August 10, 2009
Yo La Tengo | “Periodically Double or Triple”
IN THE TUBE
Hoboken, New Jersey’s Yo La Tengo is a band that you’d never expect to try and gain Internet buzz – they’ve been around since 1984, well before message boards, AOL Town Hall chats, and Geocities pages (and, in the early days of the Internet, you wanted your album to be gaining serious “Geocities” momentum). Their brand of mellow, classic alternative rock doesn’t quite lend itself to viral advertising campaigns. Yo La Tengo is either too old, too mature, or too apathetic to give into these kinds of stunts. It would be like your dad videotaping himself singing “Chocolate Rain,” or Pavement announcing a reunion tour via an elaborate Rick-roll.
Until 2009. Yo La Tengo’s upcoming LP Popular Songs, their twelfth album and follow-up to 2006’s excellent I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass recently leaked onto the Internet. In response, Matador started streaming the album in full from their website, with a “buy it now” option attached. On top of that, Matador announced that the band would be debuting a music video a week, leading up to Popular Songs’s September 8 release. There is really no other option for a band trying to sustain anticipation for an album they are proud of.
The first video, and coincidentally the new album’s opener, “Here to Fall” features planes doing skywriting and aerial tricks over an atypically epic Yo La Tengo song. There is heavy guitar delay, finger picking, and a string-quartet, all while frontman Ira Kaplan sneers “I know you’re worried/ I’m worried, too/ But if you’re ready/ I’m here to fall with you.” For a band who refuses to even license their music, they are pretty good at the Internet thing.
And now, we have the second Popular Songs video for “Periodically Double or Triple.” This video takes the opposite approach to viral campaigns. Where “Here to Fall” went for the bad-ass, huge, Michael Bay-type audience (only, being Yo La Tengo, a lot more boring), “Double or Triple” goes for the absurdist, inexplicable, Lolcats (I can has some twee?) viewership. Because the entire video is just people eating fruit.
That’s it. There’s nothing more. I’ve sat here watching this thing thirty times, trying to make an intellectual point about it, or find a purpose to the art. But there isn’t; it’s just fruit. The video doesn’t even seem entirely pro-fruit consumption: around the 2:35-mark, a guy carnivorously stuffs his mouth full of cantaloupe. It’s not negative either, as most people seem to be casually enjoying fruit (and I’m pretty sure the guy at the :45 mark is Broken Social Scene’s Brendan Canning – I always knew that dude loved pineapple). It’s not sexy, because even though juices are dripping down chins, those chins are usually thickly bearded. It’s not particularly fun. It’s funny, but not laugh out loud funny. It’s cute, sort of. More than anything, it’s bizarre.
Which is good, because there’s nothing more integral to a quality viral campaign than a complete lack of explanation.
by Max Sebela
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Jay-Z’s The Blueprint 3 to Feature MGMT, Inexplicably [Stereogum]
Stream New Times New Viking Track — Now with More Tape Hiss! [The Tripwire]
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Os Mutantes to Release First Album in 35 Years on ANTI- [BrooklynVegan]
Yo La Tengo Announce Fall Tour, NYC Date with Black Lips [Prefix]
compiled by Sean Hallarman
We Still Wish He’d Made “G Train” Instead: Sufjan Stevens to Release “BQE” Multimedia Set [Pitchfork]
Legendary “Nasty Gal” Betty Davis to Rerelease Two Albums. Funk Yeah! [The Tripwire]
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Yo La Tengo, Bill Callahan, Jay Reatard and More Contribute to Chris Knox Covers Compilation [Pitchfork]
Watch Our New Favorite Joy Division Cover: Steel Drum Band Plays “Transmission” [The Tripwire]
And For A Couple of Not-So-Good Covers: Ian Brown Covers Michael Jackson, Releases Jackson-Inspired Album [Prefix]
Jimi Hendrix’s Doctor Says It’s Plausible That He Was Murdered [NME]
Mmmm…Casper & The Cookies On Tour and in Town Tonight! [Brooklyn Vegan]
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compiled by Erin Sheehy
Beastie Boys’ Eighth Studio Album, Hot Sauce, Drops Sept. 15 [Billboard]
Bjork Streams Album of Alternate Live Takes on NPR, Screens Film at SVA Tonight [Tripwire]
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Black Lips and King Khan & BBQ Show Team Up as Almighty Defenders; Album Out In September [Prefix]
Old Folks Trash Wilco and Praise Yo La Tengo’s “Humpin’ Music” [Pitchfork]
Honey Hush! (And Check Out the Lineup for the Coney Island Rockabilly Festival) [Brooklyn Vegan]
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Former Wilco Member Jay Bennett Died of Overdose [Rolling Stone]
compiled by Erin Sheehy
April 20, 2009
Gracefully
Photo by Tammy Steinman
Gracefully, though technically a new band, has its roots in the past. It is the reincarnation, the “phoenix rising out of the ashes,” of songwriter extraordinaire Ben Malkin’s old band, So L’il. So L’il’s first album, a six-song, self-titled EP, was released over five years ago. They have since put out a split 7-inch with folk/experimental outfit Timesbold and followed that up with two full length EP’s released on Malkin’s own label, Goodbye Better. Last year, the label also put out the 20-song compilation Weird Terrain, featuring an eclectic variety of bands pushing for new ground.
So L’il, aka Mango Moonpie, had a reputation for always forging ahead with their psyche visions of grandeur, even when they didn’t sit well with the current tastemakers of the scene – a testament to their staying power. This year, the rechristened Gracefully return with a new lineup and a new 10-song album featuring Honeychild Coleman (formerly of Apollo Heights). The new album is set to contain a half and half mix of heavy dirge ballads and stuttered slow numbers.
More on Gracefully
February 25, 2009
Ira Kaplan, Yo La Tengo
HOLY MUSICIAN, BATMAN…
The last moments of the pre-show house music blare from the PA at Maxwell’s — the ideally intimate concert venue of the underrated Hoboken, N.J. — as the main attractions sip IPAs and talk into the ears of their buddies at the back of the room. The lights over the crowd go out and the band makes their way toward the steps at the front of the stage, squinting their way through an organically formed aisle between a couple hundred people. Ira Kaplan, in his red and black striped and holey t-shirt, knee-torn and stringy light denim jeans and candy-apple red Chuck Taylor’s, brings up the rear. Then the trio of veteran rockers, with hints of wrinkles at the hinges of their eyes, proceeds to tear the place down.
More on Ira Kaplan, Yo La Tengo
