Don’t look back — Yo La Tengo, Hoboken, New Jersey’s ambassadors of indie rock have learned to trust their instincts
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How do they do it? Yo La Tengo, Hoboken, New Jersey’s stalwart answer to indie rock, has it all. Critical acclaim — check. Devoted fans — check. Creative control — double-check. They can melt your face with a 10-minute instro-noise epic or melt your heart with a three-minute pop song. The irony is that more than two decades into an 11-album career, the band’s master plan appears to be no plan at all.
“Frequently, you can read about people describing the sound they have in their head and then trying to get that out,” says guitarist and vocalist Ira Kaplan. “I don’t think we ever have that. I know I don’t…. It’s just trying to trust our instincts.”
Few would argue with these instincts. In the early days, when Kaplan was making the transition from rock writer to guitar god with the help of his sweetie, drummer Georgia Hubley, it took time for Yo La Tengo to find their legs. When bassist James McNew joined the band for 1992’s May I Sing With Me, the lineup solidified, and so did the sound. With each successive album, the pop has become hookier, the epics longer and the sound more diverse. Exploring Yo La Tengo’s massive back catalogue may give fans a key to the band’s evolution, but the members themselves aren’t really up for that kind of navel-gazing.
“We don’t really look back that way,” says Kaplan. “In fact, sometimes its kind of funny to find ourselves in a scenario where one of our songs is playing, because they cease being what they were when we recorded them and become what they are when we play them. It’s not the way we think.”
For those, like Kaplan, who prefer to focus on the here and now, the topic of conversation is the band’s 2006 opus I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass. It’s classic Yo La Tengo for several reasons (including the beautifully oblique title). At more than 10 minutes of instrumental skronk and groove, opening track “Pass the Hatchet I Think I’m Goodkind” is the kind of jam-based brilliance that fans devour and naysayers label self-indulgent.
“It’s all self-indulgent,” counters Kaplan. “We wrote a song. Would you like to hear it?”
As the album unfolds, it treats listeners to bongo-fuelled rave-ups, slow comedowns and, for the first time in YLT history, a legitimate slab of white-boy soul, complete with horns and falsetto, in the form of album touchstone “Mr. Tough.”
“One thing that we are probably more willing to do now than we were a few years ago is play in pretty clear genres,” says Kaplan. If we had written a song like [‘Mr. Tough’] in years past, we would have made that song less genre specific — just kind of taken the song and done more of a mish-mash of things with it. I think the willingness to follow through, at least on the last record, on some of the genre aspects, kind of increased that gap between that and some of the jammier things.”
All this will come into focus during the band’s two Calgary concert dates. On stage at Mewata Field, expect a full-on rock blowout, but for the confines of the Pumphouse, be prepared for the acoustic intimacy of their “Freewheeling” show. Inspired by Yo La Tengo’s almost-legendary Hanukkah shows, the band mixes musical favourites with stories and a Q & A session. It’s a tactic that has worked so well that it’s become the template for the band’s upcoming live album. As is the case with many things in the Yo La Tengo universe, Kaplan is trying not to overthink it.
“I try to keep my hands as far away from it as I can get away with,” he says. “Sometimes it really requires us to steer things, but listening to live recordings, evaluating performances, is the opposite of my idea of fun, so hopefully it’s all happening magically behind my back.”
Kaplan’s laissez-faire approach isn’t just part of his process — it’s the way he’s wired. At his most verbose when he’s talking drum sounds and obscure cover tunes, he admits he’s lousy when it comes to talking about the big picture. When pressed to sketch it, his response is appropriately Zen.
“We try to trust as much as we can that the things we enjoy doing, someone else will enjoy as well.”
