, not knowing what was coming, but bashing the hell out of the band’s bongos (and my fingers) anyways, hoping that whatever song the band chose to play would be an uptempo rocker instead of a downbeat mood-swinger.

And right now, in the middle of “You Sexy Thing,” I remember what it means to be alive.

My notes are good for one more thing, our correspondent/bongoist’s first name: Jeff.

 

Eleven years ago today was also Easter Sunday, and found us playing Towson, Maryland with Portastatic, a show that went considerably better than our previous holiday experience.  We opened with a seasonal number, “The Little Black Egg.”  (Four years later, we would once again perform on Easter, this time in Dallas on April 8.  We expanded our holiday repertoire by adding “White Rabbit” and a second-coming salute, “Here She Comes Now” and reprised “Little Black Egg.”)

 

 

Lambchop tours of the U.S. are all too rare, but they took to the Eisenhower Interstate Highway System in April and May of 2012 to support Mr. M.  When they asked if we’d be willing to open for them at (Le) Poisson Rouge two years ago today, we came up with the pseudonym Charlie Horse, and made our way to Bleecker Street.   Our ten-song quiet set (played on Lambchop’s instruments and amps) included rearrangements of Popular Songs’ “Nothing to Hide” and “I’m on My Way” and featured Tony Crow on piano on the back five.

 

Whether at multiple Hanukkah shows in Hoboken or at Fuji Rock in Japan in July 2003, we’ve performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra anytime the opportunity arises, dating back to eleven years ago today.  Touring behind the newly released Summer Sun, tonight’s stop is the Trocadero in Philadelphia, a city that looms large in our world not only for its fine culinary offerings, but as the home base for the Arkestra.  We invited anyone who wanted to sit in to come by soundcheck, and Danny Ray Thompson, Tyrone Hill and Dave Davis took us up on the offer.  Did we really run through all 10 songs that we played together that night?  Unlikely.  I’m guessing we tried out a few and, ecstatic with the results, kept throwing more and more songs at them to see what would happen.  Once we found out, we weren’t letting them get away too easily–we suggested they drive down to D.C. with us for the next night’s show, resulting in an Is This Really Happening? minivan excursion, Georgia at the wheel, James shotgun, Tyrone and a nonstop-narrating Danny in the middle, me and Dave in the back.

 

As Gladys Knight once sang, not necessarily referencing Stephan Wichnewski following our U.S. tour of January/February 1988: L.A. (to say nothing of Phoenix, San Luis Obispo, Albuquerque, Dallas, and Tuscaloosa) proved too much for the man.  He started phasing himself out of the operation, playing only those shows that didn’t involve much travel.  An already booked midwest tour in April would require either cancellation or a replacement.  Our pal Wolf Knapp, late of Antietam, stepped into the breach.  It was rough on everybody–in addition to the challenges presented by trying to quickly integrate Wolf into the lineup, there was the emotional aspect of having Stephan quit.  It wasn’t even as if we liked him that much, but rejection is rejection.   We got off to a rocky start, though things improved over the course of the week.  Still, I don’t think anyone was sorry when we got to our last show in Ft. Wayne on this date 26 years ago.  We were met out front by the promoter who claimed surprise at seeing us, insisting that he had cancelled the show with our booking agent in favor of the Silos.  Dejected, we pointed the station wagon toward Hoboken until Georgia suggested that maybe we should not just take this stranger’s word for it, but actually check with our agent–not an easy task, as it was a Sunday and we didn’t have his home number.  We eventually got through to him and he said that the show was most definitely not cancelled, adding “You know about Cleveland?”  We said yes, having already been warned that that show, opening for Adrian Belew, was in fact cancelled.  Returning to the venue, we encountered the Silos, who were under the impression that we were opening, more evidence that the promoter was trying to pull a fast one.  Somehow we convinced the promoter to let us play, and pay us something.  While the Silos soundchecked, we went to a diner (where no amount of referring to Italian dressing could keep the waitress from calling it Eye-talian), ate some crappy food, stood at the cash register for five minutes waiting to pay, and finally just walked out, for the first and last time in my life.  After the show, we drove all night, and checked in on Monday morning with our agent, who expressed confusion when we said we were calling from home.  It turned out that what we should have known about Cleveland was that the show was back on.   We missed that one, but did get there seven years ago today, playing the Beachland Ballroom with Times New Viking.

Speaking once more of Cleveland, Matt of Lakewood writes:  4/17/06.  As something of a young fan of the band (I’ll be celebrating my 30th birthday this year too!), my memories of it only go back as far as 2004 (I was a ripe 20 years old when I became a college radio fanatic and discovered your great music).  So there are fewer memories in my cerebral cortex to pull from (seeing the band perform the near-entirety of I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass at Pitchfork Fest 2006, listening to your CDs on the way to New York for New Year’s Eve 2005, etc.) but I think my favorite is the time I sheepishly plugged a Fender Stratocaster into a Vox AC30 at the North Olmsted (Cleveland suburb) Guitar Center and played the opening riff to “I Heard You Looking” in April of 2006. Struggling to not be heard at Guitar Center may not be a common problem, but my chops have never been anything to brag about, particularly back then. My mediocre six-string skills have developed a bit since that time, and I’ll admit I’ve drawn much inspiration from Ira’s unmistakable style. Maybe a more brash indie-rocker will plug in and turn heads at the chain store in the Year of Our YLT 2014.

 

Hope everybody’s having a fabulous Passover!  I am reminded of 2003, when we found ourselves in Boston on the first night of the holiday, a circumstance that elicited some kvetching from the Seder-bound among our fans.  In no position to postpone the concert, we thought we’d at least make it as, shall we say, Jew-y as possible.  We planned to stock up on matzoh in Montreal, but one thing led to another and instead we found ourselves searching in vain in the greater Roxy area–who would ever have expected that Boston’s Chinatown would be so lacking in matzoh?  We did locate a novelty shop, and inquired if perhaps they had anything identifiably Jewish.  “For Pesach?” we were asked, and we knew we were in good hands.  It turned out that yes, they had a Jewish item, a novelty bagel, but as a leavened bread, it was most certainly not for Pesach.  But we were not in a position to be picky, and purchased the bagel.  Meanwhile, we had the promoter scouring Boston for matzoh, which turned out to be no easy task–finally showing up well after the doors opened.  At the show, both bagel and matzoh were at the merch table with Joe; on stage, we encored with some Jewish numbers.  Only at the conclusion of the evening did we learn of the final indignity: the matzoh was not kosher for Passover.  (In 2005, we performed The Sounds of Science in St. Louis–pretty much a tribute to shellfish–on the first night of Passover.  Very glad Jews don’t believe in hell.)