Back from vacation just in time for Yo La Tengo’s annual Hanukah run at Maxwell’s. I’ll be hitting a bunch of these in the coming week. Setlists to follow when I feel like it. Tonight’s show was a lot of fun, with a little bit of opening night glitchery, and definitely a bitchin’ way to spend Christmas.
Personal highlights included a quiet/shimmering “Crying of Lot G,” a blistering false ending on “Styles of the Times,” and the lovely acoustic campfire “Big Day Coming” (the third different arrangement of the song).
Also, the band is going to be selling limited run CD-R mixes each night of the run, $10 at the merch table. Tonight’s was made by brilliant Motherless Brooklyn/Fortress of Solitude novelist Jonathan Lethem. I bought it, and will post a tracklist when I can decipher the liner card.
Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s
25 December 2005
*(Hanukah, night 1)*
The Mad Scene (with Georgia on guitar) & Eugene Mirman opened.
Band in costume for show:
Ira – Santa
Georgia – Robin (as in “Batman and…”)
James – Hasidic Jew (James McJew?)
Holiday (Madonna)
Eight Day Weekend (“Seven Day Weekend” by Doc Pomus, covered by Gary “U.S.” Bonds)
Little Eyes
The Crying of Lot G
Double Dare
Shaker
Stockholm Syndrome
Lewis
Don’t Have To Be So Sad (James couldn’t get the synth beat going right, so the guitar tech dude played drums)
Sudden Organ
Autumn Sweater
Styles of the Times
Decora
Deeper Into Movies (Hamish Kilgour from Mad Scene on snare)
I Heard You Looking (Kilgour on Acetone)
*(encore)*
Big Day Coming (acoustic, Georgia lead)
Je T’Aime (Serge Gainsbourg, with Kilgour and Lisa Siegel on vocals)
My Little Corner of the World (Ira’s mother on vocals)
Dear bloglings:
I’m going on vacation. I’ll be back 12/23. See you then.
If you’re bored, might I recommend obsessively clicking the Comrades & Daily Repeck links o’er there on the right column (like I do when I should be working)?
The milk is on the second shelf on the door, and the chocolate syrup is just below that. Clean up when you’re done, or Mayur’ll be pissed.
Love,
Jesse.
While it’s not quite as delicious as last year’s rumor that El Zimmy was gonna guest judge on American Idol, the prospect of the following has me hugely intrigued (to say the least):
Bob Dylan shocked his fans 40 years ago by embracing the electric guitar. Now he’s stunning a few more by embracing another technological innovation: satellite radio. The singer has signed on to serve as host of a weekly one-hour program on XM Satellite Radio, spinning records and offering commentary on new music and other topics, starting in March. The famously reclusive 64-year-old performer said in a statement yesterday that “a lot of my own songs have been played on the radio, but this is the first time I’ve ever been on the other side of the mike.”
“Other topics,” hmm? After doing a Victoria’s Secret ad, I don’t think anybody can possibly spin a Dylan radio show as “shocking.” It kinda makes too much sense. Unless, that is, he starts hawking underwear on the air (and even that would be in the fine tradition of King Biscuit Flour and the like…)
If heads can’t figure out how to get this on BitTorrent, I might have to actually subscribe to XM!
1. Would you like to be invited to a wedding?
2. Walk, human!
3. Rock and roll.
4. Midwood sunset.
The website for David Byrne’s always-hep Luaka Bop Records reports that Brazilian psychedelic legends Os Mutantes are considering a reunion:
We are working on an expanded Os Mutantes record. The band members have been discussing possibly getting back together for a few shows in 2006, hence we are also talking to people who might be excited as all hell to put on an Os Mutantes show. Are you one of those people? Would you mind if we use your basement/rec room for a show or two? When’s the last time you entertained 1,500 people down there? Yeah. You’re gonna have to move the coffee table.
Hot diggity! This is one of the few reunion shows I’d flip over. I’ll post an mp3 sometime.
I sometimes use the phrase “body massage!” to express happiness. This is why.
Mike has adapted the “go!” to various situations, ala Inspector Gadget — e.g. “iPod, gooooo!” “cell phone, gooooo!”
“In A Cold-Ass Fashion” – Beck
from Jabberjaw: Good to the Last Drop (1994)
released by Mammoth Records (buy)
“Crushed Bones” – Why?
from Elephant Eyelash (2005)
released by Anticon (buy)
(both files expire on December 15th)
In honor of my friend Joey and coming across Bulworth on my chum’s television-box (I’d never seen it) and having already planned to post a Why? track and getting thrown “In A Cold-Ass Fashion” on the ol’ shuffle shuffle this evening… well, what reasons could I have for not celebrating a decade of dorky white boyz rapping?
I’d forgotten about “In A Cold-Ass Fashion,” a Mellow Gold-era b-side from some random compilation called Jabberjaw: Good to the Last Drop. In some ways, this is quintessential mid-’90s Beck: total absurdity (“smoke a pack of whiskey with Jesus Christ / I’ve got options / I’ve got cop shows / I get nauseous and the sweat is day-glo”), but the beats and the bassline that comes in at around the 2:10 mark and the robot voice at the end and the way the banjo breakdown drops in all kind of feel like a throw-forward to me — a prototype for the dancefloor sexx music from Midnite Vultures and Guero. And, besides, it’s where Beck declares himself the original gluesniffa. Take that, ya Houston robotrippers!
Elephant Eyelash by Why? — a rapper from the Anticon collective (2) — is easily one of my top 10 faves from this year. When I first heard Why?’s work with cLOUDDEAD, for some reason, little bits of his melodies reminded of some Beck’s acoustic tunes, not his rap stuff at all. There’s a real playfulness in the way the song is organized, which I love. As it progresses and builds from section to section, these modular scenes surface (“the rain comes down in late July” is particularly vivid), each defined by its own combination of rhyme, melodic turn, and arrangement. On one hand, “Crused Bones” not a song you can sit down and play with an acoustic guitar, but it’s definitely a song you could play with a band (3), though — as near as I can tell — the type of song that almost nobody would actually think to play with a band. Nearly all of Elephant Eyelash blows my domepiece as such.
(1) Holy shit, the redesign of beck.com is annoying. They used to have a great, functional, searchable discography. Now, the site’s all purdy & shit, with exclusive web tunes (cool, I guess), but — dammit — all I want is information.
(2) Man, there’s a lotta exploring to be done with these guys.
(3) Still kicking myself for skipping out when Why? & his comrades descended on Brooklyn a few months back.
1. Starlight on Union Square.
2. I wonder what the SC stands for.
3. Ghost trees on the Lower East Side.
