#ira kaplan

[shihlun]

John & Faith Hubley

- Cockaboody

1974

[guessimdumb]

Yo La Tengo - The Crying of Lot G (2000)

Perfect late night listening. 

You don't want to listen When I can't shut up

[dinosaursr66]

Yo La Tengo warms my soul especially when Georgia Hubley sings. This band has created so many incredible wonderful moments in a wide variety of song styles. I love them.

SONG OF THE DAY - Thursday, February 8, 2024

[spilladabalia]

Yo La Tengo - Sinatra Drive Breakdown

[brownwork]

Very pleased that Karl Records of Berlin have released a 2LP vinyl version of our previously Bandcamp-only concoction Power Failures

[serpentizlord]

[martystlouis]

📷 Cheryl Dunn

[bandcampsnoop]

8/24/23.

I've really been listening to a lot of great music on Bandcamp lately. I'm sure that if I had the time, I could queue up 7 posts just based on things I've been listening to over the past couple of days.

But, instead, I'm finally getting around to posting the release from Madison, Wisconsin based band Red Pants. I mean, they're described as "Ira Kaplanmaniacs". I sprayed painted a t-shirt with the name Ira Kaplan, so Red Pants immediately have my backing.

The sound of "Witching Hour" definitely jibes with Yo La Tengo. But I also hear Deaf Wish and Sonic Youth. And the Bandcamp page also mentions Special Friend and Semi Trucks as touchstones.

"Not Quite There Yet" is being released by Meritorio Records (Spain). Meritorio has a distribution relationship with Jigsaw Records (Portland) so shipping is affordable. And if you've ever received a package from Jigsaw, you know the packing effort is top notch.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Yo La Tengo Live Show Review: 3/24, Metro, Chicago

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When Yo La Tengo released “Fallout”, the lead single from their latest album This Stupid World (Matador), journalist Matthew Perpetua likened it to “them doing their best to answer the question ‘what's so special about Yo La Tengo?’ and nailing it.” The name of the album comes from a refrain in the title track, wherein Ira Kaplan sings, “This stupid world is all we have.” The two ideas are connected: Throughout their almost 40 years of existence, the Hoboken indie rock band have engaged with the globe, musical and otherwise, by shapeshifting and always experimenting, not even ideas like performing an hour and a half drone set instead of actual songs too outlandish. They’re still looking for “something interesting” to them, but it seems like they’re always questioning and ultimately deciding what makes them interesting to listeners. For lack of better terms, their music--gentle even when noisy--has always sounded gorgeously internal. Appropriately, This Stupid World was made without outside producers, mixers, and recorders (Greg Calbi mastered it), and it was billed as the most “live sounding” Yo La Tengo album in years. As it turns out, “most live” is not just an aesthetic descriptor: like the best YLT live sets, the album’s lyrics are filled with encyclopedic references to music history, warm tenderness, and dry and dark humor.

Not since the Fade tour have I seen Yo La Tengo divide their setlists in two: one generally gentle, one generally loud (as opposed to arbitrarily acoustic vs. electric). The songs on This Stupid World perfectly fit this dynamic, as evidenced by the band’s masterful show Friday night at Metro. Ever since I heard album opener “Sinatra Drive Breakdown”, I figured it would be an ideal set opener, perhaps for years to come, effectively building up with steady drums and nervy guitars. “Until we all break,” Kaplan and Georgia Hubley repeated on Friday, as if to refer to anything and everything from the songs themselves, scrawling into a noisy mess, to even the human race that’s spurred the band’s sardonic attitude. The Hubley-delivered melancholia of “Aselestine” and “Miles Away” were wonderfully atmospheric, the calm shoegaze and drum machine skitter of the latter acting as a segue into the increasingly swirling noise of the second set. The James McNew-led “Tonight’s Episode” and jazzy “Apology Letter” settled into playful grooves, rifle with playful call and response (about yo-yo tricks, nonetheless) and self-deprecation.

The album’s title track and lead single found their way into the band’s second set, the former leading them off with a cornucopia of squeaking guitars and pounding percussion. “Fallout”, meanwhile, is already on my shortlist of top YLT fuzz-pop classics, up there with “From A Motel 6″, “Tom Courtenay”, and “For You Too”. “I wanna fall out of time,” Kaplan sang, as if to recognize the timelessness of the sounds the band was conjuring. It should fit nicely in future sets, sandwiched in between songs like “Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop” and “Drug Test” released decades prior. If there was one song from This Stupid World I wished they had played during this set, it was “Brain Capers”. (According to setlist.fm, the band has been playing most of the record each time out, switching off night by night which songs they exclude.) It’s quintessential Yo La Tengo, referencing tunes by Alice Cooper and The Kinks, and a Rick Moranis Second City Television sketch where he plays Michael McDonald singing backup, walking into the recording room for only seconds at a time to belt his notes, before walking out. The sketch reminds me, funny enough, of whenever Yo La Tengo perform “Ashes”, as they did during their first set of the night: When it was time for the cymbals to be brushed, Kaplan nonchalantly walked over, brushed them once, and walked back to the microphone. The crowd cheered and laughed.

After I took photos during the first three songs of the night, as per venue policy, I checked my camera bag, missing the fourth song of the night Yo La Tengo played: a cover of Wilco’s “If I Ever Was A Child”. If I had seen it, and realized Wilco had an off night during a three-shows-in-four-days stint at the Riviera, I would have expected something was up. Nonetheless, when during the band’s per-usual covers encore, Kaplan admitted to the band being “really beat” and needing help, the last thing I thought I would see would be Wilco walking out on stage to burn though Beatles, Dylan, The Heartbreakers, and Fairport Convention covers. It was a fitting moment, the stage full of the members of two bands who continue to thrive by listening to the crowd and each other, paying tribute to what compels them.

[stevenvenn]

Yo La Tengo - Sinatra Drive Breakdown (from This Stupid World) Happy Yo La Tengo DAY! Friday, I’m in love. YLT (one of a handful of my  favourite all-time bands) have released a great new album today This Stupid World. So excited! Sounding a lot more like old-school YLT with the guitars on this one! I’ll buy anything you release.

[dinosaursr66]

Yo La Tengo is an exceptionally versatile band. Their original songs are always worth repeated listening. Their live shows are wonderful. Their covers are fantastic. The album Fakebook is all covers. I play it a lot.

SONG OF THE DAY - May 10, 2023

[krispyweiss]

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like 2021

- Yo La Tengo ask fans to mask up during annual Hanukkah run

Yo La Tengo are asking fans to mask up during the band’s annual Hanukkah run in New York.

Citing rising COVID-19 numbers generally and “so many of our friends testing positive” specifically, Ira Kaplan asked fans to take precautions. And he used a stick to make his plea.

“We know it’s less fun that way, but if (any of the band or crew) test positive, the remaining dates will most certainly be canceled, and I think we can all agree that’s worse,” Kaplan said in a statement.

This appears to be a request rather than a requirement. The band’s residency runs Dec. 18-25.

“We’re so excited about what’s coming that even this message can’t put a damper on it,” Kaplan said. “Hope you feel the same.”

12/18/22

[dollarbin]

Kristofferson:

A Dollar Bin Primer

I saw an obligatory "ten essential songs" list alongside the very nice NYTimes Kris obituary following his passing yesterday. Suffice it to say that the assembler of that list doesn't dwell with you and me in the Dollar Bin. Rather they live in Obvious Town, otherwise known as Spodify.

But Kris is a true lord of the bin: he sold tons of records in the 70's that no one listens to any more except me and my famous brother.

And now you! Here are nine deep tracks (plus a tenth from Willie!) in chronological order, one from each of Kristofferson's fairly-easy-to-track-down-for-a-square-buck-each 70's albums...

(Yes: incredibly, Kris put out nine separate solo albums in the 70's, plus three more with his wife-for-a-decade Rita Coolidge, not to mention starring in a half dozen films. Nine plus three is twelve. I doubt Radiohead have issued that many albums in their nearly 40 years of existence...)

Casey's Last Ride from Kristofferson

Kris's self-titled first record is a downright mothercuddler: every song is titanic, funny and terrifying. Casey's Last Ride gives him room to swing from violent to sensitive; this perfectly miniaturized epic sounds like a blueprint for the film Peckinpah should have made with Kris instead of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid...

Jodie and the Kid from The Silver Tongued Devil and I

Kris could write a weeper alright. I don't know if he ever really got over his first failed marriage and the ways it affected his children. Every time I was around Kris - he was a distant cousin - I'd see that he was most interested in the children at our gathering; the first time I ever met him he seemed literally covered in diapered offspring from his third marriage and he looked downright thrilled about it.

Jodie and the Kid was one of my grandmother's favorites of his songs - he loved her dearly and she loved the sensitive, ah shucks side of him on display in this perfect short story of a song.

Little Girl Lost from Border Lord

Kris always took a lot of pride in his band: guys stuck with him for decades and he made room for their songs and their voices on all of his records. Little Girl Lost is really three different songs artfully shuffled together: there's brooding Doors-like intro followed by a honky tonk stomp that fades into a prayer. Kris and the boys ride the changes with concise poise.

Jesus Was A Capricorn

He was just so good with words. Sure, this title track from his fourth solo record is a tossed off hoot. But there are poetic depths here, especially for a guy who was busy drinking himself to death. Just check out the verse work: he rhymes food and shoes and makes it work; he boils down an eight page paragraph from Dostoevsky about the return of Christ into about 6 words and then he lays this little nugget on us, all with a chuckle:

Some folks hate the whites who hate the blacks who hate the klan; most of us hate anything that we don't understand...

Lights of Magdala from Spooky Lady's Sideshow

Kris was also an occasionally brilliant interpreter of other people's songs. The drunkest of his records, 1974's Spooky Lady Sideshow, verges on unlistenable at moments but it also contains the fitting closure of what I consider his great Freedom Trilogy.

Buried in the mix is also one of the bleakest pleas for salvation ever issued by a white male on record. For me, Drake's Black Eyed Dog, Young's Borrowed Tune and Kris's Lights of Magdala work together to chart out the depths of hell. They also make us want to reach out and help everyone we see.

Stallion from Who's To Bless and Who's To Blame

Kris was always the first to put down his own singing and musicianship. Yeah, so he was no Mickey Newbury - but he knew his range and he knew enough chords to work with and there was never a truly dull moment in songs like Stallion. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a world where white dudes with oddball voices - think everyone from Michael Stipe to David Berman to Ira Kaplan - ever turn into rock and roll icons without the benefit of Kris's rickety but oh-so-cool foundation.

You Show Me Yours (And I'll Show You Mine) from Surreal Thing

Occasionally, however, he'd write something he really couldn't sing. The ridiculous, tequila soaked chorus for You Show Me Yours (And I'll Show You Mine) is a good example.

But Kris had an ace up his sleeve: his version features a heavenly choir led by his wife Rita Coolidge; and alternatively, he could always just let Willie sing it...

The Saber and the Rose from Easter Island

You can probably note a decrease in quality going on. As an old man, poor Kris couldn't remember too much about his life from this period. The guy had boxed too much, flown too many helicopters, surely blown out his hearing and drank way, way, too much - and none of that helps in the memory department - which is why I don't fly helicopters.

But in 1978 he made a concerted effort with Easter Island to reclaim some kind of high ground artistically. I have no idea what's really happening in this song but the piano pounds nicely and the storytelling is beginning to reemerge.

Come Sundown from Shake Hands with the Devil

Happily, he survived it all: he sobered up, met a rather perfect human being and talked them into being his wife for the next 45 years. Did he ever write a song again that matched the glorious initial tracks on this list and on everyone else's? Heck no!

But Come Sundown is sure lovely...

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Yo La Tengo - Radio 3, Barcelona, Spain, April 1995

Can it be that I'm finally seeing Yo La Tengo again this weekend? Twice?!!! It's been way too long since the band made it out to my part of the world — and even these shows were delayed from last year due to Georgia Hubley's knee surgery. But if the various tapes of YLT's 2023 Hanukkah run tell me anything, Georgia is as powerful (if not more powerful) than ever. Big Days Coming!

“If anyone’s tempted to go to both nights, I guarantee they will be extremely different from a song-choice perspective,” Ira Kaplan told the Boulder Weekly this week. “Except for perhaps a couple songs from This Stupid World, we likely won’t repeat any of the old songs. We’re going to treat Boulder and Fort Collins like one long night at two locations.”

Hell yeah. It's been awhile since I did two nights in a row with Yo La Tengo ... I did it in NYC in 1997 ... and I did it in Santa Monica in 1995. (Holy christ, I am old.) As a little prep, let's listen to two songs from Spanish radio back in '95 — just Georgia and Ira and an acoustic guitar here, sounding perfect, as they play stripped-down versions of the Electr-O-Pura faves "The Ballad of Red Buckets" and "Blue Line Swinger." Here it comes again ...

[dustedmagazine]

Sparklehorse — Bird Machine (Anti-)

Photo by Danny Clinch

Bird Machine by Sparklehorse

When Sparklehorse released Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot in 1995, it felt like an outlier. At the time, during the height of Britpop, there weren’t many artists making slow-motion, country-influenced, lo-fi rock music like Mark Linkous. His aesthetic brought together a classic pop sensibility with a junkshop approach to instrumentation and timbre, where a song like “Chaos of the Galaxy / Happy Man” from second album Good Morning Spider literally sounded like tuning into a radio transmission. He collaborated with PJ Harvey and Tom Waits on It’s a Wonderful Life, and on the title track of fourth album Slept For Light Years in the Belly of a Mountain, he painfully evoked the syrup-thick sensation of depression. Though Linkous was candid about his mental-health struggles, when he took his own life in March 2010, it was still a shocking and tragic loss.

Bird Machine is technically the fifth Sparklehorse record, and was worked on by Linkous in the months leading up to his death. This posthumous release has been lovingly put together by Linkous’s brother, Matt, and his sister-in-law, Melissa — and they’ve done a fantastic job. It sounds just as a Sparklehorse album should, and is a surprisingly upbeat listening experience given it was recorded during Linkous’s final months. Among the 14 songs are some searingly fuzzy numbers, such as opener “It Will Never Stop,” “I Fucked It Up,” and “Listening to the Higsons,” a Robyn Hitchcock cover. There’s the sparklingly Beatles-esque “Daddy’s Gone,” the bright, Mellotron-laced “Evening Star Supercharger,” and “The Scull of Lucia” is reminiscent of Radiohead’s “No Surprises,” with a naïve, music-box feel to its melodies.

It’s in Bird Machine’s heavier moments, though, where the album really hits home — and the loss of a unique artist is most keenly felt. The harrowing “O Child” is so slow and sparse that it feels like it could fall apart at any moment, and the lengthy instrumental outro includes fractured, static-flecked dictaphone recordings. On “Everybody’s Gone to Sleep,” Linkous taps into a mellow Yo La Tengo vibe, his vocal sounding uncannily like Ira Kaplan. After the brief guitar instrumental “Blue,” “Stay” is a heartbreaking piano-driven closer, reassuring a loved one “It’s gonna get brighter,” yet sounding as if Linkous is already heading towards the light. And on standout “Kind Ghosts,” which belongs among Sparklehorse’s finest songs, the lyrics are all the more bittersweet given the context: “Where were you, my kind ghosts, when I needed you?” Let’s hope they were waiting for him on the other side.

Tim Clarke