What’s Your Worst Memory of
Playing with Yo La Tengo?

David Newgarden, ex-Run On
Alligator Lounge, Santa Monica, CA 10/95. While I was minding the Yo La Tengo T-shirt table, two cute chicks (alleged names: Kirsten, Ryan) flirtatiously distract me in order to shoplift three Camp Yo La Tengo shirts right under my nose.

Norman Blake, Teenage Fanclub
It's winter in Minneapolis, our first time in this city and it's cold.

We'd driven overnight to get there and had arrived very early in the morning of the day before our show together. The bus had pulled up outside our hotel and the driver woke us and asked to disembark and check-in early so that he might take his bus out of town, where it was cheaper to park. We stumbled into the lobby, dazed, rubbing sleep from our eyes. We didn't notice how cold it was.

We slept all day. We met in the lobby at 7:30 having arranged to get some food. Raymond was wearing his red jacket, the one that someone had stolen his passport from.

We pushed our way through the revolving door to meet the night. It was freezing. We could feel the hairs in our nostrils stiffen. We were dizzy. And that's when it happened: Raymond's jacket froze. He couldn't move. He tried to move his arms but it was impossible. We were getting worried, and Raymond was turning blue. Something had to be done.

We positioned ourselves around Ray, one to push him over and two behind to catch his fall. We heard a crack as his shoes broke away from the pavement. We then carried him overhead, back to hotel kitchen where we defrosted him in front of the pizza oven.

After a short time, Raymond had recovered. The oven had given us an idea, so we ate pizza and drank beer in Raymond's room. He was still wearing the jacket.

Mark Greenberg, formerly of The Coctails, now of the Log Letters.
The last time Yo La Tengo played Chicago, Ira called me and my bandmates and asked us to bring our instruments and join them in a few songs. I felt lucky because I got to play vibraphone on two very beautiful, quiet songs. The show progressed until it was my turn to go out and play. At that point, Ira (Jewish person) introduced me (Jewish person) to the 1000+ crowd as "Mr. Adolf Hitler on the vibraphone." I got a look from him as if to say "YOU know what I mean..." I didn't. If I weren't holding mallets in both hands I would have scratched my head in confusion. Luckily I was too nervous to let it affect me and I went on to play the song with much concentration and even more "clams." (It wasn't terrible, though. I probably deserved a strong B+) It wasn't until about two months later that I got the reference when Adam Jacobs (you know, the taping guy) gave me a tape of a Bonzo Dog Band song in which Adolf Hitler is introduced as the vibraphone player, along with about 60 introductions of different people on different instruments. I finally get it. Thanks Adam!

Stephin Merritt, Magnetic Fields
When we played with you at NYU, there was a convention of Baptists in the building. The Baptist students were having a Ben & Jerry's eat-a-thon on the rooftop patio, blasting Christian rock, directly under our dressing room. As everyone knows, the Magnetic Fields don't like rock. We disapprove of rock and Christianity, especially in combination.

Tara Key, Antietam
I have, as a rule, tried to avoid the possibility of embarrassment on-stage since the time I took a quaalude before attempting a soft-shoe in the middle of a German class reinterpretaion of a Woody Allen play -- cane and all -- in 1976. And I almost always have a swell time in the presence of my YLT pals. But one night I wanted to become one more unidentified puddle on the rug of the CBGB stage. It was encore time, and I was asked to join the band on-stage. At the time, Ira took particular pleasure in asking me to play songs I had either never heard or at least didn't know the chords to... but that's OK. I can take a challenge. On the menu that evening: "Somebody's Baby." It was the first time I played that tune with them. So I'm psyched... then I am handed the guitar I am to use as the song starts. But the strap is James-sized, not Iraesque. I am a very short person. Now I am grappling with chords, cadence, foreign wail of god knows (or maybe James) what pedals turned on -- I feel like I'm wrestling a sonic bear. PLUS I look like an idiot. It was like a elongate world. Wooziness and vertigo sat in and I felt the same way I did when I dropped acid for the first time and I had to call my mom to say I was going to be late while wondering what late meant... and the numbers on the phone got really big and breathed and I got really confused... anyway, I chose to sink, down, down, under the friendly shelter of new member Mr. Acetone and just ride it out until I could slither offstage.

Jonathan Marx, Lambchop
Needless to say, all of us in Lambchop were pretty excited when we found out we were going to open a few dates for Yo La Tengo. Touring isn't something we do often, what with us being such an unwieldy group and generally afraid to leave our homes. So to entice us, the YLT crew offered to let us borrow some of their gear. This was very helpful, as it allowed us all to fit in the van without having to strap a couple of people on top. We didn't realize just how nice YLT were being, though, until we bragged to our friends about our upcoming tour. They all had the same response: "They're actually letting you USE their equipment?!"

Sensing possibility for all kinds of disaster, our leader Kurt gathered the band together before we left and gave us a very stern speech. He explained to us that we have to behave like adults and that we were to treat YLT's equipment with the utmost care and respect.

Everyone listened and took heed: After each set, Buddy carefully wiped down James' bass amp with a mild solution of Ivory soap and warm tap water. And every night Allen was there setting up and breaking down Georgia's drumkit -- she'd just kind of mumble and point at stuff, and Allen would get to work, carefully setting up all the cymbals, stands, drums and cowbells in their correct place. (Of course, Georgia insisted on setting up the gong herself).

Well the tour was going just fine. We'd played a couple of dates, and then we got to Albany. We were setting up and I wandered over to watch Allen go through his nightly routine. Now that he'd earned Georgia's confidence, she'd hang out while he was setting up and tell him dirty jokes. He was putting together some cymbals and, I don't know how it happened, but I managed to knock one over. (It might have been when I was running across the stage, swinging my arms around and shouting "ROCK AND ROLL!") Well, that was it. In the middle of delivering some punch line about how nobody eats parsley, Georgia swung around and slapped me full in the face. Then she kicked me and stormed offstage, yelling "I want him off the tour! NOW!"

James, who was in the middle of showing Buddy some of the bass licks he'd picked up from Larry Graham, gave me a look that was a mixture of mocking pity and utter contempt. Meanwhile, Ira, who had been backstage entertaining groupies with his impersonation of Lou Reed, came out and lit right onto me: "You can take your pathetic little self back to Hicktown, Tennessee, because you're finished on this tour, you hear me?" If it weren't for YLT roadie Joe Puleo, who quickly intervened, Ira would have flattened me. I'll spare you the details about the looks of shame I got from all my bandmates, how I had to hitchhike home all the way from Albany to Nashville, and my six-month "Lambchop probation." What can I say? I brought it upon myself.

David Newgarden, ex-Run On
Please don't use the girls' names (Kristen, Ryan) in the issue. Thanks.

Aggi, The Pastels
Having to play charades at Thanksgiving with the entire Kaplan family.

Mac McCaughan, Superchunk, Portastatic
My worst (if hazy) memory of playing with Yo La Tengo would have to be an incident that took place on the last date of our Great Lakes/Easter-Central Midwest Tour in the Spring of 1994. We were opening for "the Tengos" in front of a packed house at Bogart's in Cincinnati. Our set had gone over pretty well and after a hot shower and a couple of drinks we were all enjoying their set from the wings, joking with the friendly bouncers about Ira's drumming, etc.

Anyway, the show was great, the Ohio crowd was typically nuts and as the third encore (an extended cover of an obscure 70s pre-punk gem) built to a furious climax, I was seized by the moment and the good vibes on-stage, and in an ironic-but-good-natured mocking of the mashing crowd and a genuine gesture of love and respect for YLT's musical prowess, I decided to cap off the night with a tour-ending stage dive. I handed a shocked Joe Puleo my half-finished Manhattan and took off for the seething carpet of fans mashing against the edge of the stage. But instead of the "oh, you guys!" grins I expected to see on the faces of the band, I have just enough time to read "Get the fuck off our stage!" on Georgia's lips before James sticks out his leg and I go down hard, my face slams into the wedge teeth-first and in about 2.8 seconds flat, Joe has been hog-tied with a mic cable. James puts down his bass and holds back my arms while Joe gaffer-tapes my head to the keyboard of the Acetone somewhere around middle C. Joe picks up the maracas out of a puddle of my blood and drool and, before I pass out, I hear the band break into "Sudden Organ." I hear it was quite inspired.

Connie Lovatt, Containe, Pacific Ocean.
A show that started as "how cool, we're playing with Yo La Tengo" turned into "let me die before my throat sets fire to us all" like Drew Barrymore in Firestarter where she keeps saying "back off, back off." And I wasn't the only one that felt that way. Fontaine could hardly speak or hear. We both could hardly walk. Ed was getting our germs all over him. Ira wanted to know if changing the mics after we played would offend me. I gave him a big kiss and said not at all. Georgia said she put henna in her hair the other night and that when she sweated she smelled like she had never washed it out. I tried to smell it but got snot in her hair. Sssshhh. I asked people the same questions the few times over, each time swearing it was first time asking. When the audience applauded I called them all liars because my voice sounded like a puppy in a well. The college we were at gave me cups with that plastic coating for my tea, which them melted and coated my already coated tongue. I pulled a muscle lifting an amp. I couldn't find Fontaine. Then I couldn't find Ed. The only thing in the dressing room was a cooler and some ham. Some guy kept giving me pictures of something. Home was hours away. I hated anything that created noise. James' amp was bigger than me and had a rosier complexion. The floor was spinning. The students were spinning. I was in an "I hate men" phase. I lost my Riccola. I fell asleep next to the ham.

Franklin Bruno, Nothing Painted Blue
I've only actually played with YLT once, as a solo act at Santa Monica's Alligator Lounge (a.k.a. the Aggravator Lounge, where Jean Smith threw the cash register in the street when 2 Foot Flame got stiffed, but that's another story), so I guess that it was both the best of shows and worst of shows. First, I wasn't very good. I was playing through a smaller amp as an experiment and I was nervous that it sounded farty and overdriven, so I wasn't really at ease. Then I brought up my Canadian stand-up bass-playing friend, and foolishly started the most complicated of the three songs we'd learned (which we'd practiced twice). I don't know that many people noticed but I thought it really dragged and I knew where all the mistakes were (This happens sometimes when you go beyond the three-chord barrier). None of the above really has much to do with YLT, who were unfailingly polite about my performance (as were Run On, who played after me).

The part that was what I guess you'd call bad also merely reflects on me. Not to put too fine a point on it but the show was not especially well-attended. YLT was playing two nights, of which this was the first. As I recall, two or three other shows were going on in town that night and I got the general impression that most of the hipsters who packed the place last time YLT had been in L.A. were going to wait for night two. (I didn't volunteer the information that I, personally, am cursed.) I should point out that the openers the next night were going to be popular "lo-fi" pioneer Chris Knox and my close personal friends Refrigerator. I couldn't make that show (another long story) but reports were that it was great, packed, etc.

Also, I was told that most of the 'Fridge and, of course, the ubiquitous Knox ended up on-stage with YLT. So did, on the first night, all of Run On, for a version of "A House Is Not A Motel" that became an atonal "Bad Politics" with Sue Garner biting guitars with sticks and that kind of stuff. I remember looking up at the unmanned Acetone during this and thinking, "Well, I could join in but it would be grandstanding and I wasn't invited. So basically the point is, in my own petty little head, I'm the only person in a total of four opening bands that didn't get to "jam, dude." The whole experience (like so many others) gave me a twinge of that old high school "ditched in the mall" feeling. Hey gang! Wait up!

Also, since the main difference between the two shows as far as the club was concerned was that the night I played, no one came, they kept telling our booking guys that they won't put Nothing Painted Blue on shows 'cause we don't draw (like this is news). The best we can do now is first of four bands, before Matt Keating, for fifty bucks. I mean, of course I don't bring as many people out of their homes as Chris Knox; I usually perform wearing pants!

Chuck Cleaver, Ass Ponys
Our second or third ever show as the Ass Ponys was opening up for Yo La Tengo, at this place called the High Top in Newport, Kentucky. I think the German guy was playing bass for them at that point. Or was it Wolf? And they also had some roadie or something on tour with them who they hated him. Anyway, about two hours before we went on our drummer, Dan, called us at the club to tell us he couldn't make it. We went ahead and played the show as a drummer-less trio and were terrible, so awful that at one point Georgia actually asked the guy who booked the place if we were a "real band."

Glenn Jones, Cul de Sac In spite of James' temper-tantrums, Ira's smack-included logorrhea, and Georgia's constant demand for favors with the hint that if I'm good, she might give me "the nicest Hagstrom III I've ever seen," playing with Yo La Tengo has been only the pleasantest of occasions for us... but thanks for asking.

Bilinda Butcher, My Bloody Valentine I have a true memory of doom descending upon me during one of the shows we played together. We were in Seattle, around 1992. I'd been chatting to James in the dressing room and got all excited at the thought of Peter Bagge (of "Hate" comics creation) being at the gig, not to mention all the other "Seattle-ites," like Hole. Well, for a start I ate too many jelly teddies while we were chatting, which was a bad start to any gig, wouldn't you say?

YLT played a storming set and then it was our turn. Behind the stage curtains waiting to go on, someone appeared with a pure grass joint, and I partook of just one drag, thinking it might settle my nerves. Anyway, we all then strolled onto the stage and oh dearie me, my jelly teddies nearly came running out of my tummy with their little hands raised in horror! I felt absolutely petrified like never before, and, looking sick-like at the set list, I realize I have to sing "Only Shallow" to open the set. When I hit my guitar, it sounds all peculiar and I just want a big trap door to open up and swallow me. Oops! And then I have to sing and I just can't, basically, I sound like Minnie Mouse on her deathbed, and feel like crying and running away. By this time Kevin is shaking his head and glowering at me from across the stage, and I want to go home. Anyway, by the end of the next song, I was fine again and quite enjoyed myself in the end, even though I never did get Peter Bagge's autograph!

Tripp Lamkins, The Grifters.
We were playing in Columbia, MO, and ran into some of the guys from St. Monday, and they say, "So, we opened up for Yo La Tengo last week and we're all hanging out backstage and we ask if we can have some of their beer, right? and they (the Tengos) say, 'Well, we told The Grifters to help themselves to our beer and they drank it all, so...'" So, guilt-ridden, we had our people send their people a six-pack of something (I hope it was good beer) and now there is peace.

Jonathan Kilgour, just kicked out of the Pastels
Due to the rest of the Pastels plus Ira all being tardy for our New York soundcheck, me, James, and Georgia soundchecked a Pastels song and YLT song together and I suddenly realized what a bunch of lame-os I'd been playing with all along!

Piet Breinholm Bendtsen, ex-18th Dye
Being on the road with YLT for 3 weeks in Europe (Painful tour). I was asked to join the band for an encore on the 24th of December in a sold-out club in Berlin (our home turf) and it was terrible... I wasn't allowed to rearrange the drumkit (I'm right handed), I started in the wrong tempo so the band stopped and counted me in... and of course I didn't know the song, which was one of those US rock songs that every born rocker in America knows.

As most of you know YLT and how bad people they can be, the story above is not very interesting and getting this request from James, I actually picked out a YLT album and found the tour schedule (93-94). This gave me the creeps. Not because of YLT... but during the tour my girlfriend of 7 years and I drifted apart. A month after the tour we were separated. I still love YLT (sorry).

David Newgarden, ex-Run On
Let's change "cute chicks" to "attractive females."

Katrina Mitchell, the Pastels, Melody Dog
Ira invited me to play maracas on-stage, provided I'd look as mean as them and not smile.

Damon Krukowski, Damon & Naomi, Magic Hour, formerly of Galaxie 500
It was at Green St. Station in Jamaica Plains so La Tengo and we were very excited. So we get to the club and no one will really talk to us. This was in the era of the very tall bass player who didn't seem to speak to anyone. But it extended to Ira and Gerogia as well.

Now we were pretty green and didn't know yet about good and bad days of touring, or anything like that, so maybe we were totally off... but we were sure that everyone in the band HATED us, and they were totally bummed that we were opening for them.

Then, much to our shock, the band played ONE SONG as their entire set! It was half-hour long as I recall, but aside from the musical issues involved it seemed to us so ANGRY! ... further proof that they were miserable and all because of US!

We spun very elaborate theories as to why Yo La Tengo hated us so much. Years later, after Galaxie 500 had broken up, Naomi and I saw Ira and Georgia and everything seemed to be fine, in fact really nice, between us. It was then that we realized the truth of that night in Jamaica Plains: THEY MUST HAVE HATED DEAN!!

Chris Jones, Refrigerator
10/27/95, Alligator Lounge, L.A, CA. The show actually went really well, but as we were loading out, Dennis and Ira started talking about the possibility of having the 'fridge open for Yo La Tengo again in the near future. By the time I had finished putting away my drums and joined the conversation, Dennis was on a roll. Earlier, our (mine, Dennis and Allen's) senses of criticism were warmed up by a conversation with James about such schmaltz-metal bands as Autograph and Armored Saint. Now, Dennis was in the present tense, bagging on the bands of today as all six of us stood on Pico boulevard. We all chuckled along at Dennis' cute characterizations:

Dennis: "(so and so) sounds like a watered-down version of Pavement. (blanketly blank) is too boy-rock. They're such an emo-band. Hey Ira, maybe you should play with _____ next time instead of us before they sign to a major label! Ha ha! God, they are so awful!" (nervous laughter from Refrigerator. Then, dead silence. Uncomfortable pause.)

Ira: "We HAVE played with _____"

Georgia: "They're our friends."

Us: "Oops"

Me: "I have to go make sure everything's loaded up"

Rick Brown, Run On
My few bad memories of playing with YLT are always paired with a high point (near nadir Berkeley Square the day after fantastic Great American Music Hall for example). For purposes of today's exposition, let's say a beautiful spring afternoon in Swarthmore, PA wondering if Ira's little "talk" with a murder investigation by campus security, the unpleasantness of which sullies what could have been a nice memory of playing w/ the Ass Ponys and the previous night's great show in NYC.

Jennifer McNeil, ex-Kreviss, now of The Tonics
When we were opening for you, someone threw a bottle on-stage. It made me really upset and I started crying. Later I found out it was actually a friend of mine who was really drunk. He said he didn't mean anything by it, he just thought it would be funny.

Dennis Callaci, Refrigerator
One week after agreeing to open for Smog and 2 Foot Flame at the altogether ridiculous Alligator Lounge (save for New Music Mondays, the place is a hub for Van Gogh's Daughter, Dishwalla, and Keel), we were offered the spot of opening for Chris Knox and Bango Tango. I believe the booker's name was Deb and, understandably, she didn't want the same band playing at the same club two weeks in a row. Given the case for such events, we have used the nom de plume of "The Bux" to throw off any of the always considerate and fair promoters of the greater Los Angeles area. Deb booked The Bux and the events leading up to and during the show went without a hitch. We played the same lackluster songs that we would normally play as Refrigerator, presented ourselves as New Jersey's Bux, and had a wonderful time.

It wasn't the acerbic, tainted tongue of Chris Knox that let the cat out of the bag, but that belonging to Ira Kaplan. Ever since this event, we've been blacklisted, even our friends in the biz refuse to service us promos (It didn't help matters a week later when Jean Smith and I took the "Alligator Lounge Surfboard" down form the club's ceiling and threw it into an onrush of unexpecting cars on the highway).

Matt & Bubba Kadane, Bedhead
It would have to be the time in Seattle, when, much to everybody's surprise, our tour manager Josh showed up just before sound check, fresh from the barbershop, where he had traded in his "Grizzly Adams" beard & hairstyle for a rather questionable buzz flat top, complete with a handlebar mustache, a la The Village People. We wouldn't have recognized him at all, had it not been of the distinguishable garb he'd been wearing on the road, and since we had to be associated with him and his new look for the rest of the tour, we wished we hadn't recognized him. Anyway, the look kind of symbolized the tour from that date on: fucked.

Sebastian Büttrich, ex-18th Dye
#1 - The first sentence I ever got to hear from YLT
The scene: first show ever together, 18 Dye having just arrived at the Arapaho in Paris somewhat earlier than YLT. An orange juice bottle has just slipped outta the backstage fridge, everything's wet with... well, orange juice.

Ira Kaplan on coming in: "I'm not playing with those guys, they're smashin' bottles backstage!" hey, rock 'n' roll...

#2 - The second sentence I ever got to hear from YLT (coming in a verrrry close second):
"It's all damp up here -- he must've done it here, too."

Ira, same night, 20 minutes later, onstage at the Arapaho, in a typical soundcheck mood.

I could think of dozens more...

Fontaine Toups, Versus, Containe
Ira asked me to do some 2nd guitar tuning during YLT's set one night when I was really sick (and on every kind of cold medicine I could find, particularly Nature's Herb natural cold medicine, usually a great high, but not on an empty stomach, like tonight). I said OK but I was really freaking out. I mean, this was Ira, I can't fuck up. It took me FOREVER it had to be just right, not too sharp, not too flat: perfect. I was sweating. I couldn't take it anymore. I put it on the guitar stand and hoped for the best. Well, it was right, thank you, God. In the future, I'll try not to take too much of that stuff.

David Newgarden, ex-Run On Go ahead and leave the girls' names in.