Category: News

For you late-comers, as Yo La Tengo draws ever closer to our 30th birthday, we’re taking a look at each day along the way. January 9 is the anniversary of one of our favorite stunts: new wave karaoke. Our pals at Tannis Root  asked us to contribute a song to their 1992 Planned Parenthood benefit compilation of new wave covers, Freedom of Choice, and followed it up in January with a benefit at CBGB. We opened with Hypnolovewheel’s  FoC offering, “Antmusic,” but otherwise played a regular Yo La Tengo set . . . until the encore. Armed with lyric sheets, we put out an open call to any audience member willing to sing any of the eight new wave songs we worked up for the occasion. (Joe Puleo had the unenviable job of stage managing.) If memory serves, our then-booking agent Bob Lawton led off with “Public Image,” and I’m pretty sure that all the other numbers were duets. I know Combustible Edison’s Michael Cudahy and Antietam’s Josh Madell took part, but I believe all the other singers were strangers to us (my apologies if I’m getting any of this wrong).  The repertoire: “Concrete Jungle,” “Cars,” “Warm Leatherette,” “Turning Japanese,” “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “Dancing with Myself” and, most spectacularly, “Psycho Killer.” One of our singers on that last one made us all a little nervous with his dedication to craft, particularly when he suggested we play it a second time, and appeared none too happy when we declined. Well, it was for a good cause!

 

While we navigate the polar vortex, for us an unheard-of term until two days ago that now feels as familiar as partly cloudy, we think back on January 8, 2002.   A memorial was held for Faith Hubley at the Museum of Modern Art in which D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, Garry Trudeau, Dr. Richard Selzer, and others paid tribute to Georgia’s remarkable mom.  We performed the second part of our score for the Jean Painlevé’s “Sea Urchins.”

 

January 7 looms large in the Yo La Tengo lexicon for multiple reasons. In 1994, Matador Records released “From a Motel 6” on the then-popular compact disc format. Meanwhile, a little ways east, we continued traipsing around Holland. My memory is a bit hazy, but we’re fortunate to have James’s actual diary entry for that actual day:

1/07/94
Groningen, en route to Den Haag, NL

We tumble down the steep stairs of the hotel, back over to Vera to load out. We say goodbye to Peter and crawl our way out of town through the cycle-choked streets. I give Ira a George Baker Selection LP for his birthday, and Joe gives him a racy-looking old paperback entitled Georgia Boy. He is happy. We drive along the dyke and stop for coffee at the Aftsluitdijk rest area. We make it to the venue in Den Haag (“I think it’s actually Dutch for ‘The Hog'” – SooYoung Park) in time to hear [REDACTED] soundchecking. Georgia has a cold. Dinner sucks. Our acoustic opening set is really fun, despite the promoter’s reservations, doing versions of songs we never tried this way before (“Shaker,” “Sudden Organ”) and a surprise closer of “1969” – Ira played the acoustic through the Rat, sounded great. Good times, people liked us, we even did an encore. We loaded up the van and left during [REDACTED]’s set. Pouring rain, freezing cold. Hotel, somewhere, is nice and warm and clean. We watch UK darts championships on tv all night long – Bobby George breaks through the pain barrier! A true hero.

Joe has taught himself how to speak Dutch without learning an actual word of the language.

More funny things [soundman] Joe Hickey has said on this trip:
“I was stark bollocks naked”
“Oh fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck”
“(mumble mumble) bunch of butt-fucks” (during [REDACTED] soundcheck)
Referring to underpants as “trolleys”

 

 

Once again we set the Wayback Machine for 1994, as Yo La Tengo continues our carefree meander through the discotheques of Europe.  Twenty years ago today, we pitch our tent at an old favorite, the Vera in Groningen, Holland.  That’s all we’ve got in the Where Were We Then file for January 6.   Back in the here/now, we turn for the second time in two weeks to the art world:  Rowan Okumura Cox acknowledges our 30th year by sharing one of her recent crayon on paper works with us, and now with you.

On this date in 1985 , we played our second show, once again at Maxwell’s, opening for the Turbines.  We opened with our newest song, “The River of Water,” which would eventually be our first single, and encored (encored?) with Bob Dylan’s “I Threw It All Away,” which would eventually close our President Yo La Tengo lp.  Also on January 4, we performed “Sunsquashed” at a 1992 benefit for Hoboken’s Projected Images (do we know how to fundraise or what?) and played our final German show of 1994 with 18th Dye.  But today’s most compelling sight on memory lane is the 1990 date at the Knitting Factory.  The other act on the bill was Bewitched.  Maybe Bob Bert remembers if this happened during their first set or their second, but at some point, they were joined onstage by a complete stranger who started singing “Everybody loves rock ‘n’ roll.”  Naturally that was the final number of the set, after which the band made their way backstage (i.e. the hall leading to the third floor), where their newest member delivered his post-game analysis: “We was good!”

No post tomorrow, as the only sign of activity I can find in our annals is an off-day drive to Holland, and it’s still way to soon to share that story.

Not much to report today. 1994–still autobahning around Germany with 18th Dye, tonight in Frankfurt. Was the appearance of either “Artificial Heart” and/or “Satisfied Mind” on the setlist in tribute to Ray Milland on the anniversary of his birth in 1907? I no longer recall.