new yo la tengo

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