What could be the worst possible gig a band could ever have?

May 28, 2020 10:23 AM

Hello son, this is booking agent Bobby Romeo and I'm calling to offer your band Yo La Tengo an opportunity to open for the reunited Beatles!

Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, James McNew, and music video director Phil Morrison watch and discuss Tom Courtenay (from home), eventually joined by special guest Paul McCartney.

posted by carsonb (10 comments total)

Wow, James has quite the lion beard now.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:31 AM on May 28, 2020

Ira did a couple of fill-in shows on WFMU this past week.
posted by 1970s Antihero at 12:41 PM on May 28, 2020

Okay, that was delightful.
posted by Mchelly at 1:59 PM on May 28, 2020

It has been a quarter century since Electr-o-pura came out. I can't even process that.
posted by phooky at 2:05 PM on May 28, 2020 [2 favorites]

The Beatles could only be reunited by time travel, which would make partying with them confusing. Amphetamine-fueled Hamburg-Lennon tries to get everyone jacked up while Sitar-era Harrison just wants to get stoned. To everyone's astonishment, Conductor-era Starr was straightedge. Cyborg McCartney from the future keeps trying to sell everyone on directly stimulating the pleasure centers of their brain but no one wants to spring for the implants.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 4:07 PM on May 28, 2020 [3 favorites]

There was some promoter who kept offering the ex-Beatles exorbitant amounts of money (like, nine figures) to reunite in the early-mid seventies, even promising to donate it to charity in the apparent hope that the Beatles wouldn't want to be seen as uncharitable; later, Lorne Michaels riffed off of that on early SNL by offering them $3000 to appear on the show. By then, Paul and John had made up and would smoke weed at the Dakota, and talked about grabbing their guitars and going down to 30 Rock in the middle of the show, but were too stoned to get off the couch.
posted by Halloween Jack at 4:38 PM on May 28, 2020 [4 favorites]

You know, I bet they could've made that dream come true if they'd just gone to Rock School.
posted by chrominance at 5:23 PM on May 28, 2020 [1 favorite]

Wow, I think I like the Sugar Cube video even better. Any others I should look at, or should I just dive into a YouTube rabbit hole of Yo La Tengo?
posted by Jasper Fnorde at 6:30 PM on May 28, 2020

Jasper Fnorde, there's a lot of Yo La Tengo out there, and not just music videos. Many of the YLT posts on MeFi are their annual fundraiser concert for WFMU, wherein they take live requests. (If it is not immediately obvious to you how incredible and ridiculous that is, definitely go give one a listen.)

Long ago YLT played live during screenings of a selection of Jean Painleve's underwater films. The Sounds of the Sounds of Science is one of my favorite albums of theirs.

Speaking of rabbits, YLT bassist James McNew had a 'solo' project called Dump that had a couple really incredible songs, like Daily Affirmation.

Anyway, yeah, jump down that hole. Have fun!
posted by carsonb at 8:12 PM on May 28, 2020

Yeah, they like comedy a lot. The other YLT video that springs to mind is for "I'll Be Around" which is mostly peaceful and lovely, but ends on a joke. (Well, I guess there are more sly jokes in it. Is that even Ira miming along on guitar? No, I guess not.) Also directed by Phil Morrison.

Also their cover of "Friday I'm In Love" has an incredibly silly video
posted by anhedonic at 9:19 PM on May 28, 2020 [2 favorites]