Don’t Be Afraid: Yo La Tengo
The consistent artistry of the Hoboken band Yo La Tengo flies in the face of one of rock and roll’s oldest conventions. In an industry that valorizes its desperate geniuses, its madmen, punks and rebels, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew have made a successful career of being incredibly talented and awfully nice people. Unlike Stevie and Lindsay or Ike and Tina, Ira and Georgia are, at their core, a well-read, self-assured couple madly and happily in love. This kind of stability might be expected in, say, a guidance counselor, but is not an attribute one would expect to find in rock stars. Although I’m generally a fan of the antics of Jeff Mangum over the craftsmanship of Robyn Hitchcock, the desperation of Elliot Smith rather than the polish of Sufjan Stevens, or the fickle genius of Chan Marshall instead of the consistent skill of Leslie Feist, Yo La Tengo’s steady and studious approach to rock has kept me reaching for my dictionary, broadening my record collection and renewing my subscription to ArtForum for years. Listening to rock and roll was never supposed to feel so much like coursework.
Yet here are Ira, Georgia and James—pushing me to explore the work of photographer Gregory Cruesden and the aquatic documentary films of Jean Painleve, which they scored in 2001. And again, forcing me to admit that Sun Ra’s “Nuclear War,” with its chanting mantra “It’s a motherfucker” is a great rally song for a Democratic candidate for President of the United States.
Formed in Hoboken in 1984 by Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, who were joined by bassist James McNew in 1991, Yo La Tengo has released more than fifteen albums, including “Fakebook,” “Painful,” and, most recently, “I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.” Last year, they released a record of impromptu live cover songs recorded as a fundraiser for New Jersey’s WFMU-FM and titled “Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics.” They are currently in the middle of an acoustic retrospective tour, dubbed the “Freewheeling Yo La Tengo”, but they’ll be playing Cornell’s Barton Hall this Sunday in rock formation with Canandian collectivists Broken Social Scene.
Released ten years ago, “I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One” seemed to stand as a statement of intent for the band. From the blissful wordless opener of “Return to Hot Chicken” to the pop masterpiece “Stockholm Syndrome” to the shoe-gazing “Autumn Sweater,” the album delved into myriad styles while cohering as a whole. Since then, I was happy to have Yo La Tengo score my cocktail parties and naps: “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out” and “Summer Sun” both offered a quieter side of the band. They also turned to scoring films as well: including last year’s underrated “Old Joy” and 2005’s “Junebug.” With last year’s “IANAOYAIWBYA” Yo La Tengo revisit the sprawling epic of 1997. Book-ended by two jams on par with the best work of Neil Young or Sonic Youth, other songs echo Prince (“Mr. Tough”), or krautrock (the farfisa-driven “The Room Got Heavy”). I was happy to have the fierce Yo La Tengo back again.
I spoke to Ira Kaplan from a hotel room in San Francisco, where he persevered through a fire drill, constant phone calls, and all manners of fawning.
Q: I noticed you are playing quite a few museums and galleries. Is there a reason behind that?
Kaplan: Yes, we’re playing the Mass MOCA, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and we’ve done a couple already. Not in Ithaca, because that show will be a rock show, but what we have been doing on this tour is different in presentation from previous shows. We’re calling it the “Freewheeling” tour. One of the ways we have tried to alert people of the difference is by going to unusual venues.
Q: You’ve done that before; when I saw you for the “And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out,” you had seats.
Kaplan: Hopefully, it’s a few things at once. The motivation is about doing something different; to play our songs in a different style. The show you’re referring to was a little different. That record was a little quieter than previous ones. This time we are drawing on many different songs and playing them quietly or relatively quietly to demonstrate a side of the band that we don’t normally accentuate. And presumably with different venues different people who will come that wouldn’t normally come to a rock club.
Q: I know you just said Cornell will be a rock show but can you tell me a bit more about the “Freewheeling” tour?
Kaplan: Now that we’ve been doing it, I can. We’ve settled into sort of a routine. We go on stage, play two or three songs, and then turn it over to audience to ask us stuff. And sometimes, they make requests, but we encourage them to ask questions and we just see where it takes us. We don’t know what songs we’re going to play. And it’s been pretty exciting, because it’s so different every night. The audience makes a big difference; whether they are rambunctious or polite.
Q: And you’ve been surprised by how the shows are turning out?
Kaplan: Absolutely. You know, frequently when I describe the process of recording, I’ll say, we record a lot of songs, and then we go back and see what we come up with to ‘find the record.’ And these shows are kind of like that. We go into a venue and try to find the show.
Q: So kind of a cross between a WFMU call in and request kind of a Q&A that you would see after an author’s reading.
Kaplan: Those are definitely elements. We have compared it to the WFMU thing, I compared it like that when talking with someone from Matador and then said we hope the comedy is limited to between songs.
Q: In interviews you and Georgia are reluctant to answer personal questions. In this kind of forum, do you shy away from the personal questions also?
Kaplan: Yes, we will be the ones to define what it means to answer a question. When we say to the audience that they can ask us questions, and if somebody says “Speeding Motorcycle” [a Daniel Johnston song YLT have covered], if they think that’s a question; then any way we answer also qualifies as an answer. The definitions are fluid.
Q: So it sounds like you’re cribbing a page from a politician’s notebook.
Kaplan: Yes, well, we try to stay on message at all times.
Q: Now you’re notorious for not playing the same set twice. Do you not realize that one of the unwritten rules in rock is to have a set-list performed over and over night after night?
Kaplan: So many of the tings we’ve done over the years are things that we respond to when we’re in an audience. When I see other bands a multiple times on the same tour and they play the same thing I find that kind of deflating. I feel like we don’t want to be that kind of band. We try to be a band that when we come to town, you can’t say “Oh, I’ve seen them play before.” Plus it’s also more fun.
There have been a couple of times when we have repeated ourselves –in 1995 at Lolapalooza–we had an hour to play – we needed a set list for that-we tweaked it but basically stuck to it for about a week. It had that aspect of actors who don’t get bored reading the same lines every night. Everyone has there own way of keeping fresh or engaged and we do it this way.
Q: You just announced that you will be doing the Hanukkah shows again. [for many years on and off, YLT has performed each night of Hanukkah at Maxwell’s in Hoboken]. How do you determine if you’re going to do them or not?
Kaplan: We are always thinking about them, and we’re always wanting to do them. But we cannot commit because they are fun and exciting but also they are draining. In 2005 we reached out to the [Boston-based band] Volcano Suns to see if they would do a reunion show at Hanukah, we then committed with them. In 2006 sort of similar overtures didn’t come through so we didn’t do them.
Q. Will it be “Freewheeling” Hanukkah show this year?
Kaplan: We have been thinking about it. One of the things is a possibility of doing one show that way but I’m leaning away from that. Perhaps we’ll do it for one of the nights; but I have to speak with Georgia and James about that.
Q: Let’s move to soundtracks, which Yo La Tengo has been doing a lot of lately. So far you’ve scored music to three movies that come to mind [“Shortbus,” Phil Morrison’s “Junebug” and Kelly Reichardt’s “Old Joy]. Do you choose your projects or do they choose you?
Kaplan: A little of both going on. Not coincidentally, we have personal relationships with those directors and the nature of working on these films is that there is a lot more work than there is money, so when we’re asked to do them, it helps when there is a personal relationship. We don’t turn down that much but do to our schedule we have turned things down sometimes. It would be impossible to turn down Kelly or Phil. We’re working right now with Georgia’s sister [Emily Hubley, for the film “The Toe Tactic”] who did the animation for Hedwig –she wants a lot of music for her film with action and animation. And she wants a lot of music and we’re working as fast as we can.
Q: How is your approach to scoring films is different than the process making a record?
Kaplan: If it weren’t different, we wouldn’t be into it. Well, you’re starting with the director giving you direction – John Cameron Mitchell can be very precise. Phil and Kelly are much more mood oriented. The main difference is when we’re writing songs for record, we only have to please ourselves. When we write for a film we can be pleased with ourselves all want, but if the director doesn’t like it, you are going back to work.
Q: After the cohesiveness of “Summer Sun” and “ATNTIIO” “I Am Not Afraid of You” is pretty eclectic, relatively speaking. Did you set out to do that?
Kaplan: I wouldn’t say we did. I don’t think it was a particular intention. It just happened. I don’t exactly disagree with what you just said but I do think those other two albums sound more different from each other than sometimes people think they do. They certainly are both consistent in volume levels. And then with that record [“Summer Sun”], we almost, we had three rocks songs that we could have included on that record and released a different version of what those sessions were like. But we didn’t and similarly if we had made a different selection of songs for this record we could have made a more homogenous sounding record this time.
Q: You’re portrayed busking in Star’s Hollow on “The Gillmore Girls.” Has Yo La Tengo ever done any playing on a corner?
Kaplan: Not really. The closest we came to doing it was a couple summers ago we were doing a show in DC, but they were having a brown out. They couldn’t open the doors so we ended up canceling the show and quite a few people were waiting and so three of us played out on the street for about twenty minutes.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for what’s the key to a long career in rock and roll?
Kaplan: We just have done what pleases us. I am not sure a long career in rock and roll is to be aspired to-if you don’t want one. It’s something that has quite interested me over the years; I think we can all look around and have observed bands that don’t know when to stop. I hope we haven’t missed that point, or that we will recognize that point when it comes. I’ve never really wanted to focus on having a long career. At the moment, we still find that we can’t find enough hours in the day to do what we want to do.