C or D : Yo La Tengo

who cares? great band.

Painful, still in my top 10 albums of the '90s. gorgeous, unforgettable album.

OTM! Yes! Painful is all killer, no filler. I mean, "Nowhere Near," "Big Day Coming," and just when you think they couldn't possibly top themselves, they go and throw "I Heard You Looking" at you. Though it is equally as great, I never understood why ICHTHBAO was the indie-rock du jour of the time, while Painful slid by relatively unnoticed.

Does anyone remember their "guitar tech" touring buddy (small skinny dude with bug-eyes and toussled hair - appeared to be perpetually in the throws of a meth binge) who was constantly by their side, running around and either tuning and prepping equipment or holding down organ "drone" keys for them during tours for Painful and Electro-pura?

the last show of theirs i saw (Sept 07), YLT opened with a nearly 30-min. version of "I Heard You Looking" :)

Damn.. that must've been nice. I'm a sucker for epic psychedelic guitar-noize freakouts, especially when performed live and especially ones with a melody/leitmotif as gorgeous as IHYL. I stopped going to their shows sometime around 2000 b/c I thought their records were starting to get a bit blase. Maybe I should start going again..

oh the live shows are still GREAT.

Does anyone remember their "guitar tech" touring buddy (small skinny dude with bug-eyes and toussled hair - appeared to be perpetually in the throws of a meth binge) who was constantly by their side, running around and either tuning and prepping equipment or holding down organ "drone" keys for them during tours for Painful and Electro-pura?

FUCK yes. When I saw them in 1994 I was constantly amazed at what he was doing/how he was doing it/how everything worked so seamlessly. High point of the show: "Out The Window" breakdown --> chaotic loops/drones --> "Sudden Organ." Killed.

Despite putting on three of the most incredible live shows I'd seen, I couldn't bear to see them on the tour following the fiasco that was Summer Sun. A friend of mine (and huge YLT fan) did, and was literally bored to tears.

The "Freewheeling Yo La Tengo" show I went to was pretty boring too. Too much VH1 Storytellers and jibber-jabber, not enough music, and the somewhat acoustic setting makes it hard to hide the fact that none of the three of them have strong singing voices.

(But their two Saturday shows at the GAMH, March 2000, were near the best live shows I've ever seen.)

xpost: The tech guy is Joe Puleo, who's still with the band, and who wrote some of the liner notes to Prisoners of Love. I used to buy copies of their zine, the Yo La Tengo Gazette, every time they toured. In one issue there was a backstage at Lollapalooza picture with the perfect caption, something like: "They said it couldn't happen ... Puleo meets Coolio!"

Ha! I wiki'd "Joe Puleo" to find out more & this is what I got: "Joe Puleo was an Olympic weightlifter for the United States." Somehow, I think we might be talking about a different Joe. Either that, or dude is packing some serious punch in those sinewy limbs. Must be from hauling all that equipment around over the years.

i have to say, i caught snippits of the new(whenever it was) album the other day and it sounded great. i felt strange enjoying it the way i did.

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass is a long, motley variety show of an album, but is about 75% excellent, and certainly worth your time/money if you like their 90's output.

none of the three of them have strong singing voices

I disagree, but anyway isn't that part of the point, that they figured out how to make soft-spoken, closely miked singing work well with all manner of "strong" music? I liked the Freewheeling Yo La Tengo show I saw in Boston last year just fine myself (killer version of "Be Thankful For What You've Got" still getting play in my mind) but I'm a head over heels fan, they've been formative of huge swaths of my musical sensibility, so maybe it's best to seek counsel from a more neutral party.

i'll say classic, but i'm happy only listening to 'painful' and 'i can hear the heart...' and shelving the others. though the last one was pretty interesting and kept me listening for a good few months. had an awesome opening track

classic, for sure.
dad a: there's a really great bootleg of that boston show floating around. it was on bradley's almanac for a while but has since disappeared, but i'm sure you can find it on some fileshare thing. the cover of snapper's gentle hour and james mcnew's baby jokes and use of words like bingo bango make it totally worthwhile investigating.

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Ask Our Guitar Tech Joe Puleo, Who Was an Olympic Weightlifter for the United States, to Kick Your Ass

There's like 25 threads about this band and it's still not enough.

I wanted a Yo La Tengo video to post on Facebook the other day and found this (one of my favourite songs by them):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l6EjHxfzC4

A lot of people take great songs and put up junk on YouTube, but now and again I'm amazed at how good some of the homemade stuff is.

That's nice. Years ago there was a homemade youtube for Durutti Column's "Sketch for Summer" that was perfect: shot through the windshield of an old Merc driving down some roads in the setting sun.

Derp.

you know, when they played state college on their '04 rock the vote tour, the hardest political line ira kaplan drew was that dick cheney or rumsfield or somebody was mean for not respecting the other side.

That's Andy Schafly-level derp. (xpost)

I heard a brief promo for the Pitchfork Fest on NPR the other morning - Pitchfork is a sponsor - and as the voice was listing acts on the bill, when she got to Yo La Tengo, as per NPR's wont, she totally went into dramatically proper Spanish inflection, which I found jarring and hilarious in equal measure.

"With Bjork, Belle & Sebasian, JO LA TENGO and more!"

Clickhole knows.

http://www.clickhole.com/blogpost/i-regret-waiting-until-marriage-have-sex-all-3-mem-1258

just checked and the onion's yo la tengo roof collapse article is over twelve years old. christ.

They had a couple of things up on their Bandcamp but the floodgates just opened with a lot of their back catalog:

https://yolatengo.bandcamp.com/

8 Days of Chanukah shows in NY sold out quick

Annnnnd new album

https://yolatengo.bandcamp.com/album/this-stupid-world

new song rules

sounds grrrrrreat

this song is fantastic! so stoked for this. also, as a fan of longer YLT jams, some of those song lengths on the back of the CD get me excited.

Tour dates announced as well, two nights at the Fillmore out here -- which is where I saw them last time, though then they were backing Robyn Hitchcock on Black Snake Diamond Role (hell of a version of "Acid Bird" that night).

oh man that sounds incredible

Worth seeking out, I assume there's a recording somewhere!

Good tune! Promising.

ooh this is classic ylt, how long has it been since they've sounded like that?

Riot was my fav YLT album in 15+ years but I am also ready for them to get loud again, bring it on

Aaaah, that hits the spot.

Tix on sale today. Glad to be seeing them again finally.

And another new song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J9fV29AuOQ

It's great, of course.

new album is very good

Lately I've been listening to We Have Amnesia Sometimes and I like it a lot more than I expected. It feels like hanging out in their practice space while they zone out. Very satisfying.

They Shoot, We Score has been in regular rotation in the minivan as I drive around Savannah. It has some nice variations of Green Arrow.

Yeah both are great! Zoned out experiments are great indeed.

it's not like they ever really fell off that much but the new one is maybe their best since and then nothing turned itself inside out?

If there's an unfair criticism of the band to be made, it's that they have been firmly in the "best album since ..." cycle for what feels like several albums now.

it's true though!

idk i wouldn't really say that about any of the others from the past decade? we have amnesia sometimes was all drones, quite the stylistic diversion. there's a riot going on was just 'yet another decent ylt album' with a focus on ambience. stuff like that there was a very inessential covers album. fade was pretty solid and comes the closest to that but only really represented a step above popular songs (which is one of their weaker albums).

this one's also stylistically the closest to their 90s peak since then

xpost And yet, while I enjoy each of their new albums, I really never go back to them. Again, it's unfair, and not the band's fault for being consistent, just not often anything that really jumps out at me. Certainly nothing as much as " ... And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out" did. For example, I'm listening to "There's a Riot Going On," prompted by this thread, and it's lovely. But if someone told me this *was* the new album, I would have totally believed them.

this one's also stylistically the closest to their 90s peak since then

Then I'm psyched!