From Left: Georgia Hubley, James McNew and Ira Kaplan Photo by Cheryl Dunn
By Jim Sullivan
December 20, 2024
It’s the season of giving and no indie rock band gives back better than the Hoboken, N.J.-based trio Yo La Tengo. Consider what they give:
• Music, to an audience of 575 people each night for eight straight at New York City’s Bowery Ballroom: On one hand, fans awaiting this (mostly) annual skein know what to expect, but, then again, they don’t. What they know is it will feature an unpredictable and never-before-played setlist of songs from Yo La Tengo, a surprise guest artist opener, plus a comic or monologist. Someone famous or semi-famous may sit in with the band for a bit. It’s an annual event called The 8 Nights of Hanukkah. It runs Dec. 25 – Jan 1 and has long been sold out.
• Money, to various charities: It’s always been a benefit since it started in 2001 at the late, lamented Hoboken club, Maxwell’s. Over the years, La Tengo has raised more than $1 million for charities, both local and national. Each show’s proceeds go to a different charity.
Singer-guitarist-pianist Ira Kaplan usually handles Yo La Tengo interviews, and I asked if he could do 20 minutes on the phone, but he was up against looming deadlines. “The only waking moments that aren’t devoted to prep are the ones where I have to take a break from prep (and many of the non-waking moments end up devoted to prep too)!” he emailed. “”20 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot, but these days it is.”
Bassist James McNew — one of the two non-Jews in the band, Kaplan’s wife drummer Georgia Hubley being the other — was happy to pinch-hit.
Who exactly is Yo La Tengo?
Kaplan and Hubley formed the band in 1984 and went through several bassists before McNew nabbed the slot in 1992. Yo La Tengo loves making a god-awful racket, relishes the hypnotic, inarticulate electric guitar scream and long sustain, the teeter-tottering balancing act between atonal abrasion and melodic enticement. They can pay major-league homage to the gods of feedback. Of course, that’s not all they love. They do soft, soothing, gentle and acoustic material, too., and have an extensive book of cover versions. Clearly, this is a band that enjoys having a split personality, not unlike their antecedents the Velvet Underground.
McNew says this year’s Hanukkah gigs will likely draw from all Yo La Tengo’s 17 studio albums, their latest being 2023’s This Stupid World.
Many of the indie bands that began around the same time as Yo La Tengo scattered to the wind long ago. What, perchance, accounts for this band’s longevity?
“I don’t know what accounts for it and that’s probably the secret,” McNew, 55, says, adding his enthusiasm for playing live may be even greater now. “I always appreciated it and never took it for granted, but I feel like that has definitely intensified. When I was a kid going to shows, it wasn’t even a possibility that I’d be on the other side, up there in a band with people watching. But I sure would like it if it did. That would be the dream and I got it.”
What has McNew gained with age and experience?
“I think I’ve become somewhat less stupid,” he says. “I feel like I’ve become more patient, less afraid and taken on more skills and knowledge and appreciation of people around me. That’s the best I could hope for.”
Given that the gigs coincide with and celebrate Hanukkah, one wonders how Jewish is it. “It’s not a real religious observation that we’re doing,” McNew says. “It never has been. There’s like a little electric menorah that we bought in a drugstore in Hoboken maybe 20 years ago. That’s about it, I guess. It’s more like a place where people like to get together and forget about everything else for a little while. Just show up. We got it, we’ll take care of you.”
“I try to do what I think will work best in the setting,” says comic Eugene Mirman who did a show during the Hanukkah run two years ago and recalls doing “five or six” such events. As to doing Jewish-themed material, he says, “No more or less than exists regularly. I have things about [Jewish culture] because that’s a portion of my act.”
In Yo La Tengo’s encore segment, the group has focused on covering songs by Jewish songwriters, “well-known and less-known,” says McNew. Songs by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, the Beastie Boys, Paul Simon, Flo & Eddie, Jonathan Richman, Blue Oyster Cult, the Cramps, Ramones, and, of course, the Velvet Underground have shown up.
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This year?
“I’m not at liberty to say,” McNew says. One thing he can say is that unlike virtually every other band extant, Yo La Tengo never repeats a set list and, over the course of these shows, they will not repeat a song. How many tunes in their deep catalog can they play?
“Well, technically a lot,” McNew says. “Whether we’re able to play them well, a lot less. Like we have a pretty firm grasp on a large percentage of our catalog and then we have a tenuous at best grasp on the rest. In preparation for the shows this year, there’s a couple of songs of ours we’ve never played live and then there’s a few songs I have never played, songs that pre-dated me.”
No, he can’t name any of those songs either.
“It’s fun,” continues McNew. “We’ve done this so many times and it’s so much work and there are so many weird surprises that happen during these things – those seem the most exciting to me. People who’ve seen us so many times, someone will say, ‘I’ve been seeing your band for 40 years and you’ve never played that song! And I was there the night you played it!’”
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One thing that’s different from a “normal” Yo La Tengo set: They know what they’re going to play well ahead of time. “There’s a lot of planes to land,” says McNew. “In the case of the Hanukkah shows, we know a few days before what the week is going to look like, and that’s pretty unusual for us. The way that we operate for the entire history of the group, we write a set list every day and it’s different. It’s loose that way. To know going in feels like cheating a little bit, but it’s not. It’s the best way to include as many songs as we can. And in each set, guests will be joining us for different songs.”
No, he cannot say which guests.
Past guests have included the Kinks’ Ray Davies, the Feelies, Mission of Burma, Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard, Ronnie Spector, David Byrne, the Dictators’ Andy Shernoff, and Damon & Naomi. Comedians/monologists have included David Sedaris, John Cameron Mitchell and Todd Barry.
Feelies drummer Stan Demeski has played four of these shows, both with the Feelies and off-shoot bands Yung Wu and the Trypes. Last year, they played an acoustic Feelies set.
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“I enjoy playing benefits,” he told me. “I’m grateful to Yo La Tengo for providing the opportunity to do so. Since it’s a big undertaking for Yo La Tengo, it is a very ‘let’s get to work’ atmosphere but I’ve always approached music that way so no problem. It’s different than other shows just in what they’re accomplishing and of course, the special guests. And comedians. Throw in that it’s the holidays, and it’s a celebratory atmosphere with Hanukkah elements. I grew up and still live in northern New Jersey and there was always a good mix of people and cultures.”
“What was cool about last year,” adds Feelies guitarist-singer Bill Million, “was Stan and [Feelies percussionist] Dave [Weckerman] also sat in for the better part of Yo La Tengo’s set. It was absolutely mesmerizing, I could have listened to that all night long, they were so locked in. It elevated them with three drummers feeding off each other’s energy.”
Singer-bassist-keyboardist Naomi Yang, who plays with her husband guitarist-drummer-singer Damon Krukowski in the dream-pop duo Damon & Naomi, has done a couple of these benefits. Last year, Yo La Tengo picked some songs for them to cover including Paul Simon’s “The Boxer” – coincidently or not, Yang is a boxer — and the Beastie Boys’ “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!).” Of that ribald and bratty Beasties song, Yang says, “Damon was like ‘Oh my god!’ and I was like ‘It sounds like fun!’ I worked on my [rap] moves.”
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“The whole event is really good-natured,” she continues. “It/s very much in the spirit of the season, the way it’s a fundraiser. Ira and Georgia have two chairs at the side of the stage and watch every set and really enjoy themselves”
“It’s a joyous occasion,” concurs Million, “and what’s fascinating is these shows sell out immediately and no one knows who’s playing; it’s a total crapshoot. And that’s part of the appeal on top of the appeal that it raises a tremendous amount of money for charity.”
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