New Yo La Tengo

xp looks like it's on the "Productive Morning" Spotify playlist. Welcome to the new music industry!

Fade, yes. They're here in a few weeks...I've seen them twice, very different shows; that was enough for me.

Didn't catch that the new one's called There's a Riot Going On. That's, uh, quite interesting--like calling your next film The Seventh Seal or something. Timely, though. Look forward to "Thank You for Talkin' to Me Hoboken."

Popular Songs would've worked really well if they'd ditched the last two tracks. "More Stars Than There Are in Heaven" just screams YLT album closing track.

really do not like the new album title. timely, but maybe not for this band to use.

yeah thats's what i thought. corny... at best

If it were something loud or profane, I'd say a bad idea. But a quiet set of songs (tyler compared it to Summer Sun) from this older domesticated couple--the most un-riot band around--I think that's interesting.

Kings of Convenience did that - Riot on an Empty Street

They should have called it Raw Power

"For You Too" from the upcoming album:
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/27/589090811/songs-we-love-yo-la-tengo-for-you-too
Sounds gorgeous.

Absolutely, this is great.

That's pretty. Didn't one (or both?) of them have a recent health scare?

only health scare i heard about was with Ira at least 6-7 years ago.
"For You Too" is great — definitely the most straightforward YLT-ish tune on the album, I think.

way to immediately push expectations down back to where they were before I heard the song.

haha, sorry. (the whole album is fantastic, though)

Haha, the payoff at the end...

KAPLAN: We played Albuquerque, one of our most memorable shows, in 19… Oh god, it might be 1988. We were on our first cross country trip. From the moment we walked in the door, we were fighting with the people who worked there about really dumb shit. We had this thing we started doing which was really important in our development, I thought, where if we thought we were really not being respected, we would do this song by Love called “A House is Not a Motel.” It ended with a guitar solo that we frequently used as a bridge to our first noisy song called “The Evil That Men Do.” And we started doing this thing occasionally, if we were pushed too far, we would play basically noise for as long as we felt like it. This night, Georgia came back from being mad at me and I said, “Alright, fuck the set list, this is what we’re going to do.”

For the first three minutes, it’s just a very relatively gentle folk rock song, so there was no sign of what was about to happen for a good five minutes. And then all hell broke loose, and we would not stop playing feedback. It was essentially an empty club, but people were trying to find a way to unplug the band and we were fending them off. The promoter came up to me while we were playing, apologizing for everything. It was just nuts. And when it ended, there were one or two people who thought it was fantastic, but mostly people were incensed and screaming at us. At some point I’d gone outside, probably lightheaded from the altitude and the pretty heavy emotional experience we’d just gone through and somebody, who I don’t even think was there, he must have been listening, spoke really slowly and thoughtfully and he goes, “That was the best thing I’ve ever heard. You are as good as the Eagles. You are better than Ace Frehley.”

from here: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/indie-rockers-yo-la-tengo-talk-rioting-breaking-bads-bob-odenkirk

ha, that's awesome

Wow is this album chill. I've been listening to it in the background and I'm not convinced that's not the right place for it. I'll have to play it again and pay closer attention, unless (per Eno) I don't need to.

The middle stretch, in the wrong frame of mind, is a stone bore.

in the right frame of mind, though, it's absolutely gorgeous

really enjoying this. it's headphone music

that ira/albuquerque story reminds me of the one time i saw them play, in columbia MO, sometime in 2003 i think. the crowd was really loud and crappy and YLT looked visibly pissed. so they played an antagonistic version of nuclear war that was at least 20 minutes, maybe 30. it was awful. i can definitely understand where they were coming from - that crowd sucked and deserved nothing - but it was also very disappointing as someone who had waited several years for a chance to see them

thinking about going to see them in a couple weeks, if the show is as sleepy as this record though maybe not because i can just picture the room full of people chatting. i've seen them on nights when they're great and others where they're just tired

haha, i've seen them do a 15 minute "nuclear war" and I don't think it was to punish the crowd — it was pretty great, actually!

yeah, will be interesting to see how they approach this new stuff live.

only saw them once, in early 2007 when they were touring IANAOYAIWBYA and it was amazing. that's still my favorite record of theirs by a long shot, I feel lucky to have seen them when the setlist was more or less all songs from that album, only oldie I remember them playing was Tom Courtenay but there must've been more.

I've seen them a bunch, but I don't recall being terribly impressed by any of the sets since I saw them tour And Then Nothing ... with Susie Ibarra on second drums. They've just seemed sort of bored or rote or something, especially for a band that's released at least a couple of my fave albums of all time, and who I've seen be killer live before. Could be just that the first time I saw them be blah that sort of predisposed me against them the next time, when they were also blah, which also coincided with a couple of blah records (or at least Summer Sun, though tbh I can't remember anything about any of the next few albums, either, except that they felt very by the books), so I simply haven't made much of an effort to catch them the past several years, save a set as the Condo Fucks, which didn't impress me much, either. That's on me, mea culpa, but at this point I'm five or six records past a record where off the top of my head I can think of several songs I like and would recognize.

I've seen three times, the best of which was the Summer Sun in September 2003, for which we drove up to Jacksonville. I loved how enthusiastically they switched instruments and alternated between originals and covers.

I love their covers. My two fave may have been Adam Ant's "Dog Eat Dog" and the other was Grand Funk's "We're An American Band" (augmented by most of Lambchop) when they just pounded away at the song, said their goodbyes, then left the stage. Then came back five minutes and went right back into "We're An American Band."

New-In: somehow we missed that there is a Michael Hurley cover on the new @TheRealYLT LP. Meeting of the minds!! Out today, folks. pic.twitter.com/iO9yXiVld9

— Record Grouch (@RecordGrouch) March 16, 2018

I chatted with them after the Hurley show at Union Pool! They were so nice and patient. We bonded over Hoboken.

Saw all four YLT/Lambchop shows at the GAMH on the And Then Nothing.../Nixon tour. Amazing experience, seeing the variations set to set, particularly the two-show day. Cover-wise, James McNew belting "Gates of Steel" was transformational.

^^^ I was at the 2-show day at the GAMH as well. Possibly the most enjoyable day of live music of my life.

a minute into "Dream Dream Away" i straight up thought it was developing into a "Free Fallin'" cover

xposts

is that the back cover? it is much, much better (and more fitting) than the front cover.

but at this point I'm five or six records past a record where off the top of my head I can think of several songs I like and would recognize.

i'm pretty much with you there. ATNTIIO was kind of the peak of fandom for me, but i really liked summer sun too. but then for some reason i didn't end up giving endless replays to all their albums since then, even though when i'd listen to them they all sounded decent.

parts of this new album are really good, though. i'm only halfway through so i should stfu and listen some more.

xp yes the cover is terrible, they shoulda gone with the vaguely Green River vibe of the back

New album is my favorite since Fade (underrated record), but I'll say what I say about every YLT album since ICHTHBAO: no one buys Yo La Tengo records for new age drones, free jazz, or lengthy psych jams. This is not the band's strength, and there are a zillion bands that do it better. Live, these excursions can be amazing and transcendent, but on record they are almost invariably a major snooze and they make the average YLT album about 30 minutes longer than it needs to be

then why do people buy YLT records?

So is this record in the same vein as 'Nothing'?That record and their "By The Time It Gets Dark" cover are what's stood the test of time for me as someone with generally less than no interest in indie rock. So I think I might be in it for the new age drones, etc.

There are songs on Nothing. Can't remember if there were any songs on this one.

The middle stretch -- the quietest -- is the most memorable.

then why do people buy YLT records?

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, March 17, 2018 12:57 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I assume for more songs like "Big Day Coming" and less for songs like "Night Falls on Hoboken." Is this not true?

You're digging a hole. Obviously fun songs are fun but artists can express themselves however they'd like.

Well, of course. And I think YLT's versatility is one of their greatest attributes. I just don't think anyone going to see them is dying to hear "The Evil That Men Do," for instance.

Listening again this morning. If your shit is And Then Nothing...you'll love this one

"Ashes" is a jam

And Then Nothing is so pretty and atmospheric, but there are also several truly great songs. There may be great songs on this one, but it mostly feels like just atmosphere to me, like listening to air. Which can be cool, but only in the right context.

Are you kidding me — I buy Yo La Tengo records for new age drones, free jazz and lengthy psych jams.

For a while my fave was May I Sing With Me, which may have the best of all of those. Well, maybe not free jazz. And songs, too!

Listening to Fade right now, I think it's a better brand of boring than the new one.

Yeah, the strings and horns at the end... this is the stuff.

whoa is there something like "Night Falls on Hoboken" on the new one?

The entire middle stretch.

Are you kidding me — I buy Yo La Tengo records for new age drones, free jazz and lengthy psych jams.

― tylerw, Saturday, March 17, 2018 10:49 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^^^

i really want to like the middle stretch. "night falls on hoboken" is one of my favorite YLT songs.

i do like the closing song of that ambient center a lot, "above the sound". it reminds me of their Sounds of the Sounds of Science album from 2001/2, which is kind of my benchmark for how good instrumental YLT can be. and i love how it introduces the vocals back to the mix. it's natural to place the ambient songs all at the end (like "hoboken"), because it's so hard to work your way back to vox afterward. but they pull it off with "above the sound".

but the 11 minutes before that doesn't really resonate with me. i still can't hear "dream dream away" as anything but someone idly working through the Free Fallin' chords. "shortwave" is the most straight up ambient that i've ever heard YLT, but i'm not sure there's much there.