Category: News

Starting in 1992 until this date in 2001, almost all of our Madrid shows happened at a venue called Revolver.  It is common that clubs will schedule late-night discos for after the concert, but only Revolver started the evening with the disco, and a goth disco at that.  We would arrive at midnight,  loading our equipment down the same stairs that the dancers were using to exit, set up, sound check, and start our set 2-ish.  I’m not sorry we’re no longer on that schedule, but the shows were always great.   (We ended a European tour there in 1995, and rather than spend an hour or two in a hotel, we went straight to the airport, and catnapped on our luggage.  As we checked in for the flight home, the smartly dressed ticket agent looked at us and said “I guess you are very tired,” and then pulled out his ticket stub from just a few hours earlier.)  April 3, 2001 is a Sunday, so we open with the theme from “The Simpsons.”  When we spot someone in the audience wearing a bootleg President Yo La Tengo t-shirt, he’s brought  on stage to model it, then we play him off by adding “Drug Test” to the set list.  He returns to play maracas on “You Sexy Thing” during the encore, which also includes “Speeding Motorcycle” made into a medley as I salute the goths with a chorus of “Boys Don’t Cry.”   And Cristina was there:
This was my 4th YLT concert but the first and only time I had to attend without the company of my beloved boyfriend, Fino.  (He gave me Fakebook as a present when we started to date, c. 1996 – that’s how I learned about you.)  You were fantastic, and I missed him even more the whole show because of that!   Afterwards, I asked Ira for some autograph (why?? I don’t know, I guess I wanted Fino not to feel so bad for missing your show . . . with some piece of paper that could always remind him that he missed that show?? oh well . . .).

We’ve had the chance to see you again like 12-13 more times, to this day, always happily together.
He’s a musician and nowadays he also runs Libros de Ruido, the book collection that will publish “Big Day Coming” in Spain next May.

Happy 30th anniversary, dearestssss Yo La Tengo!!

 

So far you have seen: As we approach December 2, our 30th anniversary as a band, I am endeavoring to look back each and every day at whatever’s caught my eye about that day in our illustrious history.  We start today’s stroll down memory lane in 1992 in Richmond.  For the third day in a row, we play both a record store and a regular show, the former at Plan 9–can’t remember if this is the day I find a 10¢ copy of the Nervous Eaters’ “Loretta” or if that was another visit.  Encouraged by a friend who shall remain nameless to travel with our own soundman, we are doing just that.  It’s not going well.  The year before, we play the Bluebird in Bloomington, Indiana with Antietam . . . for the first of two times in 1991!   Tim and Tara accompany us to WISU for some promo, where we join forces on an impromptu “I’m a Believer,” and at the superfun nighttime show (only the fourth date in James’s tenure), Tara sits in on “Dreams,” “Orange Song” and “Heroin.”

 

April Fools’ Day 1992 in Charlottesville, we open with James–in his first show in his home town–singing and playing guitar on the Happy Flowers’ “I’m the Stupid One.”  Is that a holiday selection?  Two years later in St. Louis, we’re definitely playing to the calendar by opening with “Antmusic” and probably by encoring with “Turning Japanese.”   We’re not in a joking mood in Lawrence in 2000.  Should we blame Mark?

While waiting in line at the Bottleneck in Lawrence, Kansas, I shouted, “Hey, the line’s back there!” at some asshole trying to squeeze through the front door out of turn.  Only when the asshole turned her head in response did I realize it was Georgia.  Thankfully Ira didn’t send James out to rough me up—or if he did the basketball game at the bar seemed more compelling to him.

Good thing for you, Mark, that it was the Final Four.  Elite Eight and you’re a dead man!

 

When we were writing “If It’s True” for Popular Songs, we tried to cobble together some string parts and realized quickly we were out of our depth.  We made a fantasy list of arrangers, and Richard Evans was number one.  Not long after, James reported that he had located him, and he was up for writing a chart.  Making the most of the opportunity, we added “Here to Fall” to his workload, and waited for the results.  The session was held five years ago today in Nashville.  The parts themselves only arrived the day before.  We asked Lambchop’s Tony Crow to come by and play them on piano, so we could get a feel for what they sounded like, which didn’t work at all–hearing one part out of the context of the entire arrangement was the opposite of helpful.  In fact, the session itself got off to a slow start.  As the Nashville players sightread, they were surprised by the intricacies, and their tentative performance made it sound like something was wrong.  (At one point, the engineer, hearing what appeared to be a mistake, asked who invited Jimi Hendrix.)  But once everyone learned and trusted what was on the page, it sounded incredible.  And yet there was still a problem: Producer Roger Moutenot was getting sicker by the minute.  He ended up being forced to bail before the end of our session, and our mix, due to begin the following day, was delayed while he battled the flu.

 

if I am correct (and F. Clarke Martty is wrong), we are facing other health issues 20 years earlier.  In 1989, we performed at the Blue Note in Columbia, MO (oddly, we have played the Blue Note three times over the years on March 31).   Feeling peckish after the show, Clarke took us to an all-night diner that dared patrons to eat four of their giant omelets.  Do so, and there’s no charge.  Our Swiss German bassist, Stephan, pronounced himself “wery hungry” and accepted the challenge.  At about the 3 1/2 omelet mark, things were looking bright, but soon after Stephan put down the fork, food still on his plate.  Luckily he was a man of few words, so he was never that graphic about how sick it made him or for how long.  Out of respect for vanquished competitive eaters the world over, I will say no more.

 

 

 

 

Twenty-nine years ago today, we played our first show in New York, at the legendary t-shirt emporium, CBGB.  We were last on a bill with Boston’s Scruffy the Cat and Dogmatics, and the Droogs from Los Angeles.   All indications to the contrary, this was not the headlining position, but rather the mop-up spot, most of the audience having gone home by then.   Savvy show business veterans despite our scant four months as a band, we knew that would happen, and front-loaded our set to the best of our four-month-old ability.   Two years later, but not necessarily two years wiser, we accept an engagement at the old Tramps off Union Square with our pals, Last Roundup, before checking to see if the Academy Awards are being held that night.  Just our luck, they are, and much like Children of a Lesser God and Hannah and Her Sisters, we are defeated by Platoon.

 

The now-departed venue, Tonic, was fighting for its survival in 2005, and held a series of benefits.  On this date, we did two shows, with Dredd Foole & MV opening.    Our sets were site-specific: We had Garo Yellin with us on cello and I mostly played the Tonic piano–including imagined Floyd Cramer-style instrumental arrangements of “I Can Hear the Grass Grow” and “Don’t Give It Up Now,” as well as our first airing of Snapper‘s “Gentle Hour.”  Last year, we traversed the mighty East River and made our way to the district of Williamsburg to to take part in another Delocated event, the highlight of our performance being the Soft Boys’ “I Wanna Destroy You” rewritten as “I Wanna Destroy Jon” and sung by Eugene Mirman and Steve Cirbus, in Mirminsky crime family character.