Never thought I’d be so glad to spend New Year’s in Jersey. Probably some holes below, but so it goes. Lotta strands in ol’ Duder’s head. Fun stuff — falsetto overdrive after midnight (“1999”); costumes; thin, wild mercury music (“I Wanna Be Your Lover”); Georgia balladry (“Gee, the Moon is Shining Bright”); New Year’s resolutions (“Sugarcube”), and the infinitely charming Wreckless Eric eating an apple while crooning Serge Gainsbourg (“Je T’Aime,” untranslatable to tape). Happy New Year’s.
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
31 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 7)*
The Scene is Now and Fred Armisen opened.
Mix discs by James and RJD2.
(much of set with various members of The Scene is Now and/or Fred Armisen on drums.)
1999 (Prince, Fred Armisen as Prince.)
When U Were Mine (Prince, with Armisen)
Stockholm Syndrome
Upside Down
Tears Are In Your Eyes
I Wanna Be Your Lover (Bob Dylan)
As the Hour Grows Late
Center of Gravity
Xmas Trip (Run-On)
Gee, The Moon is Shining Bright (The Dixie Cups)
Little Eyes
Sugarcube
The Story of Jazz
Big Day Coming (fast version)
Deeper Into Movies
Mushroom Cloud of Hiss
instrumental (Georgia on guitar)
Our Way to Fall
*(encore)*
False Alarm tease >
Let’s Compromise (Information, with everybody)
Red Rubber Ball (Paul Simon, with Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby)
Je T’Aime (Serge Gainsbourg, with Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby)
Yellow Sarong
An utterly surprising set, featuring former Rolling Thunder Revue multi-instrumentalist David Mansfield on violin (“the boy with the Botticelli face” — Allen Ginsberg) and all the quiet folkiness and obscure covers that’ve been conspicously scarce for much of the run. Nearly every selection felt like a forgotten (or newly remembered) treat, from the Camp Yo La Tengo “Tom Courtenay” to a random-ass T-Bone Burrnett cover to Georgia’s beautiful, beautiful, beautiful take on the Blonde on Blonde outtake “I’ll Keep It With Mine.”
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
30 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 6)*
The Volcano Suns and Raisin opened.
Mix disc by Ira.
(entire set with David Mansfield on violin)
Night Falls on Hoboken
Tom Courtenay (quiet version)
Did I Tell You?
Griselda (Peter Stampfel)
Pablo and Andrea
Black Hole (The Urinals)
Something To Do
We’re An American Band
I’m Coming Home (T-Bone Burnett)
Alyda
From Black to Blue
How Much I’ve Lied (Gram Parsons)
Little Eyes
For Shame of Doing Wrong (Richard Thompson)
Sugarcube
I Heard You Looking
I’ll Keep It With Mine (Bob Dylan)
*(encore)*
Autumn Sweater
Can’t Make It On Time (The Ramones, with Volcano Suns guitarist)
Definitely Clean (Steve Wynn, with Volcano Suns guitarist and Peter Prescott on vocals)
I wasn’t there, but thanks to the help of Christopher, Neil, OneLouderNYC, and Ira’s diary, I think I’ve reconstructed the setlist for last night’s show. Looks like fun, with a nice seasonal clump in the middle. (No “I Live in the Springtime,” though.) All corrections welcome, of course.
Also, yesterday, the New York Times featured Laura Sinagra’s very nice review of night 3. (Registration logins here.)
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
29 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 5)*
Half-Japanese and Louis C.K. opened.
Mix disc by Pee-Wee’s Playhouse designer Gary Panter
Beautiful World (Devo)
From A Motel 6
Today Is The Day
Detouring America With Horns
Season of the Shark
Winter A Go Go
Autumn Sweater
The Summer
Car Gears Stick in Reverse, Daring Driver Crosses Town Backwards (with Jad Fair)
Principal Punishes Students with Bad Impressions and Tired Jokes (with Jad Fair)
Little Eyes
Five-Cornered Drone (Crispy Duck)
Tom Courtenay
Heroin (Velvet Underground, Roky Erickson arrangement)
*(encore)* with David Johansen on vocals
After the Fox (Burt Bacharach)
Out in the Streets (Jeff Berry and Ellie Greenwich)
Doin’ All Right (The Fugs, with Bruce Bennett on guitar)
Chinese Rocks (Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers)
Who Are the Mystery Girls? (New York Dolls).
BoingBoing points to the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s announcement of a settlement with Sony over their heinous digital rights management systems. I’m sure DRM isn’t dead, but it’s a step in the right direction. According to the BBC, the anti-privacy lawsuit filed by Texas is still pending.
(No Yo La Tengo for me last night. I stayed home and cleaned my room. True story. Scroll down for reports from the first four nights, or click on the new YLT link over thar on the right, and watch this space for reports on the Friday and Saturday shows. And email me if you have a Thursday setlist.)
I imagine twilight landings are sublime pretty much anywhere, but I especially enjoy coming down over sprawl. I love how literally one can see civilization’s grid wired across the landscape.
The following photos weren’t taken with my cell camera, though there’s a similar limitation. Since I was shooting through the plane window, I couldn’t use a flash. Given the speed of the plane, and the bending of the lights, the results are nothing like the magisterial order of semi-urban suburbia (what I was hoping to get), but are nifty nonetheless.
(Thanks to Ariella for the posting title…)
It’s just a wonder to me that I can see Tortoise and the Sun Ra Arkestra on consecutive nights, on a tiny-ass stage, playing both by themselves and with Yo La Tengo. The Arkestra was in fine form, digging deep and weird, and coming up with “I am Gonna Unmask The Batman,” a cut from the cosmos-spanning Singles anthology that YLT has drawn from repeatedly.
Like the Arkestra, YLT’s set was, by turns, sloppy, inspired, and joyous. Highlights included a gorgeous “Beach Party Tonight” opener, a half-dozen impromptu Stax-on-Saturn horn arrangements, an overdriven “Big Day Coming” (with trombone blowing a mutated Dixieland counterpoint to the two-note riff), and a full-charge segue into an even-more-overdriven “Little Honda.”
I’m, er, skipping tomorrow. So, if anybody goes and wants to pass a aetlist along, I’d be happy to post it.
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
28 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 4)*
The Sun Ra Arkestra and Jon Glaser and Jon Benjamin opened.
Mix disc by WFMU‘s Small Change.
(“Beach Party” through “Double Dare,” and “Clumsy Grandmother” through “Nuclear War” with members of the Arkestra.)
Beach Party Tonight
Georgia vs. Yo La Tengo
Don’t Have To Be So Sad
Out the Window
Double Dare
Tears Are In Your Eyes
Stockholm Syndrome
Walking Away From You
Can’t Forget
Clumsy Grandmother Serves Delicious Dessert by Mistake
Deeper Into Movies
Big Day Coming (fast) >
Little Honda (Beach Boys)
Nuclear War (Sun Ra)
*(encore)*
I Dream of Jeannie (Hypnolovewheel, with Stephen Hunking on guitar and vocals)
(I Live For) Cars and Girls (The Dictators, with Todd Abramson of Maxwell’s on vocals)
Dreaming (Sun Ra)
Hallo bloglings & Sunsquahed readers —
(please to be scrolling down for all the latest YLT dorkery)
This here is my equivalent of a Hanukah present to all my friends.
It’s a 600 MB stuffed file of about 170 mp3s that I think are the bee’s knees — old favorites, new favorites, outtakes, hot jamz, shuffle-play weirdness, Brazilian fun, sound collages, and some field recordings of frogs and Chicago radio preachers thrown in for good measure. I’m sure some stuff will be quite familiar, but hopefully you’ll find abundant new goodies. Enjoy!
(And don’t forget to click “save-as” if you download so it doesn’t come up as a jarbled text file…)
Splendid night in Hoboken, and kinda the reason I keep going back to Maxwell’s. Seeing Tortoise on a tiny stage was a treat, and their additions to Yo La Tengo’s set were exactly what guest appearances should be. Switching off on various basses, guitars, and drums, Messrs. Hendon, McCombs, and Parker strengthened the songs in all kinds of subliminal, unpredictable ways, from McCombs and Parker’s spine-like guitar/bass groove underneath “Autumn Sweater,” to McCombs’ one-chord drone below “Last Days of Disco,” to McCombs putting down his guitar altogether after seemingly deciding that “Barnaby, Hardly Working” was working just fine with the core YLT trio (and it was), to Herndon returning to help guide the song through a magnificent coda.
The appearance of Patti Smith Group mastermind and legendary rock scribe Lenny Kaye (on his 59th birthday, no less) was also glorious. The curator of Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era — the punk-era equivalent of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music — led by example, running the Tengos through a handful of, er, nuggets with passion and graceful humor. Happy birthday, dude.
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
27 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 3)*
Tortoise and Demitri Martin opened.
Mix disc by El-P.
(First three-quarters of the set with various members of Tortoise.)
Bad Politics
Green Arrow
Everyday
False Alarm
Autumn Sweater
The Last Days of Disco
Barnaby, Hardly Working
How To Make A Baby Elephant Float
Madeline (false start)
Sugarcube
Artificial Heart
Decora
Tom Courtenay
I Heard You Looking
*(encore)* with Lenny Kaye on guitar and vocals
Night Time (Strangeloves)
No Time Like The Right Time (Blues Project)
Shock Me (Lenny Kaye)
Pushin’ Too Hard (The Seeds)
Moulty (The Barbarians)
Theme from Beverly Hills Teens
Literally nobody I’ve ever mentioned it to has copped to remembering Beverly Hills Teens. It aired (sometimes?) weekday mornings during the half-hour before I boarded the bus to school when I was a kid, when — if I’d finished breakfast and gotten my coat on — my mother would occasionally let me watch cartoons. It was an inane piece of shit, a kiddie forerunner to 90210, and — besides the neon/turquoise color scheme — I remember literally nothing of it. I can’t recall a single character nor recount a single plot (though, I’m sure I could guess and probably be right).
But, for some reason, the melody of the show’s theme lodged itself firmly in my brain, and has stayed there for twenty years (albeit with mostly erroneous words). Hearing it now — because, as we know, everything is available on the internets — returns me somewhat bizarrely to my childhood skin. The melody, I’m happy to report, is exactly as I’ve been humming it for the past two decades, and it still evokes exactly the same exotic images of California that I had as a kid: a land foreign and mysteriously bright.
Word-up to the faceless Hollywood songwriter who penned this.
An effervescent Boxing Day at Maxwell’s. First half of the set was particularly graceful. Precise “Pez Drop” opener (the “bah bah bah bah”s were still in my head waiting for the PATH), purdy-like “Our Way To Fall,” neatly swinging “Tony Orlando,” and delicious Acetone action/two-note riffage on “Big Day Coming.”
Ira is also posting about the run on YoLaTengo.com.
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
26 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 2)*
PG Six and Todd Barry opened.
Mix disc by Georgia.
Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop
Our Way To Fall
We’re An American Band
Today is the Day (fast version)
Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)
Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House
Season of the Shark
Little Eyes
The Empty Pool
She’s My Best Friend (Velvet Underground)
Big Day Coming (fast version)
Drug Test
Tom Courtenay
Blue Line Swinger
Flowers of the Forest (Fairport Convention, no drums, with Patrick Gubler and Bob Banister (sp?) of PG Six)
*(encore)*
Jeepster (T-Rex, with PG & BB, Todd Barry on drums)
Time (Richard Hell) (with PG & BB)
Burning For You (Blue Oyster Cult)
(thanks to Sam for plugging the holes in night 1, all help appreciated…)
