Thursday, May 24, 2007
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Rediscovered Music: Yo La Tengo's Fakebook
Yo La Tengo—Fakebook
Bar None, 1990
Bar None, 1990
It's as hard for me to accept that this album is 17 years old as it will be for fans of 2006's I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass to believe that it's a Yo La Tengo product. No electric geetar noise, no atmospheric organ drones, no thumped out repetitive bass lines, and no tracks more than four minutes long (3:33 to be accurate), Fakebook is 40 minutes worth of gentle, sing-along-worthy songs performed by people clearly more infatuated with the tunes than with themselves.
Fakebook was a pleasant surprise even back in 1990 when it was first released, but it was an easier fit in the Yo La Tengo canon because only three other sorta full length releases had preceded it [Ride the Tiger (1986), New Wave Hot Dogs (1987), and President Yo La Tengo (1989)], and most people outside of Jersey or far from the NYC/DC corridor didn't hear all of Tiger until Matador Records re-issued the first three LPs on CD in 1996. More to the point, most people's love affair with Yo La Tengo rested squarely on two songs that ended up on President Yo La Tengo, "Barnaby Hardly Working" and "Drug Test," both of which evidenced a feel for songcraft and structure that even today seem more than three years superior to anything on Tiger.
Still and all, what made Fakebook work so well in 1990 was the fact that people who listened to Yo La Tengo back then didn't actually think of Yo La Tengo as a band. We thought exclusively in terms of a young couple of whom we were sincerely fond, Yo La Tengo's core duo of Georgia [Hubley] and Ira [Kaplan]. Ira & Georgia were quietly anti-celebrity (they were from Hoboken, for chrissakes), and they invariably presented themselves in fanzine articles as fans and record collectors who were compelled to play because the music they enjoyed was so dang good they couldn't just sit there. Ira & Georgia had also played acoustic sets together prior to recording Fakebook, with Ira strumming and singing and Georgia brushing away at her drum kit and singing. So Fakebook also served double duty as a light-hearted way to showcase the chops they'd developed over the course of those intimate gigs.
I couldn't find any band-approved sound files of Fakebook tracks on the web, so in lieu of the music samples, here are the liner notes (unsigned but written mostly in first person plural) from the CD insert:
"What Can I Say" is from the CD reissue of Kick Me Hard by one of our favorite bands ever, NRBQ. "Yellow Sarong" is by The Scene is Now, from their first album, Burn All Your Records, on their label, Lost. A really great album, as are their other two, Total Jive and Tonight We Ride--you can never say enough about The Scene is Now. Cat Stevens wrote "Here Comes My Baby" and did a pretty good version of it, too (really), but we didn't hear it until recently. We learned it from the Tremoloes, who had a hit with it somewhere in the '60s. "Emulsified" was the handiwork of Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers, and we found it on the incredibly swell compilation At the Party, which no record collection should be without, Candy Records. It'd be difficult to wholeheartedly recommend the Escorts' From the Blue Angel reissue on Edsel, but equally hard to come down on an album with "One to Cry." "Griselda" was sung by Peter Stampfel [who sings and plays on "One to Cry"] on the Rounder album, Have Moicy!, a record only Stephan Wichnewski [a YLT alum from '88-'89] could dislike. "Speeding Motorcycle" is on Daniel Johnston's Yip Jump Music, pressed up by Homestead. "Andalucia" is on John Cale's Paris 1919 (we recorded "Hanky Panky Nohow" from the same LP for a Ruta 66 compilation, with Georgia singing, and maybe that'll be out before too long). "Oklahoma U.S.A." originated with Muswell Hillbillies by Ira's all-time faves, the Kinks. "Tried So Hard" can be found on the Flying Burrito Brothers' 3rd album, the first without Gram Parsons, no classic. Fairport Convention also did it on Heyday; and of course, Gene Clark did it too, but it slips my mind as to where. "You Tore Me Down" is from Shake Some Action by the Flamin' Groovies, and if it's on that CD thing that came out last year, al the more reason to pick one up. And these are our second cracks at "Did I Tell You" and "Barnaby," which can be found on New Wave Hot Dogs and President Yo La Tengo respsectively (as well as together on our de-lux CD)--and we use the word "found" primarily as a figure of speech. Dave's group, the Schramm's, with Al [Geller] on electric bass, just released their Okra LP, Walk to Delphi.
Click the artwork above by designer Mr. Asami of San-X to go to the band's homepage.
Watch an animated video by Scott Bateman for "Tighten Up" from Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics.
Friday, April 13, 2007
On Sale This Week
SUPERSALE CD'S
Air Pocket Symphony 10.99
Arcade Fire Neon Bible 9.99
Andrew Bird Armchair Apocrypha 10.99
Bright Eyes Cassadega 9.99
Chevelle Vena Sera 12.99
!!! Myth Takes 8.99
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah Some Loud Thunder 10.75
Deerhoof Friend
El-P I Sleep When You Dead 10.99
Good, Bad, Queen Good, Bad, Queen 8.99
Norah Jones Not Too Late 13.75
Kaiser Chiefs Yours Truly 8.99
Kings of
LCD Soundsystem Sound of Silver 9.99
Modest Mouse We Were Dead Before 13.75
Moe The Conch 10.99
Of
Panda Bear Person Pitch 9.99
Peter Bjorn and John Writer’s Block 9.99
The Shins Wincing Away 10.75
Son Volt The Search 11.99
The Stooges The Weirdness 9.99
Switchfoot Oh Gravity 12.99
Umphrey’s McGee Bottom Half 12.75
Neil Young Live @ Massey Hall 1971 12.99
ADDITIONAL SALE CD's
The Academy is… Santi 10.99
Lily Allen Alright, Still 7.99
Apples in Stereo New Magnetic Wonder 12.99
Aqualung Memory Man 9.99
Bloc Party Weekend in the City 10.99
Blonde Redhead 23 9.99
Jarvis Cocker Jarvis 11.75
Fountains of
The Fratellis Costello Music 7.99
Grinderman Grinderman 11.99
I’m from
Incubus Light Grenades 13.75
The Kooks Inside In 10.75
Ted Leo & the Pharms Living with Living 11.99
Low Drums & Guns 10.99
Madlib The Other Side: LA 11.99
Menomena Friend or Foe 8.99
Placebo Meds 8.99
Poison the Well Versions 10.75
The Ponys Turn Out the Lights 9.99
RJD2 The Third Hand 9.99
Joss Stone Introducing JS 12.99
The Used Berth 14.99
Amy Winehouse Back to Black 11.99
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Four Tets, Two Cats & One Tongues
Domino, 2007
A live clip makes for a good introduction to Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid's Tongues, especially the YouTube vid below of them playing "Brain," a slightly longer version of a similarly named track on Tongues:
According to the CD's skimpy liner notes: "All tracks are live takes with no overdubs or edits." So if you're a fan of live music (particularly, noisy electronic music), the exaggerated hum of Hebden's amps on every track will be mother's milk to you. If you expect a bit more polish for your pound of flesh, or if you insist on knowing why the album is called Tongues and what's that got to do with the titles of the individual tracks for cripes sake, then you may want to look elsewhere. To the Steve Reid Ensemble's Spirit Walk CD (Soul Jazz, 2005) just maybe, whereon Hebden's electronic squargles are kept at a respectful distance by three or four guys wielding saxophones and another, a really big bass.
Tongues, Hebden and Reid's third recorded one-on-one, plays its faux live set vibe with a heavy hand, but the music is intriguing and demanding enough for repeated listens. Nevertheless, the tension created by electronic noises (structured and unstructured) in contest with a veteran soul-bearing rhythm machine can't please everyone. To cut to the chase, the following people should exercise caution (and not only when driving alone):
- Four Tet fans who like melodic electronics with their easy beats
- Steve Reid fans who like to hear his drumming
- Jazz purists who dream of busting up John Zorn's studio
- Noise purists who think drum kits are a rationalist fetish
- Anyone for whom the sound of a miked amp is an unwelcome trigger to violence
Monday, March 19, 2007
Grinderman
Until Nick Cave's new garage band project comes to life on this side of the Atlantic on April 10th, you'll need to make do with the band's myspace page for previews of the album's most dramatic cuts.
Click on the banner in the right sidebar to be hijacked to Grinderman's too too Flashy homepage. Click the link below to preview three tracks on the band's myspace page:
And check out the YouTube clips below: an interview featuring Nick as the other Unknown Hinson and a bit of live footage.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
What's Little Johnny's Damage?
According to the Def Jux one sheet for El-P's long-awaited I'll Sleep When You're Dead:
This record is an urgent document, a collective representation of a critical individual crossing their personal Rubicon, assessing the dismal reality inherent, and deciding to forge on despite the cost. With appearances by Trent Reznor, The Mars Volta, Cat Power, Aesop Rock, Cage, Matt Sweeney, Tame One, James McNew of Yo La Tengo and others, this is an album poised to extend a genre into a new realm of artistic expression.Yeah. Most one sheets lay the hyperbolic hooey on plenty thick. But if your last job interview tanked over your sketchy "assessing the dismal reality inherent" skills, at least you've got somewhere to turn!
Better you should spend a little time listening online and judge for yourself. Just be sure you've got Flash Player 8 installed and JavaScript up and running:
- El-P homepage on imeem
- El-P homepage on myspace
- El-P live at the 2007 Plug Awards
(courtesy of Prefixmag.com and ManiaTV).
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Neil Young Live at Massey Hall 1971
Someone who has more time than I to spend ferreting out old concert reviews, record reviews, interviews, and magazine and webzine articles (both fluffy and flaming) could have a field day cataloging (or structuring or deconstructing) the panorama of attempts at describing Neil Young's voice in print. My guess is that a safe working hypothesis to get that hermeneutic machine chuggin' merrily along would be that the description works as a shorthand for the ultimate judgment leveled at the man and his music. Nothing surprising there if you've ever made any cracks about, say, Michael Jackson or Tom Waits.
Here's a short list of said descriptions that surfaced after only two quick Google searches:
becalmed high tenor; cracked tenor; strangled tenor; disntinctively haunting thin tenor; nasal tenor; nasal twangy tenor; a tenor without any low ends; cantankerous tenor; plaintive tenor; reedy tenor; gorgeous tenor; watery tenor [that emotes with elasticity!]; tenor-countertenor; a high tenor, almost a countertenor, kind of wobbly around the edges; rock's definitive countertenor; freakish countertenor amplitude; choked-back, sobbing countertenor
You get the idea, I'm sure. Some are positive, some negative, and at least one seems to be slouching in the direction of a rhetorical masturbation fantasy. You'll have that in rock journalism.
All pseudo-controversy to one side, though, what anyone who listens to the latest installment of the Neil Young Archives: Performance Series cannot deny is the power of this cracked, strangled, wobbly, freakish, watery and elastically emoting voice to affect the audience of a concert hall and to hold them at attention with no more accompaniment than an acoustic guitar or a miked piano. Youngsters, bear in mind that the 35-year-old master for this recording was made long before digital equipment and the ability to record a live show exclusively through a mixing board. This is old school analog. You can hear the crowd along with the tape hiss. You'll shrivel at the sound of Neil Young adjusting his microphones. But when the man is playing, you'll know that those people were listening. Just like you.
Oldsters like yours truly, who still have their copies of Young Man's Fancy, a true down-n-dirty bootleg made at the LA gigs for the same 1971 Journey Through the Past tour, have known this for decades: in 1971, well before "Heart of Gold" charted as a hit, Neil Young's voice could galvanize a room. If it does nothing else, the Live at Massey Hall, 1971, recording provides documentary evidence of Young's early on-stage presence.
Of course, the CD offers more than that: it actually works well as an overview of Young's career on the threshold of his success with Harvest. Two standouts for old and new fans alike are the live-set only song "Bad Fog of Loneliness" and a still-in-the-works version of "A Man Needs a Maid" and "Heart of Gold," here coupled together with soon-to-be discarded lyrics as a "suite," along the lines of "Broken Arrow" from Young's Buffalo Springfield days. The two Harvest songs would take their final shape less than a month later (as a bootleg of a February 27, 1971 show attests), but this early version provides an interesting glimpse into Young's composing process.
Although the Journey Through the Past tour supported Young's third solo album, After the Gold Rush, only two songs from that album "Tell Me Why" and "Don't Let it Bring You Down" make it into the setlist. Two Springfield-era songs, "On the Way Home" and "I am a Child" bookend the setlist, which also contains two songs from his eponymous debut album, "The Old Laughing Lady" and "The Loner"; two songs from Everybody Knows, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River"; another Harvest song, "Old Man," (perfectly sung); two CSNY songs, "Helpless" and "Ohio"; one Crazy Horse song, "Dance Dance Dance" (another live show mainstay); "See the Sky About to Rain," which was finally released three years later on the contemporaneously bitched about On the Beach; as well as "Journey Through the Past" and "Love in Mind," also released in 1974 on the still damnably out of print live album Time Fades Away.
All in all and without half trying, Live at Massey Hall 1971 does an even better job than the previously released Fillmore concert CD to whet my appetite for the 8CD/2DVD box set, Neil Young The Archives Vol 1 1963-1972, scheduled for release sometime this fall. I'm expecting plenty of early takes and re-takes of songs that didn't see recorded form until well after 1972. I'm also expecting plenty of plotz that only a longtime fan will want to listen to. But I'll tell you one thing: if there isn't at least one kickass version of "Sugar Mountain" anywhere in that box set, Neil Young had better take out a restraining order! Or invite me to the ranch for dinner.
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