new yo la tengo

As an aside - hahaha "Xgau" hehe! You lot are *mental*...

that's how i would ignorantly sum up their entire career, based on the impression i have of one album i heard a few years ago. i thought it was pretty good but not really anything to get excited about. i liked it, and probably still do, but never felt any desire to listen to it or seek out any others.

does that make any sense? comfortable. idunno how else to say it.

Encores were a little disappointing .. (bad requests.) Ears still bleeding this morning... I expected a quiet set .. plenty of rockers in there though.

and

Best live band I have ever seen in my life, Jel. Sorry for your bad experience.

and

Another lovely YLT album. Not sure if it equals And then Nothing but Season of the Shark and Today Is the Day is about the strongest pair of succeeding songs on any album this year I have heard. The first one gives me this warmness from inside like immediately after having drunk an Irish coffee, the second one gives me the dizziness of the head after that Irish coffee.

A question to myself: Why can't I refrain of thinking of Mr Bush and his personnel when I hear the word shark?

It was two particularly annoying YLT live performances that have forever set me against this damn band.

I like it more. And I liked that record. But not as much as I Can Hear.... Summer Sun reminds me of the really nice slow parts of I Can Hear... and Painful, without being as deadly as the slowest parts of And Then Nothing....

I lost posts in Blogger about once or twice. Now I make sure that before posting to my blog the stuff is on the clipboard ( and ). In case I make a long post (I have never seen a short one by you) I never write in the blog-edit window but in Word where I save the stuff before posting it. You knew all this of course but maybe there are others who can use it.

In case your hard disk was fucked all this is of no use obviously. That actually has happened to me once in my life. Long before Blogger. The disk was formatted too big and when it was full it did not know it was full and continued writing on itself which wiped the whole thing.

Still not really feeling the new album, though I've warmed up to a couple of tracks.

new 12" out this week, lead track is from new LP out early next year. sounds great, but i love this band to bits, so grain of salt! bonus EYE remix.

"the crying of lot g" is so beautiful

dig the single, and the remix. and the instrumental (more-so than the instro's from the last couple LPs).

but yeah...in the same boat as tylerw.

fanboy boat.

got the 12" today. the single & the instrumental top anything off Popular Songs (save for "Periodically Double or Triple") for me.

Love YLT but wasn't crazy about Popular Songs, especially the two long instrumentals closing the album.

Seeing them at Liberty Lunch in austin,tx when they had just released I Can Hear the Heart beating was one of the best rock shows I have seen. They opened with Big Day Coming and closed with an extended Blue Line Swinger. Such a amazing colorful show.

There's a few really terrific pop tunes on Popular Songs - "Periodically Triple or Double" and "If It's True" in particular.

there are some sleepy stretches on popular songs, but i like most of the songs. wonder if the new one will continue the "let's put out really long albums" trend that's been going since ... well, i guess since 1997.

i basically stick with 89-99 but i'll check out the next triennial 2LP at least once

oh hell make it 89-00

The two long ones on Popular Songs are the only two I saved on my hard drive.

yeah i think the ending three songs there are my favorites. love the fireside, that long dreamy whispery thing.

Ira: "We aimed at making shorter songs this time. We challenged ourselves to cut down on some of the sprawl of some of the last few records. I don't think any song is seven minutes long, let alone longer, though a couple get close."

http://pitchfork.com/features/update/8951-yo-la-tengo/

Coincidentally I just wrote a sappy post about ATNTIIO.

Love this! Some will be appalled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJwTSTlpsak

That's lovely. They're doing an acoustic show here in November; I don't know if I'm a big enough fan to recognize de-electrified YLT songs, but their covers are always ace.

Kind of weird to hear them cover a song that's neither obscure nor particularly hip, lovely though the cover may be.

it does seem like a funny choice for them, but it does sound nice (and pretty muchg exactly the way it sounded in my head when i saw the tracklist).

It's a gesture of kindness towards '80s British New Wave-ophobes like me. (Please do not anyone read this as homophobe--the Pet Shop Boys and Culture Club might be the only two bands from that era I like/love, unless the English Beat count.)

"here comes my baby" - jaunty Top 20 hit for some brits 23 years before the release of facebook
"friday i'm in love" - jaunty Top 20 hit for some brits 23 years before the release of Stuff Like That There

already posted in the results thread, really excited for the covers of their own songs like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-3NhI6VOuo

(xpost) Good comparison. It didn't strike me as anything odd--it seems like the kind of pop hit that seems perfect for transformation into something else. They're like the ultimate fans. I think people who hate them will hear condescension, but I don't, not at all.

haha yeah i guess that makes sense timeline-wise. is robert smith the cat stevens of the 80s/90s?

iirc when spin suggested ylt was a critics band in a late 90s article, ira responded "a critics band wouldn't cover cat stevens". so at the very least i'm guessing this cover serves a similar purpose. though the fact that he mentioned cat stevens' version rather than the tremeloes one IS a little critic-y.

i was looking at the liners for fakebook a little while ago and was kind of nostalgic for when people like ira felt the need to detail the best places the originals could be found, as you couldn't just google it (i.e. "Emulsified" was the handiwork of Rex Garvin and the Mighty Craers, and we found it on the incredibly swell compiation At The Party, which no record collection should be without.).

when they do those FMU request broadcasts, unhip non-obscure tunes are plentiful.

i only have ever had a passing interest in the Cure, know this chorus but would not have bet that was the title.

Hmm, let's put it this way, then: I seriously doubt Ira and Georgia are fans of the Cure. Yet this song was a bona fide modern rock hit, so I'm sure they are not only familiar with it, but that they probably hear it more often than they hear many other songs they're not necessarily fans of. So this isn't a matter of them covering, I don't know, "Evening Dress" from Mick Jagger's "Wandering Spirit" or Dylan's "Dark Eyes" and saying, hey, check out these nice songs from major artists that the average person may not know (a la "Oklahoma USA," say, or Cale solo joints). This is them covering earnestly a song I'd only ever imagined them covering ironically, which is another layer of irony.

Anyway, the results are nice, so the process doesn't matter, but more than anything they've ever done before I could imagine this popping up in a Gap ad (or the modern equivalent) and people trying to figure out the name of the group that does that pretty acoustic Cure cover.

it seems like your problem is the inability to imagine them enjoying a jangly pop hit enough to cover it irrespective its source, despite the fact that i was nice enough to point out the last time they did it

and i mean "the last time they did it as a single" - obv they've covered plenty on wfmu

and let's not forget "somebody's baby"

i will agree this is the most "gap ad" friendly cover they've done, though i dunno, "here comes my baby" might have seemed disturbingly muzak for someone who remembered the song the first time around

You don't have to a be fan to cover a tune you like, Josh.

wasn't going to say gap ad, but i did think that it sounded like they'd been commissioned by The Gilmore Girls to provide a cover for a key scene (which is fine by me I <3 the Gilmore Girls)

gave me a bit of a frente flashback

are they really releasing an album with bardo pond?

it's a split LP -- the two bands don't actually play together, they just each contribute a side. and let me tell you, this particular yo la tengo tune would *not* be on a gap ad.

"wasn't going to say gap ad, but i did think that it sounded like they'd been commissioned by The Gilmore Girls to provide a cover for a key scene (which is fine by me I <3 the Gilmore Girls)

― tylerw, Tuesday, July 14, 2015 3:49 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink"

"My Little Corner of the World" was used on a GG episode, but weirdly, even though it was YLT's arrangement, it wasn't YLT's version (nor the original), though their version was on the GG soundtrack album.

yeah i think i read the producers sidestepped using YLT's version and just hired some musicians to copy it note for note.

cheapin' the TV way

So much of what I think is characterized as "sounds like a Gap ad" registers with me as success - aesthetic success and success in communication.

In this case (as in others, but not always).

Love this.

I have no problem with this cover, think it's lovely! But on a (my, personal analytical) level, it seems more on the nose than most of their covers, since they typically go hip or deep or both. Then again, by picking such a prominent Cure song, that is sort of a reverse going deep, a la "Somebody's Baby."

except Somebody's Baby is his highest charting song

o never mind

Is this the most contemporary song they've ever recorded? Maybe that's it.

"here comes my baby" - jaunty Top 20 hit for some brits 23 years before the release of facebook
"friday i'm in love" - jaunty Top 20 hit for some brits 23 years before the release of Stuff Like That There

"somebody's baby" was five years old when they covered it

covered a times new viking tune on an EP a few years back...
yung wu tune on their 1st record was probably only a year old when they covered it.

it's funny to think that "a house is not a motel" was newer when yo la tengo covered it than "friday i'm in love" was when yo la tengo covered it

Yeah, that's all sort of blowing my mind, in part because despite their span I sort of still treat Yo La Tengo as contemporary and not as a band that's been around as long as, I dunno, the Stones c. "Steel Wheels."

heh yeah, when i got into them back in the early 90s, i remember the record store guy saying "they've been around a long time..."

i've mentioned on flaming lips threads the record store clerk who couldn't believe in '99 that those jerks who opened for dino jr in 85 were still kicking around. he also thought yo la tengo was a baffling cockroach as well.

i think they started gigging in '85 xp

when Chuck Berry was around Ira's current age

Is this the most contemporary song they've ever recorded? Maybe that's it.

This does point to the fact that, even though the timeline is the same and the song has definite similarities to "Here Comes My Baby"--again, I think it's a good comparison--there's definitely a different dynamic here. "Friday, I'm in Love" was a big hit in '92, when Yo La Tengo were still getting their footing; I'm sure they looked around at all the indie/alternative/I-can't-remember-what-they-were-called-in-1992 bands starting to cross over after Nirvana (which doesn't totally apply to the Cure; a little bit) and thought "Maybe we can get a song into the Top 40 too." This is just before the Meat Puppets and Butthole Surfers had minor hits, something that was unthinkable when Yo La Tengo started out. So even though I have no idea how they feel about "Friday, I'm in Love" or the Cure (beyond the fact I'm convinced they love the song), it can't quite be the same for them as covering a Cat Stevens song from 1967.

"I could hear the hearts beating us down."

...he also thought yo la tengo was a baffling cockroach as well.

Baffling Cockroach is a James/Georgia side project.

By Otis Hart | NPR

A band as respected as Yo La Tengo covering one of the silliest chart-topping songs in recent memory would seem like the end of the world as we know it for fans of the original Fakebook — and that wasn’t lost on Kaplan, Hubley and bassist James McNew. The video, directed by Jason Woliner, features Hubley inciting the apocalypse as she strolls around Hoboken, New Jersey, singing the song.

Silliest? End of the World? James covered Prince long ago with Dump, I don't get this shock aspect, or the interpretation of the video.

yeah is someone truly mad they covered the Cure?

Maybe it's a misinterpretation of the original song. I had to listen to the original myself to hear the wistfulness that comes out in YLT's version. I'd be curious to hear what Cure fans have to say about it.

And, if he's suggesting that the apocalyptic theme of the video was related to an attributed irony in their cover of the song, that's not how I interpreted it.

Maybe the reviewer is conflating The Cure's "Friday" with Rebecca Black's. I hear no silliness in the original, and no irony in the cover.

haha hmm. i mean, "silliest" is ok if you're going to go ahead and say the beatles are a silly band?

i'm loving how many people are referring to this song as being "recent" or "contemporary" when it's over 20 years old

that said i do get the peculiarity for some of a retro-minded alt-band covering one of their contemporaries. and, tying to what tylerw said, on first listen it sounds more commissioned than inspired. but i'm influenced by the video, which i didn't find as funny as they intended.

I don't think they intended it as funny!

I think it's about love being wildly powerful.

Did the video strike you as serious?

"Friday I'm In Love" was very divisive when it was originally released, with fandom splitting between "this is the platonic ideal of The Cure in pop-with-an-undercurrent mode" and "this is sellout post-'Lovesong' garbage"

yeah at the time i thought it was great that the cure could pull something like that song off, and it was definitely a nice counterpoint to the gloominess of most early 90s rock.
anyway, my main takeaway from YLT doing this song is that i still love georgia hubley's voice.

It's presented in a very light and playful way. I see two main aspects of the video, though, the stuff exploding and Hubley's obliviousness. Both suggest a theme about the power of love and, yeah, I think that's actually a serious topic! The emotive quality of the song, to me, demands a serious reading.

Alright I didn't find it as funny OR profound as they may have intended.

pretending a video where the bodiless bassist is interviewed by the media and Fridays are removed from the post apocalyptic calendar isn't meant to be funny actually makes your reading less serious

I think the bodiless bassist was probably meant to be silly, not necessarily funny. Same thing with the calendar.

And stop saying I'm pretending plz.

The silliness doesn't negate anything.

In fact, it creates a context that allows the theme to exist as suggestion.

I'd be more inclined to respect your analysis if you stopped making semantic distinctions to disqualify mine

To disagree with yours. And, yes, I think there is a significant distinction between silliness not intended as humor per se and silliness that is.

I think your being silly and funny.

That's too bad for you.

I think your being silly and funny.

― da croupier, Thursday, July 16, 2015 1:14 PM (15 minutes ago)

By the way, this is typical ILX bullying language that is tolerated but should probably, at some point, not be.

Certainly the silliness in the video is the humor-related version...

sorry, tim. While it's really frustrating to have someone act like you're missing a grander intent when you say you weren't amused by obviously comic moments in a video (and then quibbling over adjective choice), that's no excuse for namecalling. it was gratuitous and mean, and i apologize. i simply think that "amusing" and "deep" aren't at opposite ends of a spectrum, and this video is trying to make you laugh even if can also carry a more po-faced analysis.

ironically, i originally was going say i found the video "gross" but hedged my words because i've enjoyed plenty of wry apocalyptic imagery (i.e. Spoon's "Do You" video) and didn't want to get into a whole debate about that. it honestly didn't occur to me that someone would debate whether this video was trying to be amusing.

Thanks for that. I didn't laugh at the video and didn't think too much about the comic aspects of it. If I had originally posted a response saying that I didn't know HOW comic they intended it to be (my reading being not much), maybe there wouldn't have been the communication garble. I certainly didn't mean to be on any high horse about a grander intent that others were missing.

Streamable on NPR.

Stuff Like That There

Being interviewed on NPR Morning Edition Tuesday morning, plus they are playing live throughout Morning Edition this morning as the house band

Whoa, they do "I Can Feel the Ice Melting" on this.

A friend referred to this album as "somnambulant."

Oh man the new version of Deeper Into Movies is just perfect

x-post- I kinda found it too quiet song after song with the hinted pop melodies, and I was a fan of Fakebook. Maybe its not them, it's me...

just got this, totally love it. schramm really is a wonderful guitar player.

listened once, Wimmels' friend not far off

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2015/08/25/t-magazine/10-things-that-influence-ira-kaplan/s/25tmag-uti-slide-GJIK.html

it'll surely come, here it comes again

The Nursery Rhymes album that they're on with Bill Wells has a pretty interesting bunch of people on it (Annette Peacock, Karen Mantler, what's her name from Deerhoof, Norman Blake, Bridget St. John, etc.) and is very good. Strange and sinister jazzy readings of nursery rhymes, definitely one of the better "kids concept" albums I've come across.

Finally caught up with last year's covers album. (Bought a physical copy at a physical store--don't do that very often.) One listen in the car is probably premature for comment, but truthfully it went right past me. This is one time where I find their winsome hush-hush wearing. The only cover I liked other than "Friday" was the Antietam song. I vaguely recall them being a pigfuck band, so that one must have been radically transformed.

hmm, not sure i fully know what pigfuck means, but i don't think antietam were that?
while i don't think the new one is as good as fakebook, i think it might go a bit deeper than you think, i'd stick with it for at least a little longer.

here's the original -- not a radical remake:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq5S9tduu7E

it made more sense to me after seeing the acoustic live show.

Christgau's term for the Pussy Galores and Killdozers of the mid-'80s (bands deified by Forced Exposure). I'm probably misremembering. I've got one record of theirs I haven't played in 30 years.

Thanks for the link, will give it a listen.

antietam is more like yo la tengo, really -- equal parts loud/soft/grinding/jangly

Not radical at all! Very nice. This is the record I have (their first)--you've inspired me to take it off the shelf.

https://img.discogs.com/Fm8DXLwWLHn4ad-eJ_Qr5BpnNo0=/fit-in/600x585/filters:strip_icc%28%29:format%28jpeg%29:mode_rgb%28%29:quality%2896%29/discogs-images/R-2556237-1405864552-9873.jpeg.jpg

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nZxBvKfKBbQ/hqdefault.jpg

yeah that is good! i always wanted to like them a little more than i do, but they have plenty of good tunes.

Yeah Antietam isn't pigfuck, they were like tyler said pretty close to YLT in the first place. Early indie rock I guess.

YLT get bashed a lot on ILM but for me I like pretty much everything they've done to some extent. I wasn't keen on the stuff they did early 00's but since IANAOYAIWBYA they've settled into a pretty good run.

Loved the Parliaments and Darlene McCrae covers on this!

Listened to that Antietam album above. Nothing as good as "Naples," but half of it sounded pretty good. (The second side's a little dirgey.) I couldn't hear Yo La Tengo, but I can see them as a blueprint for Wussy (more even than X). One of the dirges reminded me of "The Murder Mystery."

I think this is the best Antietam song
the harmony and her low voice gives this a weird resemblance to Jefferson Airplane (maybe that's just me?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtMylMwGleE

Yo La Tengo live are so fucking on point nowadays, that acoustic/electric set I just saw was like dayum

yeah i think the acoustic/electric split has really served them well -- still room for all kinds of stylistic shifts but a bit less whiplash when it comes to setlist flow.

I saw them in Jersey City last week. Fantastic show. Although Pass The Hatchet went on too long and is not in the same league as Blue Line Swinger in terms of a show closer.

Georgia Hubley is fantastically talented. She doesn't get the attention that Ira does, but in this show she really stood out.

Oh you were there? I was bar-back at that show. We ran out of beer and made everyone sad.