.Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock

I spent the nineties swimming in a pool of indie rock, dousing myself with all things Matador, Kill Rock Stars and K Records. I still love indie rock, whatever that term even means in the days when new music sprouts from every corner of the internet, most of it independently produced by bedroom musicians, but to me it just means something with the pluck and spirit of music made from the heart. Yo La Tengo has been doing this for over twenty years, since their start in late 80’s Hoboken, New Jersey, as a pet project of married couple Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan. They’ve put out albums continuously since then, which is why I can footnote my life by YLT albums.
Electro-0-pura (1995)–I played in a band called the Straight A’s from 1996-1999 and the drummer and my best friend was obsessed with YLT. They were a formative influence on our music and I thank gave us the courage to start out as a shambling two-piece drum and guitar duo. Jenny made the best mixtapes, and the one featuring “Tom Courtenay” got repeat play. To this day, the song reminds me of those heady days of running around San Diego, making zines,eating burritos, going to shows at the Che Cafe, working a a coffee shop just to make rent and always adhering to the manifesto “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight.”

I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One (1997)–This album, so good. From beginning to end, this is YLT at their best. The somber, melancholy underlying tones were a reminder  that time was moving on, that we wouldn’t be running around San Diego carefree forever, that someday the Sapporo bomber fueled  late night dance parties in the cute boys apartment below the floor where members of the Locust lived would end, and we would get married, or get a full-time job at an office or die, and it would all be over. But this album could maybe soothe the way through the inevitable change.

And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out (2000)–I remember listening to this in the dark in the bedroom of a silent, cynical artist with a penchant for Lenin collages who I believe only succumbed to my moves because he felt sorry for me. After one particularly sad session make-out session, he put this album on in the wee hours of the night, and the dark blue of the cover seemed  to reflect my own yearning for someone who wouldnt’ feel for me the way that I felt for them. Out of tune, out of tune.

I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass (2006)- I came to this album late, while researching for an interview with YLT bassist James McNew this past spring, just before the band appeared in town for their Freewheeling Yo La Tengo tour and a performance at the Last Record Store. But I was immediately take in with the punchy, horn-fueled tone of the album, and the happy realization that one of my favorite bands had stayed rad all these years, even as I had fallen by the musical wayside. I blasted this while writing the article, “And leave our worries in the corner, leave them in a great big pile.”I’m listening and learning.

Reading Jess Jarnow’s extensive new biography, Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock spurred this backlog of YLT memories. Starting from the band’s early days in Hoboken, New Jersey (first playing as Georgia and Those Guys) to the present moment, and their remarkable lives as a group that still has  fun, loves playing music and lives by their art. Jarnow’s obviously a music fan, and he writes about the band with a detached respect that never veers into fawning fan territory. Based on interviews with (the notoriously tight-lipped) Kaplan, Hubley and McNew, as well as scene stalwarts like Matador records co-founder (and resident rabble rouser) Gerald Cosloy, Maxwell’s owner Steve Fallon, Brian Turner from WFMU radio and staff of the New York Rocker, where Kaplan held his first job as a music critic, Jarnow has constructed an engaging history of not only one of indie rock’s most beloved bands, but the building and transformation of an entire scene based around an obsessive love for good music. Bands and musicians like the A-Bones, The Feelies, Alex Chilton, Daniel Johnston, Sonic Youth, Christmas, Antietam, Husker Du, R.E.M., The Clean, and even Sun Ra’s horn section all appear at some point or another in the story.
(Here’s Yo La Tengo on WMFU playing “Speeding Motorcycle” with Daniel Johnston, who literally phones his performance)

Moving step by step, album by album, the book is practically a manual for how to make it as an indie rocker: Practice 5 days a week, tour extensively, listen to music all day and all night, become a radio DJ, play shows with your friend’s bands as often as humanely possible, and above all, pledge allegiance to the eternal joy of being in a band. Oh, and don’t forget whipsmart business savvy. YLT had it all. Plus, a wholly understandable, ongoing obsession with finding the most delicious food to be had while on the road (Hot Chicken, anyone?) The book lags a bit in the middle, and at times gets a bit too caught up in mundane, random details, but on a whole it captures the artistic development of an enduring band, who rose out of a time when zines, record stores, college radio and dedicated music fans made everything seem possible.