Saturday, May 12, 2007
Hey Mr. Tough...
Five unusual facts about Hoboken's national treasure, indie music veterans Yo La Tengo...YLT has lasted - and musically thrived - for 23 years without a commercial breakthrough, with no signs of letting up...
Their group name means 'I've got it!' in Spanish and is based on a baseball anecdote from 1962 about the Mets' shortstop Elio Chacón, where he yelled this to avoid (unsuccesfully) colliding with the center-fielder. Their live performance of 'Little Eyes' is pretty in a hypnotic kind of way.
The core of this 3-person group is a husband & wife team, vocalist/guitarist Ira Kaplan and vocalist/drummer Georgia Hubley, whose 23-year marriage's longevity is almost as unusual as the band's
YLT's best video was their most hilarous, for 'Sugarcube' - their fictitious record company owners, tired of their lack of commercial success, sends the poor trio to 'Rock College' : - )
The third YLT member, James McNew, has his own side project, Dump, and used this once to record an album of Prince covers! He named it after a piece of dialogue from an obscure Prince song: 'you mean that skinny motherf-r with the high voice?' Here's YLT's recent Black Flowers used as the music for an anti-war message.
Three of YLT's best album titles are long sentences: "I Can Hear The Hear Beating As One,' 'And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out', and their latest 'I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.' From the latter, here's the first single, 'Mr Tough', performed live.
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