Category: News

“Andalucia pts 1 and 2” read my notes for April 9, 1992, at the Axiom in Houston.  That’s my shorthand for a false start.  Twenty-two years after the fact, I’m guessing it was monitor feedback, and pretty sure that was the last straw with our soundman du tour.  Bad vibes are plentiful.  The band before us “trashes” their drum kit, a gesture that appears somewhat short of spontaneous when they gingerly move the kick drum mic out of harm’s way immediately preceding their moment of rebellion.  The scorn goes both ways: “Stick around for Hoboken” are their parting words.  The next morning, before departing for Austin, we fire our soundman, grudgingly agreeing to drive him to Dallas bus station, where in our mutual haste to be rid of each other, he leaves behind his copy of Stephen King’s The Stand.

In October, 2006, we played to an intimate gathering at the Belly Up in Aspen.  After our set, I went out to talk to anyone to wanted to say hi, and met someone who reported that the last time he’d seen us was at Carnegie Mellon on this date in 1995.   A fairly dispiriting and disorganized daytime university show, I nonetheless remembered the afternoon vividly for what happened after we played.  Backstage, so to speak, actually some campus room temporarily turned over to us, we were entertaining a local impresario, someone who had booked shows by many of our friends, though never us.  He was proudly showing us a trombone he had found at our stage, obviously belonging to a member of the big band that had preceded us, uncovered when chairs and p.a. were taken away.   We were appalled and told him he had to bring it back.  But we were driving back to Hoboken that night, and didn’t stick around to find out if he did.  Now, all these years later, I got the answer: He didn’t.   I was having a conversation with the guy whose trombone had been stolen!  My disbelief was in no way due to wondering how someone with one arm that ended at the elbow, as was the case with the person I was talking to, handled a trombone.  I did something I never do, and told him that I’d like to bring him to the dressing room, that Georgia and James were sure to want to meet him, a bona fide celebrity in our band’s lore.  He agreed, and told me that in fact he was something of a celebrity, but I admit it, I was barely listening.  So we get backstage, a small room with Georgia, James, members of Why? and an oxygen tank (the altitude in Aspen can make you woozy if you’re not used to it).  Georgia and James were as flabbergasted as I knew they would be.  We had all sorts of questions about that day in 1995, but the guy was more interested in telling us what had happened to him more recently.   Remember Aron Ralston, who was trapped by a boulder hiking by himself in Utah, and cut off his own arm, thereby saving his life?  The guy who was played by James Franco in 127 Hours?  Did you know he used to play the trombone?   Of course, I have no way of knowing this for sure, but I suspect he never had and has never since told this story, after which the first question was “Did you ever get a new trombone?”

I’ve got a long story to tell tomorrow, so I’m going to take advantage of a slow news day on April 7 to do a little housecleaning.  Amid all the hubbub in New Orleans yesterday, I couldn’t find an opening to mention April 6, 2006.  In one action-packed day we passed the afternoon on a Warner Bros. lot filming the Gilmore Girls with Ron Mael, Dave “Gruber” Allen, and Russell Mael, and split our night between an incredible comedy lineup at the Steve Allen Theater and, even more incredibly, a reunion of the Flesh Eaters’ Minute to Pray lineup.  I’ll mention right now that on April 8, 2003, Summer Sun was released, clearing the way for tomorrow’s saga.  Teaser: Just like today’s, a cast member of Freaks & Geeks will make an appearance.

Our visit to Grand Rapids on this day in 1994 coincides with Melissa Etheridge’s, and just our luck, our pal Will Rigby is drumming for her opening act, Matthew Sweet.  He comes over to the Reptile House after his set and joins us for two songs.  In 2000, in Champaign, we salute Cities In Illinois That Aren’t Chicago by covering “Come On, Come On.”  But with all respect to Will and Bun E., the most memorable event on April 6 happened offstage.  With a travel day on our 1992 tour of the south, we hightail it to our next stop, New Orleans, arriving in time for lunch at the late lamented Uglesisch’s.   Afterwards Mr. Soundman declares himself “kinda tired” and seeks a park where he can lie down.  Let me backtrack for a moment and emphasize the tight squeeze of touring circa 1992: the five of us are traveling together in a van, and pretty much always on the move–most every day includes not just a nighttime concert but daytime promo at a record store or radio station.  Even the two hotel rooms we are paying for every night feel like a luxury, although James and Joe, sharing a room with the soundman, might not reach for that specific word.  Anyway, our snooze-bound soundman has now left the four of us by ourselves for the first time in a week.  For the next hour we remain in Uglesich’s parking lot, complaining, laughing, and–if I may go way way out on a limb here–perhaps stumbling onto what might be termed by someone else a Team Building Exercise.  At this point, James (and Joe) have been part of Yo La Tengo LLC for just over a year.  None of us have any inkling that we’re going to be doing this for another 22 years and counting, and it’s just possible that were it not for the way we united over HOW HE WAS DRIVING US BONKERS, we may not have.

Maybe I’m being melodramatic.  The truth is I don’t remember much about our trip to New Haven on this day in 1985, our first show outside of New York and New Jersey, except for the Mikey-like “Georgia likes it” moment of her trying clam pizza at Frank Pepe’s.    But one look at our 1991 set list, opening for Eleventh Dream Day at Marquette, and I’m reliving the nightmare:  When we fail to complete either of our first two songs, we leave the stage to regroup.  We tiptoe back on with “Andalucia” and then rip through another two numbers before having to bail on yet another midway through.  Oy–is this the show where we attempt to anchor Georgia’s wandering bass drum with an IBM Selectric?  Luckily for us, there’s no time to brood.  We pack up and drive from Milwaukee to Chicago, where we’ve got another show that night at Lounge Ax (an SST-esque stunt we’d never attempted prior).  That one goes just fine.  One last April 5 first, our first post-Katrina date in New Orleans.  Georgia sings Irma Thomas’s “Ruler of My Heart” and we’re very happy to be back.

Having packed up the tent and said goodbye to Lambchop in late March 2000, we made our way to the midwest and seven shows with Quickspace, the last one occurring on this date fourteen years ago, at Shank Hall in Milwaukee (considerably smaller than its This Is Spinal Tap namesake).  Tom Cullinan agrees to play Th’ Faith Healers’ “This Time” with us, and by the time we wrap up the first encore with “Group Grope,” every member of the band has joined in.  Things are not quite so hunky-dory on our 1992 tour.  Our inability to keep our soundman from playing the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack and Sha-Na-Na before we go on (among other things) is fraying the nerves.  On the drive from Carrboro to Atlanta, we stop at the Beacon Drive-In.  The second we enter, Soundman says “This place is great,” which I understand may appear fairly innocuous to you the reader.  But after only four days with him, there’s really nothing he could say except “I quit” that would mollify us.  “How do you know?” I snap, and then we enjoy a delicious lunch.  The owner spots us for out-of-towners, and brings us complimentary t-shirts and an entire strawberry shortcake, which we serve to the stragglers at the conclusion of that night’s show at The Point.