I'm snowed in at work (figuratively), so my This Week in Gigs column may not be up til later today. Sorry! But here's a reminder of a show that I mentioned back in November, which takes place tonight.
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By Samir Mathur
Contributing writer
Staff page
Yo La Tengo will play The Social on January 25. 2011.
This show is almost three months away, but it sounds really exciting and fun, so I’m giving you plenty of notice. Yo La Tengo are indie rock’s grandparents. They’ve released about six hundred albums in a career that’s older than I am, and they continue to get better and better. They’re coming to the Social in January, which is cool but not exactly big news - they play Florida fairly often – but wait til you hear this tour’s big gimmick. The show will be divided into two 45-minute halves – the second of which will be a standard YLT set…
But the first half will be determined by the spin of a wheel, and could go one of seven ways. Maybe they’ll play a set’s worth of songs from one of their side projects? Or their instrumental score ‘The Sounds of the Sounds of Science’? Or perhaps they’ll take a question from a fan and then play an appropriate song? Or a song beginning with “S”? Or one with a name in its title? Or, pleasepleaseplease let it be this one, the band and crew will re-enact a classic sitcom. As anyone who has heard their annual WFMU show, or their record ‘Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics’ will attest, this is a band that can cover any song, and can do just about anything. Record store clerks of the word get pumped: this is going to be a big deal.
From their website, here’s the full list of options.
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By Samir MathurContributing writer
Staff page
Yo La Tengo will play The Social on January 25. 2011.
This show is almost three months away, but it sounds really exciting and fun, so I’m giving you plenty of notice. Yo La Tengo are indie rock’s grandparents. They’ve released about six hundred albums in a career that’s older than I am, and they continue to get better and better. They’re coming to the Social in January, which is cool but not exactly big news - they play Florida fairly often – but wait til you hear this tour’s big gimmick. The show will be divided into two 45-minute halves – the second of which will be a standard YLT set…
But the first half will be determined by the spin of a wheel, and could go one of seven ways. Maybe they’ll play a set’s worth of songs from one of their side projects? Or their instrumental score ‘The Sounds of the Sounds of Science’? Or perhaps they’ll take a question from a fan and then play an appropriate song? Or a song beginning with “S”? Or one with a name in its title? Or, pleasepleaseplease let it be this one, the band and crew will re-enact a classic sitcom. As anyone who has heard their annual WFMU show, or their record ‘Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics’ will attest, this is a band that can cover any song, and can do just about anything. Record store clerks of the word get pumped: this is going to be a big deal.
From their website, here’s the full list of options.
1. Condo Fucks:
50 million Fuckbook fans can’t be wrong!
2. Dump:
Why should Nijmegen and Claremont get all the fun? Is this the night Dump plays your town? Only the wheel knows.
3. The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo:
You ask a question; we answer the question, and maybe follow up with a song.
4. The Name Game:
Have you ever noticed how many Yo La Tengo songs include someone’s name? More than 45 minutes’ worth, that’s for sure, so who knows which ones we’ll do on any given night.
5. Sitcom Theater:
The lucky audience in attendance the night the wheel lands on this space will get to see band and crew act out a classic sitcom.
6. Songs Starting With S:
The only thing more common than a Yo La Tengo song with a name is a Yo La Tengo song starting with S (only one song fits both categories). So many, in fact, that we cannot promise that all of them are on the table, as it were. But we do promise that there will be songs rarely, if ever, heard live.
7. The Sounds of Science part 1
8. The Sounds of Science part 2
All of the lovely sounds we created, but none of that pesky science. We’re leaving the movies at home, and dividing the 90-minute program in half.