This is less straightforward than the Wedding Present post the other day.  Getting into Yo La Tengo was a longer and more uncertain process than getting into the Weddoes.  I suppose that any group with fifteen minute-long songs called (and sounding like) Mushroom Cloud of Hiss is always going to be a trickier proposition.

After graduating from uni I went to the States for a while and ended up working as a restaurant manager, of all things, for almost a year on Cape Cod.  During that year one of the only pleasurable shopping experiences to be had was a regular trip to Newbury Comics in Hyannis.  Hyannis itself is a dreadful town – no charm, no soul, nothing going for it at all – but Newbury Comics was great.  The staff were inevitably a little snotty, but they knew their stuff and the selection was fantastic, even for a pretty small shop.

Amongst a great many things, I tried to get into Yo La Tengo while I was there.  Like the Wedding Present, my friend Strath was mad on them, so I felt there must be something there I was missing, because the two of us agreed on most things musical.  So I bought Ride the Tiger and Little Honda during my stay on Cape Cod, but neither really grabbed me properly at the time for some reason, although I find that a little odd in hindsight.

Yo La Tengo – Be Thankful For What You Got[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/YoLaTengo-BeThankfulForWhatYouGot.mp3]

What actually did the trick for me at long last was the early 2000 release of And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out.  I bought in a little record shop in Manchester, but I was living with my Granddad at the time so the only times i could play were when he was out of the house, at which point the stereo went on, loud.  Why loud with such a breathlessly quiet album?  Because some quiet music needs to fill the room and swamp you, and this is just such a record.

For some reason I found the belligerently still atmosphere of this album more accessible than more obvious pop records.  Electr-O-Pura, I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, and even Painful are more obviously catchy, so maybe it was related to mood.  I was pretty depressed at the time, having come back from Canada for a job offer in Milan that was dangled and then withdrawn, and thus found myself working in a gangster-riddled nightclub in Manchester.  It was so shitty I found myself right beside someone who pulled a gun on another customer on the eve of the millennium, no-one ever bothered to clean the blood from a previous stabbing off the DJ box, and the place was smashed to bits by an Irish travelling family a couple of weeks later, on another night I was working.  So maybe in that environment the quiet of this particular album was just about what I needed.

Duly enlightened I bought Fakebook, and then went on to the others.

Yo La Tengo – Cherry Chapstick
Yo La Tengo – Last Days of Disco

So, when I confessed to Strath that I had finally seen the Yo La light he looked at me somewhat askance and said with heavy sarcasm “Oh really.  Even songs like Big Day Coming that you said were just the same thing repeated endlessly for ten minutes?”  And the answer was an enthusiastic yes.  Brilliant song.  How the fuck it took seven years and three false starts for this particular penny to drop I have no idea.  A better band, and a better live band, I would struggle to name.

Yo La Tengo – Big Day Coming[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/YoLaTengo-BigDayComing.mp3]

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