"How will we reach you?" The first Yo La Tengo song I ever fell for was the feedback driven, distortion drenched pop gem "Sugar Cube." It was everything a young teenager in New Jersey looking for something dreamy in the late-90's could want. Mmmmm fuzz. So, needless to say, when I purchased Fakebook through Columbia House (remember mail order CD clubs!?) and wasn't greeted with the wall of feedback and sunny ba-ba harmonies I was expecting, I was a little disappointed. Mind you I was roughly thirteen and was really stoked on "Sugarcube" and "Autumn Sweater" and "Stockholm Syndrome," all three of which are still staples in my collection.
While Fakebook is sort of the red headed step child of the Yo La Tengo catalog, it's none-the-less an indicator of their incredible range, putting the fuzz and noise on the backburner and showcasing the bands pure pop talents. At the time I'm not sure how much I appreciated this, however, the songs have always stayed with me. Not a season goes by that I don't get "Griselda" or their cover of Daniel Johnston's "Speeding Motorcycle" in my head. And their versions of "Yellow Sarong" and "Here Comes My Baby" are definitive versions I've included on hundreds of mix tapes for girls I used to know.
"Have You Ever Been Up Salinas Way?" It's hard to deny that the Beach Boys hit their stride on masterful Pet Sounds, but I'd like to argue that that peak merely plateaued around Pet Sounds, breeding the lovely Sunflower & Surfs Up and the majestic Holland, which was recorded in Baambrugge, The Netherlands. In a classic case of the record industry making ludicrous financial decisions, Warner Brothers allowed the Beach Boys to build a new "Clover Systems custom quadrophonic console: 30 input channels, 1000 position patch bay, 20 Dolby noise reduction units," a wide variety of microphones, custom monitoring system and a boat load of custom JBL speakers. "All equipment was designed specifically for this project by Brother Records (The Beach Boys label) in Los Angeles, then flown to Holland for this recording." Must've been sweet to be a rockstar in the '70s, when rock stars still existed.
Technically, Holland is one and a half long playing records, as Brian Wilson's bewildered "Mount Vernon and Fairway: A Fairy Tale" is included as a 7" record separate from the 12" LP. Why? Probably because Warner Bros. was freaked out by Brian's monotone spoken word about a magical transistor radio that comes alive at night and awakens teenage rock fans. The 7" is weird, and I say this as someone who eats weird for breakfast, and comes with instructions: "Please listen in the dark." Needless to say, it's a stoner's delight and one of the most fascinating, albeit bizarre, Wilson compositions.
Holland kicks off with the funky, piano driven "Sail On Sailor", a Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks collaboration with lyrics by Jack Rieley and Ray Kennedy, a bit of a departure from the usual BB's penned tunes. (You may know the song from Martin Scorcese's "The Departed".) While "Sail On Sailor" is all harmonies and pop and everything you've come to love and respect about the Boys, the real highlight here is Mike Love's mini-opera "The California Saga" made up of "Big Sur", "The Beak of Eages" and "California." It's the type of mini-epic you can't really explain, so take a listen below and enjoy the wonder that is post-Pet Sounds Beach Boys.
"Say Cheerio to Books Now/ The Only Thing to Read are Faces" There aren't many things I can remember from when I was 14. Buying Belle & Sebastian'sThe Boy with the Arab Strap is one of them. The band, formed by Stuart Murdoch and Stuart David while at Stow College in Glasgow, Scotland, had already released two beloved records across the pond on Jeepster Records. Matador had already re-issued the wickedly kick ass If You're Feeling Sinister, but The Boy with the Arab Strap was the first time my insanely young ears heard the groups ravishing harmonies and melancholic melodies. I remember this because the first time I listened to the record was on a disc man during the famed Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show starring the world renowned Rockettes. If you'd heard "Ease Your Feet in the Sea" while a hundred leggy women in sequined leotards did the can-can you'd probably remember too. Needless to say I didn't become a lifelong fan of the Rockettes that night, but I did start a ten year love affair with the best thing to come from Scotland since tartan and single malt Scotch Whiskey.
Not everyone felt the same way about The Boy with the Arab Strap. In fact, most wrote it off as another case of a band's third record being mediocre at best. Those loons at Pitchfork even went as far as saying the album was a parody of itself and compared it to the man juice that hangs from Ben Stiller's ear in There's Something About Mary. Then they went and gave it a 0.8.
While the record is by no means a masterpiece in the sense that If You're Feeling Sinister is, it is an artistic statement more concerned with experimental growth than regurgitating the same old hooks and harmonies that catapulted them to precious indie stardom in 1996. The album, which is divided into two sides even on CD, is centered by the spacey spoken word of "A Space Boy Dream", which is easily the worst song on the record. But that's ok, it's song number 7 on a record where songs 1 through 6 are charming and hummable and with fun little poetics like "Soberly without regret/ I make another sandwich." For some reason when Stuart Murdoch coo's those words I feel as if I'm listening to Kerouac, or one of his absurdist beat cronies. "A Summer Wasting" has justified every lackluster summer evening I've spent drinking and playing and waiting for the sun to rise before going to sleep, while "Seymour Stein" plays like a Dear John letter to the famous record exec, an apology for missing a dinner meeting ("I heard dinner went well/ You liked Chris' jacket/It reminded you of Johnny/Before he went electronic"). "TBWTAS" contains the best recorder solo in recorded history. Oh yeah, and an ass load of hand claps to keep you happy even when the songs are oh-so sad.
If you're still not convinced, then peep this video below and chew on this line for a bit: "We all know your soft cause we've all seen you dancing/ We all know your hard cause we've all seen you drinking from noon until noon again."
P.S.- In case you were wondering, an Arab Strap is a sexual device for retaining an erection.
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The first Yo La Tengo song I ever fell for was the feedback driven, distortion drenched pop gem "Sugar Cube." It was everything a young teenager in New Jersey looking for something dreamy in the late-90's could want. Mmmmm fuzz. So, needless to say, when I purchased Fakebook through Columbia House (remember mail order CD clubs!?) and wasn't greeted with the wall of feedback and sunny ba-ba harmonies I was expecting, I was a little disappointed. Mind you I was roughly thirteen and was really stoked on "Sugarcube" and "Autumn Sweater" and "Stockholm Syndrome," all three of which are still staples in my collection.
