Solo!

April 27, 2006 10:34 AM

Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics (via). Spontaneous cover magic from the great YLT.
posted by bardic (12 comments total)

I love covers. I don't really know why, because they almost invariably suck. I think that I just like hearing what a band that I like does with a song that I like. It is rarely any good, but it is usually interesting. Along with the new YLT album (which I haven't heard yet, but will soon I am sure), I would recommend these three collections of covers.
posted by ND¢ at 10:58 AM on April 27, 2006

I'm listening to them play Meet the Mets even as I type... and now they're on to "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" What fun—thanks for the post!
posted by languagehat at 11:28 AM on April 27, 2006

Um, Spontaneous? More like someone called in and paid a bunch of money for them to play it. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome they help out WFMU like this, but it's all fund raising.
posted by dig_duggler at 11:38 AM on April 27, 2006

Er, yeah but it's still spontaneous.
posted by ninebelow at 11:59 AM on April 27, 2006

dig_duggler, I've seen them live a few times and the cover-on-the-spot is something they tend to do a lot, before WFMU asked them to. I think it's great. And I doubt they got paid all that much.

NDcent, "Fakebook" is an album of their's that almost completely covers. You might like it--one of their folkiest albums.
posted by bardic at 1:21 PM on April 27, 2006

bardic, I think dig_duggler was referring to the money the caller paid the station for Yo La Tengo to play the song, not money paid to the band itself.
posted by interrobang at 1:23 PM on April 27, 2006

My bad.
posted by bardic at 1:32 PM on April 27, 2006

From the looks of their page, it looks like they read Metafilter (recognize the blue?)
posted by Frank Grimes at 6:14 PM on April 27, 2006

I love YLT. And then nothing turned itself inside out... is one of the most Zen album titles evar.
posted by digaman at 6:50 PM on April 27, 2006

I love YLT too. Having seen them live several times, I can affirm that they can take just about anything in stride, are fantastic improvisers, and are just generally extraordinarily generous about taking requests. A gentleman of my acquaintance once asked them to do a Kinks song on their way to an encore, and they rewarded him with three, all ridiculously good. (And they do some lovely Motown-type stepping when the mood strikes them -- I especially love watching James McNew get down -- the man can really move!)

Thanks for the heads up, bardic!
posted by melissa may at 7:06 PM on April 27, 2006

James is the secret weapon--he did a whole album of Prince covers!
posted by bardic at 11:46 PM on April 27, 2006

BTW, the title is an homage to this great Spike Jones album, parts of which are available on other collections, but so far nothing else I've found has their terrific deconstruction of "Carmen."
posted by soyjoy at 11:00 AM on April 28, 2006