Guest listener - Iain Lee
Who’s Iain Lee when he’s at home?
Iain Lee hosts a late night radio phone-in show on www.talkradio.co.uk weeknights from 10. He recently got canned from the BBC for calling a bigot a ‘bigot’. He also got in trouble online for suggesting that maybe Beach Boy Mike Love is ‘an alright guy’.
You may remember him as the bloke from the 11 O’ Clock Show or Big Brother’s Bit On The Side.
He’s also started his own record label to release obscure Monkees material www.7aRecords.com
Iain’s Top 3 albums ever?
3 – Instant Replay by The Monkees
2- Revolver by The Beatles
1 – Sunflower by The Beach Boys
What great album has he never heard before?
I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One by Yo La Tengo
Released in 1997
Before we get to Iain, here’s what Martin of Ruth and Martin’s Album Club thinks of I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
All right, everyone.
Here’s the story of Yo La Tengo - my favourite band.
1) Ira Kaplan’s conversation with Ray Davies.
Ira Kaplan grew in Hoboken, New Jersey, and was obsessed with music from an early age. In particular, he was a huge fan of The Kinks and saw them play approximately 30 times when he was growing up.
In 1975, he went to see them three nights in a row.
On the first night, during a break in songs, he shouted for Autumn Almanac.
Ray Davies responded with “Oh, that’s a terrible song”
On the second night, he shouted for Dead End Street - another song that wasn’t in their repertoire at the time. Davies heard him once more and responded with “Oh, that’s a good song. We’ll do that one tomorrow.”
On the third and final night, The Kinks played Dead End Street and the young Ira Kaplan went crazy.
We’re only 154 words into our Yo La Tengo edition and if you don’t already think Ira Kaplan is the coolest bloke ever then, frankly, you may as well not bother with the rest.
Not only is he dictating The Kinks’ set list from the audience, not only is he right about Autumn Almanac when Ray Davies is wrong, but he’s also about to become the indie rock star that sounds most like a protagonist in a Philip Roth novel.
Note: I’m not even going to mention the fact that Kaplan also loved The Monkees and once wrote, individually, to all four of them asking a load of fanboy questions.
That would obviously be unfair to Iain.
2) Ira the Music Journalist.
Ira continued being an A+ music nerd and became a regular at CBGBs - catching early performances from the likes of Television, Patti Smith, Talking Heads, and Blondie.
Desperate to join the conversation, he began to write articles and reviews for the SoHo Weekly News where he also launched the brilliantly named “Swinging Singles” review column. From there, he would go on to work at the New York Rocker and Village Voice, becoming one of the most respected music journalists around.
For example, he was one of the first writers in New York to pick up on an act from Georgia who he described as possessing “wistful minor chords and jangling Byrds’ guitars”.
He finished the article by saying - “By all means, check out R.E.M. live.”
In short, he was a far better music journalist than I’ll ever be, and if he had registered the domain name swingingsingles.com he would have made an absolute fortune.
3) Ira the Promoter.
After a terrible time interviewing Kiss, Ira decided he didn’t want to be a music journalist anymore so became a promoter instead, working out of Folk City in Greenwich Village. His remit was to put on a night of new music every Wednesday which he called “Music for Dozens” - his optimistic projection of how many people would turn up.
He does two brilliant things though -
Firstly, he operates a strict “No Guest List” policy which, trust me, is the best guest list policy.
Secondly, he books Sonic Youth and is the first promoter in New York to put on The Replacements, Husker Du, and The Minutemen.
He’s now in his late 20s and so far he’s been a brilliant fan, writer, and promoter. It’s probably about time he stopped mucking about and found someone to form a band with.
4) A Partner.
Like Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley was a total music geek who lived in Hoboken, New Jersey.
She saw The Kids are Alright and thought that Keith Moon was having so much fun that she decided to become a drummer - the entirely correct response for anyone watching that film.
Having seen each other in record shops around town, Ira and Georgia finally met at a Feelies gig. They were both immediately taken by the similarities in each other - a certain degree of shyness they hoped to overcome, a love of baseball and, of course, a shared obsession with music.
Ira and Georgia decided to form a band and get married - the entirely correct response to meeting anyone of the opposite sex at a Feelies gig.
5) The Advert
With Ira on guitar and Georgia on drums, they placed an advert in The Village Voice looking for others. It read -
“Guitarist and bassist wanted for band that may, or may not, sound like The Soft Boys, Mission of Burma, and Love.”
A huge part of me thinks this advert is a work of art, in the way that it simultaneously encourages and discourages people from applying. I mean, do you apply if you’re a massive fan of Love or not? It’s like an unsolvable puzzle - intriguing yet utterly confusing.
The other part of me thinks it probably explains why they went through 14 different bass players before they settled on James McNew.
Of the previous 13 candidates, my absolute favourite is a fella from Switzerland called Stephan who was so tall that he couldn’t fit in their rehearsal space. As if being an actual giant wasn’t bad enough, he barely spoke either - a friend of the band once described him as “literally the quietest person with the known capacity for speech I’d ever met”
One day he asked the rest of the band the following question -
“What is a puddle?”
This is what happens if you place cryptic adverts in the music press.
6) Yo La Tengo
Regular readers will know that I’m childishly obsessed with band names and the story behind them. So, it’s with great fanfare that I’ll tell you how Yo la Tengo acquired their’s.
In 1962, The New York Mets had one of the worst seasons in the history of baseball - losing 120 out of 160 games. Despite the multitude of problems that contributed to this failing, i.e. being terrible at baseball, there was one particular issue they looked to resolve -
Every time a ball went up for a catch, a fella called Richie Ashburn kept colliding with another fella called Elio Chacon.
Ashburn would track the ball in the air, shouting “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”. Meanwhile Chacon, who only spoke Spanish, would also track the ball and eventually run into him. Rather than doing the obvious thing and teaching Chacon the one English phrase that would solve the problem, they did the opposite - they taught the rest of the squad the Spanish for “I’ve got it! I’ve got it!”
They even had a meeting, an actual meeting, where all the players were told to shout the new phrase when the ball was in the air.
During the next game, the ball went up in the air and Ashburn tracked it, this time shouting “Yo la tengo! Yo la tengo!” - Spanish for "I’ve got it! I’ve got it!” Chacon understood this time and backed off, leaving Ashburn clear to make the catch.
Unfortunately, there was one player who didn’t attend the meeting - a left fielder called Frank Thomas who ran straight into Ashburn. As the pair got up, and dusted themselves down, Thomas said -
“What’s a yellow tango?”
Ira and Georgia were huge fans of the Mets and decided to take their name from this mad anecdote. It’s obviously one of the best names ever and, if you don’t believe me, just ask Iain Lee.
In 2016, I sent him a list of about 30 albums to choose from and he picked Yo La Tengo because a) he thought they had a cool name and b) he couldn’t stand the prospect of listening to Roxy Music.
7) The Career.
Yo La Tengo begin with all the professionalism and confidence you would expect from a bohemian couple with a revolving door of comedy bass players. During their first gig, Ira is paralysed by fear and can barely sing. He also forgets the importance of taking a back-up guitar with him so every time he broke a string, basically every night, he would sit at the side of the stage and take ages re-stringing his guitar.
“Georgia, maybe tell the audience how we got our name whilst I sort this out”
“Sure thing, Ira”
When they eventually enter the studio to record their first album, Georgia is so nervous about singing that they have to build a screen for her to sit behind. Notwithstanding this, or because of it, the first album is a charm and includes the best liner note ever -
“Ira Kaplan - Naive Guitar."
Over the next 10 years, whilst contemporaries like R.E.M and Sonic Youth rise and fall, Yo La Tengo plough their own unique furrow - never becoming THE band of any moment or nailing their sound to any particular genre. They become, if anything, the sound of their own eclectic taste - happy to follow a 10 minute thrash with a 3 minute bossa nova.
They also manage to avoid the darker clichés of rock, the moods and the drugs, and present an image that’s often undervalued - they’re nice people. They sit around and watch game shows like The Wheel of Fortune, they play charades, they make homemade granola, and when they’ve done all that, they’ll go on stage and burst your eardrums.
An indication of the level of confidence and independence they achieve is best illustrated by an incident in 1992.
Their record label ask them to come up with a hit - something that can be played on the radio. Yo La Tengo present the label with a 24 minute jam called Sunsquashed.
"Ira, it’s 24 minutes long!” an executive complained.
“Yes”, he replied. “But it only feels like 17.”
What a great bloke.
8) Murdering the Classics.
Throughout their career, they never forget their own fandom and maintain a strong commitment to the cover version. In fact their knowledge is so encyclopedic, their enthusiasm so complete, that they even decide to raise funds for a radio station by renting themselves out as the house band.
Listeners were encouraged to phone up and pledge for Yo La Tengo to perform a song of their choice live. They did this every year between 1996 and 2003, taking requests from listeners, and covering songs as diverse as Downtown by Petula Clark, Raw Power by The Stooges, and The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace.
During the cover of Rock The Boat by The Hues Corporation Ira forgets the words so just sings -
“Our love is like a ship on the ocean
Got something something with love and devotion"
I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a band having so much fun in my entire life.
9) This week’s album in 58 words.
I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One was released in 1997 and sounds like about 10 different bands making one great album.
Personally, I like all of them, but my favourite song is Autumn Sweater.
"We could slip away, wouldn’t that be better,
me with nothing to say, you in your Autumn sweater.”
Have that Ray Davies.
10) My Favourite Band
It’s now 2016, 32 years since Yo La Tengo were formed, and they’re still going - an achievement to be celebrated. That’s not because I think they’re brilliant, or that everyone should like them, it’s just that I admire the spirit that drives their career.
That’s why they’re my favourite band - not necessarily because of the music they’ve produced but because of who they are, or at least who I think they are. They’re fans, they’re what happens if people like me, Ruth, Iain Lee, and the 38 people who read this every week try and channel our inner music geek into actual sounds. It’s an unbridled enthusiasm, a commitment to music that’s so strong that it’s hard to imagine them ever breaking up, or deciding it would ever be a good idea to stop being in Yo La Tengo.
The end game, the entire point of the enterprise, was just to be a band - the career and achievement summed up in one goal. Seems obvious but you’d be amazed how they’re the exception - how their own fandom is the only agenda they ever had.
They called their first compilation album Prisoners of Love.
More than the 2000 words I’ve just written, it perfectly sums them up.
“Enjoyed that Martin.”
“Thanks Ruth.”
“You’ve got me thinking, though. I reckon it’s probably about time we formed a band.”
“Sure. Let’s do it, I can play naive guitar.”
“And I can play drums.”
“Really? You never said.”
“Well I’m really good at table tennis, I figure it’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Ok, we need a bass player.”
“Iain Lee?”
“Could work. He’s definitely tall.”
“Ok, let’s see how he gets on with the album.”
Martin Fitzgerald (@RamAlbumClub)
The Critics on I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One
Pitchfork gave it 9.7 out of 10 and ranked it the 25th best album of the ‘90s
Something called Paste ranked it the 22nd best album of the ‘90s
So, over to you Iain. Why haven’t you listened to it? WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?????
As you can tell, I like albums by bands that start with the definite article. THE Beatles, THE Beach Boys. When I was growing up in the 80’s, I was really into THE 60’s. I became obsessed with THE Monkees at a very young age and they kind of dominated everything for, well, pretty much all of my life so far. I tended not to stray too far from the formula.
Yo La Tengo never really entered my consciousness. This album came out in 1997. I was 24 and, well, I think I was getting drunk a lot. I thought I had heard of them before, when I saw the name on the list offered to me by RAM I was convinced I’d heard a reference to them in a John Hughes film, but I can find no evidence to back that up so I suspect I made that ‘fact’ up.
I WAS listening to some crazy stuff in ’97 actually, Pizzicato 5 who are on the same label, so there is some crossover, but…oh no, hang on. I was in Pakistan for 3 months that year, working as a Christopher Lee double (actual true story) and I was discovering Hanson (again, true story) for myself.
I chose this album from the long and ever changing list sent to me because I knew nothing about them. I knew nothing about a lot of the acts on there, but something about the name grabbed me. I honestly thought that with a name like that, they would be a fun, upbeat, Spanish group playing world music in a similar vein to The Buena Vista Social Club. I have to stress here, I have never actually heard The Buena Vista Social Club, and I’m not sure if they really are a band or just a film, but I imagine if they are a band they make fun, bouncy, Spanish type music.
I ordered a CD of it as I really wanted to invest myself in this by owning a physical copy. I’m not a huge fan of streaming, so actually purchasing something I could touch and feel, to me, is important if I want the music to mean something to me. It’s a hard (and expensive) album to get hold of but I really, really wanted to like this.
I joke that I have enough bands and don’t need any more, but actually, I’m aware that I am a bit of a gag myself because I always bang on about The Monkees and The Beach Boys. ALL. THE. TIME. I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One would be my sonic ticket into new, uncharted spheres of music. The tunes would enchant me, and I would be transported to sonic places I had never dreamed existed. I’d buy the entire back catalogue, and spontaneously purchase all the ‘Customers who bought Yo La Tengo also bought….’ recommendations on Amazon, because I finally I would have found something new.
OK, well, let’s just say, it didn’t quite work out like that.
You’ve now listened to it, at least 3 times, what do you think?
I didn’t want to read anything about the group before I wrote this piece as I wanted the writing to be pure, based entirely on my musical experience and not any pre-conceived ideas I might pick up for Wikipedia. But I just had to have a look and see exactly which part of Spain or South America they were from -
‘Yo La Tengo (often abbreviated as YLT) is an American indie rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey.’
Ah. Right. Disappointing. Well, let’s see what happens when I listen.
The CD arrived and I played it in the car on the way to the radio show one night. I remember John Peel being interviewed years ago and saying he preferred to listen to new CD’s in the car as, well, I can’t recall the actual reason, but I do remember thinking that was a bit sad. Life, however, doesn’t really give me much time apart from when I’m driving to listen to an entire album, now that really is sad.
The opening track was totally not what I was expecting, which is of course, not always a bad thing. A somber instrumental, I quite liked it. It reminded me of a downbeat version of the theme tune to Kids In The Hall, a Canadian sketch show from the 90’s I was once briefly obsessed with. This was going to be brilliant! A moody opener followed by light hearted, catchy and amusing pop songs from a quirky American band.
Then track two, Moby Octopad, kicked in and fuck me, it was shit. The sort of tuneless, ‘artistic’ drivel that the cool kids would listen to when I was at college and I would sagely nod along to as I didn’t want to stand up and shout ‘what are you all thinking? This is obviously bollocks! There’s no tune. They’re chancers and you’ve all been sucked in by it. The emperor is not only naked, but he’s doing a massive poo at the same time and you’re all applauding him!’
It really was that bad. Wikipedia had told me that Yo La Tengo were considered ‘the quintessential critics’ band’ and this particular album ‘received considerable acclaim from music critics.”
Music critics.
There’s your problem right there.
Damn. I wanted to write a positive piece and look, I’m slagging off some people who made a record. I’ve never made a record. It must be hard. But some people do it so well, and Yo La Tengo, in my humble, worthless opinion, haven’t done it very well at all here.
Let me try and find some positives, and there are a few. Yes, the cover of The Beach Boys Little Honda is an abomination, one that sucks all of the youthful exuberance of the original, throw away ditty. And the 10 minute and 40 second instrumental Spec Bebop is, and I say this as fact, the worst piece of music I have ever heard but…but…but…
But. There are some gems tucked away. First listen I came away feeling angry. Angry with the band for making such a racket. Angry with me for not choosing Roxy Music from the list of albums I’d been offered. Angry that I had to listen to this twice more. I’m glad I went back though, because I did find some very sharp moments of sunlight amidst the darkness.
The songs that I liked were when the band dropped the noise and went soft. Soft guitars and soft vocals from the female singer. There was still angst and uncertainty and disappointment in the music, but it was actually quite beautiful.
Centre Of Gravity is a fey, bossa nova love song. Dumb fifth form poetry lyrics that were stunning in their naivety. A joyful celebration of the simplicity of being with someone who is everything to you, expressed in almost ‘aw, gee, shucks’ language. Absolutely brilliant.
Another highlight is their attempt at country. One PM Again is a cracking tune. It may be a joke, I can’t tell as it is so out of character with the rest of the record, but who cares? It’s pitched perfectly. Beautiful harmonies and even a faithful pedal steel guitar solo in the middle. Stunning.
There are just enough of these slow, thoughtful, beautiful tunes, that by the third listen, I get angry again. Not because I feel I’ve wasted my time. But because I feel the band are wasting THEIR time with the industrial noise that is the main thrust of this record. Yo La Tengo, can obviously DO IT. They have the skills to make good music (by good music, I of course mean, music I like). Instead of using their powers for good, they use them for evil.
I’m reminded of when I used to tape my sister’s early REM LP’s. I’d just record the poppier tunes and ignore the rest, so that worked out at about 3 songs a record for the first few albums. I’d have done the same with this back in the day.
It wouldn’t have taken up much space on a C90.
Would you listen to it again?
What do you think? Really? You ask me that after what I’ve just written?
A mark out of 10?
3 (although Centre Of Gravity gets an 8)
RAM Rating – 9
Guest Rating – 3
Overall – 6
So that was Week 69 and that was Iain Lee. Turns out he’d never listened to Yo La Tengo before because, well, he’d never heard of them. So we made him listen to them and he mostly hated them. More importantly, though, he has failed the audition for our new band – El Hombre En (Spanish for Man On!). As a result, we’ll not only have to continue with this album club but we’ll also have to cancel our wedding.
Thanks Iain.
Next week Tim Farron, the leader of something called The Liberal Democrats, listens to something from 1988 for the first time.
Until then, have a great week and here’s Autumn Sweater by Yo La Tengo
Ruth and Martin
RamAlbumClub (previously of El Hombre En)