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THU., SEPTEMBER 07, 2006
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They've Got It: Yo La Tengo
by Douglas Wolk
It's a commonplace that Yo La Tengo got their name from the 1962 New York Mets — the phrase ("I got it!") that Richie Ashburn would yell so he wouldn't collide in the outfield with Elio Chacón. On reflection, though, their name has another meaning: it means the same thing as "eureka."
Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan, drummer and guitarist, wife and husband, have been playing together since the mid '80s — bassist James McNew joined the band in 1992 — and their career has been one I-get-it-now moment after another. For a band famous for their live incarnation's extravagant feedback jams and quiet, dreamy meditations, they've also amassed enough first-rate pop songs that last year's awesome best-of Prisoners of Love filled up two discs (plus a third of rarities: YLT do love their excess).
They're one of the rare bands who've consistently gotten more adventurous over a long career; their make-it-new impulses have occasionally led them into self-indulgent cul-de-sacs, but more often they've ended up making creative leaps into pop traditions outside their Velvet Underground-based indie-rock roots — plenty of which are in evidence on their new eleventh-or-so album, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. The joke of the title is partly that they're the least ass-beating-type band on the planet, and partly that the threat is the kind of statement that implies its own opposite. Yo La Tengo have never written a deliberately funny song, but they have a mighty fine sense of humor — at their now-traditional eight-night stand at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, every Hanukkah, every night features a standup comedian as well as a band as opening acts.
In fact, the album's opener, "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind" has at least two musical jokes encoded into its title: a reference to Roger & the Gypsies' 1969 New Orleans funk single "Pass the Hatchet" (eMusic's got three covers of it by Southern Culture on the Skids), and a paraphrase of the title of '70s L.A. funk-punks Black Randy & the Metrosquad's album Pass the Dust, I Think I'm Bowie. But the song itself is absolutely in earnest, YLT's own "Tomorrow Never Knows" (not least because it's got a very similar two-chord riff): a psychedelic blowout that seems to suspend time, and actually goes on for more than ten minutes, much of that Kaplan's finest guitar freak-out on record.
The album's other standouts, though, are showcases for the other two members of the band. McNew gets to shine on "Black Flowers," a piano ballad orchestrated with strings and horns that still seems nimble and weightless. (McNew also has a long-running solo project, called Dump; eMusic's got one of his best records, the International Airport EP — admirers of YLT's grander songs, or of Brian Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets," should check out the amazing title track, which builds for a good ten minutes before he even starts singing. At Dump's very rare live appearances, his backing band is occasionally Kaplan and Hubley.) And Hubley's breathy murmur is the focal point of "The Room Got Heavy," bracingly mixed way back behind a growling two-note organ riff and a very loud set of congas — the sort of experiment that snatches glory from the jaws of disaster.
As you might guess from the band's obscuro references, all three members of Yo La Tengo are walking music encyclopedias, with amazing and wide-ranging taste in covers — 1990's Fakebook is a casual set of other people's songs that YLT plays so comfortably they could pass for originals. (On their annual fundraising appearance on New Jersey's WFMU, they will play any request — not just from their own catalogue, but any song they've ever heard — for a pledge to the station. The best of them were recently collected on a self-released CD, Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics.)
The first time I heard I Am Not Afraid, I made the opposite assumption: that most of its songs were covers of great songs I'd never heard before, since a lot of them were stylistically so far removed from what Yo La Tengo has done before. In fact, the album is all YLT originals. "Watch Out For Me Ronnie" is an immaculately crazed garage-rock song — aside from its little horn riff, it could be a refugee from Nuggets; if the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" were a genre, "The Race Is On Again" would be its best recent example; "Mr. Tough" is '70s piano soul, with touches of salsa in its arrangement and Curtis Mayfield in its falsetto lead vocals. Also, they're smart-assed enough to name a song "I Should Have Known Better," knowing full well that both the Beatles and Wire got there first.
It may be a long time until the next major Yo La Tengo record, since they've settled into a rhythm of one "real" album every three years or so, punctuated by lots of more informal projects and collaborations. (eMusic has discs featuring them backing up both Jad Fair and Chris Stamey, as well as 2002's Nuclear War EP, four versions of a particularly bizarre Sun Ra jam — for comparison's sake, check out Sun Ra's original version, too.) But I Am Not Afraid is the peak of their recorded career to date, the first album that captures the power, unpredictability and openness of their live performances. At last, they've got it.
Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan, drummer and guitarist, wife and husband, have been playing together since the mid '80s — bassist James McNew joined the band in 1992 — and their career has been one I-get-it-now moment after another. For a band famous for their live incarnation's extravagant feedback jams and quiet, dreamy meditations, they've also amassed enough first-rate pop songs that last year's awesome best-of Prisoners of Love filled up two discs (plus a third of rarities: YLT do love their excess).
They're one of the rare bands who've consistently gotten more adventurous over a long career; their make-it-new impulses have occasionally led them into self-indulgent cul-de-sacs, but more often they've ended up making creative leaps into pop traditions outside their Velvet Underground-based indie-rock roots — plenty of which are in evidence on their new eleventh-or-so album, I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. The joke of the title is partly that they're the least ass-beating-type band on the planet, and partly that the threat is the kind of statement that implies its own opposite. Yo La Tengo have never written a deliberately funny song, but they have a mighty fine sense of humor — at their now-traditional eight-night stand at Maxwell's in Hoboken, New Jersey, every Hanukkah, every night features a standup comedian as well as a band as opening acts.
In fact, the album's opener, "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind" has at least two musical jokes encoded into its title: a reference to Roger & the Gypsies' 1969 New Orleans funk single "Pass the Hatchet" (eMusic's got three covers of it by Southern Culture on the Skids), and a paraphrase of the title of '70s L.A. funk-punks Black Randy & the Metrosquad's album Pass the Dust, I Think I'm Bowie. But the song itself is absolutely in earnest, YLT's own "Tomorrow Never Knows" (not least because it's got a very similar two-chord riff): a psychedelic blowout that seems to suspend time, and actually goes on for more than ten minutes, much of that Kaplan's finest guitar freak-out on record.
The album's other standouts, though, are showcases for the other two members of the band. McNew gets to shine on "Black Flowers," a piano ballad orchestrated with strings and horns that still seems nimble and weightless. (McNew also has a long-running solo project, called Dump; eMusic's got one of his best records, the International Airport EP — admirers of YLT's grander songs, or of Brian Eno's "Here Come the Warm Jets," should check out the amazing title track, which builds for a good ten minutes before he even starts singing. At Dump's very rare live appearances, his backing band is occasionally Kaplan and Hubley.) And Hubley's breathy murmur is the focal point of "The Room Got Heavy," bracingly mixed way back behind a growling two-note organ riff and a very loud set of congas — the sort of experiment that snatches glory from the jaws of disaster.
As you might guess from the band's obscuro references, all three members of Yo La Tengo are walking music encyclopedias, with amazing and wide-ranging taste in covers — 1990's Fakebook is a casual set of other people's songs that YLT plays so comfortably they could pass for originals. (On their annual fundraising appearance on New Jersey's WFMU, they will play any request — not just from their own catalogue, but any song they've ever heard — for a pledge to the station. The best of them were recently collected on a self-released CD, Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics.)
The first time I heard I Am Not Afraid, I made the opposite assumption: that most of its songs were covers of great songs I'd never heard before, since a lot of them were stylistically so far removed from what Yo La Tengo has done before. In fact, the album is all YLT originals. "Watch Out For Me Ronnie" is an immaculately crazed garage-rock song — aside from its little horn riff, it could be a refugee from Nuggets; if the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" were a genre, "The Race Is On Again" would be its best recent example; "Mr. Tough" is '70s piano soul, with touches of salsa in its arrangement and Curtis Mayfield in its falsetto lead vocals. Also, they're smart-assed enough to name a song "I Should Have Known Better," knowing full well that both the Beatles and Wire got there first.
It may be a long time until the next major Yo La Tengo record, since they've settled into a rhythm of one "real" album every three years or so, punctuated by lots of more informal projects and collaborations. (eMusic has discs featuring them backing up both Jad Fair and Chris Stamey, as well as 2002's Nuclear War EP, four versions of a particularly bizarre Sun Ra jam — for comparison's sake, check out Sun Ra's original version, too.) But I Am Not Afraid is the peak of their recorded career to date, the first album that captures the power, unpredictability and openness of their live performances. At last, they've got it.
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