Jam of the day, Mission Hill, the first album you ever bought, and Zach Galifianakis: Cake / "Italian Leather Sofa"

Artist: Cake
Album: Fashion Nugget
Song: "Italian Leather Sofa"
Released: September 17, 1996
Label: Capricorn Records

I've been watching a lot of Mission Hill lately. I had never heard of/seen the show until a year or two ago when I watched it at my friend's place. It was hilarious, and still is. I bought the 2 DVD set of the entire show's run (one season on WB before getting axed) back in the fall and have watched it off and on, particularly with other folks who have never seen it before. Pay it forward and all that, you know? If you don't know it, definitely go check it out. It's a somewhat straightforward animated sitcom with some oddball characters and a twisted sense of humor, kinda like Seinfeld meets Family Guy for Generation X hipsters. Something like that. Plus, it has Brian Posehn! Just watch it, would ya? Here's a compendium of funny clips I found:



The theme song for Mission Hill is a sped-up instrumental cut from Cake's tune "Italian Leather Sofa". I didn't realize it was at a faster tempo until I went and listened to the song just now (right after watching an episode of the show). Say what you want about Cake, but they have a special place in my musical history. I remember listening to this CD, Fashion Nugget, in my cousin's room whenever we visited. This was sometime in middle school, and the "Parental Advisory" sticker on the front intrigued me (although I realize now it's only because they say "Fuck" a few times on the record: the chorus in the title track is "Shut the fuck up!" and their cover of Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" has the line "I should have changed the fucking lock …"), and I went out and bought the CD at a Newbury Comics at some point. I don't know exactly, but that might have been the first album I actually went out to specifically purchase with my own money. Weird, right?

"When she get what she wants
She puts the rest on a tray
In a zip-loc bag
In the freezer"



One last thing: did you know Zach Galifianakis had a late-night talk show on VH1 for a short while? Did you know The Shins made their TV debut on that show? And did you know Cake played on the show and Zach kinda made fun of people who like Cake? I seem to remember a snarky comment he made in one clip, but now I can't seem to find it onthe web … maybe I made it up? But anyway, that irreverence about the whole Hollywood/getting famous scene and obvious lack of caring about what anybody thinks of him is what drew me to his comedy in the first place (and what makes this video of him in the audience at the Ellen DeGeneres show so hilarious) but I'm not sure that applies anymore after all of this Hangover business. I could barely sit through the first movie and have no desire to see the second, thankyouverymuch. I'll take Live at the Purple Onion over that shit any day. Anyhow, here's that viedo clip from Late World with Zach:

Cover jam of the day and live concert radio shows: Tool / "No Quarter" [Led Zeppelin]

I was driving down to the South Side this afternoon and tuned into WRCT during the ride. Whatever DJ was on played two straight songs of live Led Zeppelin—"Misty Mountain Hop" and one other— and I was digging it. It got me wondering whether there are radio shows out there that devote themselves to replaying "classic" concerts from the past. I mean, there are Grateful Dead and Phish and DMB junkies—and others focused on bands with extensive live discographies—who collect bootleg recordings of live shows and debate which were best and discuss them with others, but I'm thinking about a show that has a different band every week. I can think of a number of live albums I enjoy listening to, and I'm sure there are lots of bands who sound great live but maybe not so much on record. Anyone know of such a show out there somewhere in internet/radio-land? Maybe a live recording blog of classic shows? Point me towards it!

The next song the DJ played was … well, I thought I correctly heard him say "Tool playing 'No Quarter' " and I wasn't sure until a minute or so in, and then … yeah, that's what it was. One of my absolute favorite Led Zep tunes played by a band that I don't really know and haven't bothered to listen to ever, but this version actually sounds really good. Faithful enough to the gloomy cock-rock guitar of the original, creepy-as-hell vocals, absolutely pounding drums. Yeah, this is a great cover. Wikipedia lists several other covers of this song, which I will be investigating, for sure.

"Lock the door, kill the light No one's coming home tonight"

Jam of the day, late-night TV, music discovery, SXSW, and left-handed guitarists: Gary Clark, Jr. / "Bright Lights"

This song is a straight jam, no ifs ands or buts or becauses or what-have-yous about it. I don't know much about Gary Clark, Jr., though. I stumbled on this tune via a message board a number of months ago, and I remember really digging it when I heard it (and it was this specific video, too, not a studio recording). I didn't investigate the guy further, though, for whatever reason, thinking him too "mainstream" or something silly like that, then totally forgot about it until earlier tonight.

I was watching late night TV because the featured bands actually piqued my interest: Sharon Van Etten (*swoon*) was on Conan playing "Leonard", and then The Shins were on Letterman playing "Simple Song". I flipped over to Fallon to catch Jon Hamm (I find him hilarious whenever he's on 30 Rock and SNL) and left the TV on in the background as I came back to my laptop to do some more writing work. Eventually, Carson Daly's show came on and he said that this episode would be devoted to artists they saw and loved at SXSW.

This brought to mind a couple of things. First, it made me think about how people discover music these days, who we view as "go-to sources" for music discovery, who we trust as musical litmus tests. It's strange to think of times when, I dunno, Rolling Stone might be your one and only print publication by which to judge new releases. Or shit, the radio, even! What was music discovery like before the internet?! Personally, I didn't discover any music outside of classic rock radio that my dad played in the car up through high school, so I can only imagine what kind of dark ages the 80s and 70s and … well, fuck, there was some great music coming out back then, right? And people were finding out about it, I presume. Is the internet actually a good thing? My vast digital music collection says, "Hell yeah motherfucker!", but my exploding inbox of "Listen to my music pleeez!" says, "Hell no, motherfucker!". Only time will tell, I suppose.

Second, this reminded me of a Tweet from some friends who were down in Austin at SXSW last week. Apparently, Carson Daly was onstage playing drums with Thee Oh Sees?!?!?!? I love that band and their garage rock awesomeness, and it's hard to imagine Mr. TRL drumming along to such tune-age at all, let alone live with these dudes. Still, it makes me wish I had been there to see it, because I'm sure it was a spectacle, an experience, something interesting to witness. I've never been to any kind of music festival, so that's something on my agenda for the future.

What else was I talking about? Oh, you'll notice that the second guitarist in this video (the first guy you see in the first frame) is a left-handed guitarist. As a staunch ambidexterian (if you ask, I can list all of the things I do lefty and all of the things I do righty; there are plenty of each), I find it particularly interesting to see people doing something lefty that is vastly more commonly done righty. Guitar-playing, golfing, hand-writing, masturbating … just kidding. No really, I'm kidding, don't show me. Jimi Hendrix and Paul McCartney stand out as striking left-handed guitarist examples. Do you have any others? Famous or otherwise?

Where were we … back to this Gary Clark, Jr. tune, right! This was recorded at Eric Clapton's Crossroads Guitar Festival, and it has some great footage of Clark singing and guitaring, plus his backing band of guitarist, bassist, drummer, and brass. His voice is outstanding. I think that's what really gets me, that he's belting out these lines while strumming some sweet licks and solos. Not to mention how cool those shades are …

"You're gonna know my name by the end of the night"



Gary Clark Jr. on the web: Website Facebook Twitter YouTube

Cover jam of the day, local record stores, and vinyl to mp3: The Karl Hendricks Trio / "Out On The Weekend" [Neil Young]

Hey Pittsburghers, in case you were blissfully/woefully unaware: Paul's CDs in Bloomfield is closing its doors forever in a few weeks, and it will be replaced by Sound Cat Records, operated by current employee and living indie rock legend Karl Hendricks. Kinda sad, but kinda interesting and hopeful news, I must say. As Paul's clears out their inventory to make room for Karl and his wares, they are having ever-increasing sales. Last I heard, everything is 50% off! The vinyl is kinda picked over, but there's still plenty left, so go check it out!

I went there last week to see what I could find, and walked out with a big stack of LPs and 7"s. Oh yeah, don't forget to peruse the 7" singles at the front counter. Factor that into your shopping time, and don't just give a percursory looksee as you wait at the register. There are some good finds in there. Case in point: I snagged 3 original Karl Hendricks Trio singles for $10, and by that I mean $5! And yes, that is the very same KH whose name I mentioned above, and he was there at the register as I paid and he thanked me for buying them. I mean, I don't think any money of the purchase was going to directly to him (or indirectly, even) and yet he still looked grateful that I was buying his music. Cool dude, that Karl. I said, "No problem, I enjoy it", and gave him a smile. It's the best I could think of at the time.

One of those singles I bought was "The Worst Coffee I've Ever Had, Part Two". I was literally buying all of the vinyls of his there, so I didn't look too carefully past the awesomely cartoonish artwork. A few days later, when I got down to playing all of them, I noticed that the B-side to this is "Out On The Weekend", a Neil Young tune from Harvest! I quickly pulled out my vinyl copy of that album, played track one, then skipped over to this tune for comparison. In a way, it is a "faithful" cover—same lyrics and attitude, no big reinvention of the song's melody—but it's decidedly Karl's own—decidedly more uptempo, fuzzy guitars, sweet rock solo in place of the harmonica. It's a truly great indie rock cover of a truly great and historic folk rock tune.

Here's the Karl Hendricks Trio version, as recorded from that vinyl single I bought straight to mp3 on my laptop via some fancy-shmancy software that came with my turntable. It's not actually that fancy, but it's kinda handy. I'll try to take advantage of it more because I've basically never used it and this version turned out rather nicely. I'll try to share some vinyl singles I have that don't exist elsewhere on the web, so stay tuned for that! So yeah, here's that tune:



And now, here is Neil Young's original version:

Jam of the day, coffee shop albums, and fresh experiences: Neutral Milk Hotel / "Ghost"

I walked into the Tazza d'Oro satellite location in the Gates-Hilman Center today to grab some coffee and cure those post-late lunch fatigue blues. Yeah, man. I ended up sitting in a nice comforable chair, sipping delicious black coffee with a splash of whole milk (most places just have skim or half & half, so that was nice) while reading the 33 1/3 series book on Nick Drake's Pink Moon (written by Amanda Petrusich, one of those Pitchfork writers who I will read whenever I see the byline, no matter the album). More importantly, for this post, I caught the last half of the Neutral Milk Hotel tune "Oh, Comely" on the house speakers while I walked in. At the time, I thought, "Wow, that's an intense song to be wafting over the ears of these dutifully working nerds." (I can say that cuz I'm one of them.)

After I ordered my coffee and sat down and the song rolled around to its perfect finish, I expected some random playlist to kick in and throw something at us, but instead it transitioned exactly into "Ghost", as In The Aeroplane Over The Sea does. I realized they were playing this album straight through. Awesome. I'm all for exposing great music to potentially unknowledgeable ears. Unfortunately, I'm sure a lot of folks were just ignoring it or tuning into their own earbuds, but it's nice to think about someone who has never ever heard this album and will be drawn to it and maybe ask the barista what they're playing and go back to their dorm and look it up and be welcomed into an entirely new world of music. That makes me crack a smile. I love this album so much I almost wish I could forget everything I know about it and experience it completely anew. Since I can't do that, I just hope there are people out there doing exactly that every day.



Bonus! Here's a video of NMH (and friends, judging by the multitude onstage) jamming this tune live at the Electric Lounge in Austin, TX on April 4th, 1998. We live in an incredible age. We can watch this video of something that happened 14 years ago, something that will never happen again. Yeah, the playing's a little off and the video is grainy and the audio is kinda warbly. Who the fuck cares? This is great.



Are there any other great, classic albums that somehow just work when played at a coffee shop, straight through? We usually think of coffee shop culture as iTunes playlists, or radio, or whatever randomness the barista(s) feel(s) like playing. This album fits the bill, I think. Any favorites you want to share?

Oh yeah, they played through this album, then on to some Olivia Tremor Control tracks, then started of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? and then I had to leave. Kudos to whoever's Elephant 6 playlist was chosen for that day.

The Song Remains the Same-ish: The Black Keys vs. Metric

[This is a "series" that lets me point out when two songs sound really similar or something about one song reminds me strongly of another one, or something like that. Its frequency obviously depends on me finding these similarities, so who knows when it will happen again.]

Artist:	The Black Keys	/	Metric
Song:	"Nova Baby"	/	"Gimme Sympathy"
Album:	El Camino	/	Fantasies
Label:	Nonesuch	/	Last Gang
Released:	12.06.2011	/	04.07.2009

This connection between melodies really jumped out at me on first listen, which made it all the more compelling. Sometimes these relationships worm their way into my ears over time, but this one was immediate. On subsequent listens, I can see how I am mistaken because, of course, these aren't the same song, nor do I think that The Black Keys are scamming Metric riffs for their own benefit. However, I stand by the fact that the choruses have very similar melodies. Metric's line "Gimme sympathy" strongly matches The Black Keys' line "All your enemies" at the beginning of their respective choruses. Then, while Metric's tune goes down/up/down/up in melodic pitch, The Black Keys just go up and up, but somehow match pitch again around the 5th lyrical line. It's interesting to play those two choruses back to back and compare. In any event, enjoy the two songs! Fantasies has seen recurrent plays on my iPod since it's been releases, and El Camino is fun, although not my fave Black Keys record. (The Big Come Up EP, anyone?)

Metric / "Gimme Sympathy" / Fantasies / [Last Gang, 2009] / dir. Frank Borin

GIMME SYMPATHY
AFTER ALL OF THIS IS GONE
WHO WOULD YOU RATHER BE
THE BEATLES OR THE ROLLING STONES
OH SERIOUSLY, YOU'RE GONNA MAKE MISTAKES, YOU'RE YOUNG
COME ON BABY PLAY ME SOMETHING LIKE HERE COMES THE SUN

The Black Keys / "Nova Baby" / El Camino / [Nonesuch, 2011]

The Song Remains the Same-ish: The Apples In Stereo vs. Big Eyes

[This is a "series" that lets me point out when two songs sound really similar or something about one song reminds me strongly of another one, or something like that. Its frequency obviously depends on me finding these similarities, so who knows when it will happen again.]

Artist:	The Apples In Stereo	/	Big Eyes
Song:	"She's Telling Lies"	/	"Now That You Aren't Mine"
Album:	Velocity of Sound	/	Hard Life
Label:	Elephant 6	/	Don Giovanni
Released:	October 8, 2002	/	August 23, 2011

This same-ish similarity snuck up on me. I've been listening to a lot of The Apples In Stereo lately because I went and saw The Olivia Tremor Control a few weeks ago and it was fucking amazing. I sat front and center, it was an awesome theatre, the band sounded great, they played for a long time, and I was incredibly lucky and went backstage to interview Will Cullen Hart after the show, also chatting briefly with Bill Doss and John Fernandes in the process. But that's really beside the point; I just wanted to mention it :-) Since then, I've had a renewed interest in all that is Elephant 6 and have been listening to a lot of albums from Beulah, of Montreal, OTC, NMH, and so on. I renewed my devotion for Robert Schneider and The Apples and, particularly, my affinity for Velocity of Sound, their emo-punk album. It is surprisingly good. Seriously.

Earlier tonight, I was listening to a new LP, from a newish band named Big Eyes, entitled Hard Life. I was enjoying the pop-punk ride, with quick and catchy guitar-heavy numbers, but then I got to track 10: "Now That You Aren't Mine". The opening guitar line reminded me of something … I couldn't quite place it just yet, so I played the first minute of the song again. I listened to the first verse and noted how it matched the guitar melody in pitch. Then I played it again. And once more. And then it hit me. This melody is almost exactly the same as the beginning of a random bonus track tune from Velocity of Sound! Playing the two songs back to back now, I recognize that the connection is a little stretched—the tempos are different, the guitar scuzz layers are different, the intro/ending of the melodies are different—but hey, this series isn't about finding identical songs, right? It's just about pointing out similarities, and I believe I've found two songs whose guitar riffs sound remarkably similar. (It's a little odd that the song titles are slant rhymes, too, isn't it?) What's weirder to me is that I was able to recall this Apples In Stereo tune just from this random guitar riff, considering it's a non-standard-issue bonus track. Luckily, I've listened to this album four or five times over the last three weeks, and that I was pointed to this Big Eyes album earlier today via a message board I frequently read. Huzzah, serendipitous coincidences!

So, see for yourself! Do they sound alike? Am I making shit up? Tell me! (Seriously, tell me …)

The Apples In Stereo / "She's Telling Lies (Bryce's Mix)" / Velocity of Sound [Elephant 6, 2002]

 
Big Eyes / "Now That You're Not Mine" / Hard Life [Don Giovanni, 2011]

 

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By the by, this Big Eyes LP is awesome pop-punk. Check it aht. Also The Apples In Stereo are one of my fave bands of all time. VoS is good, Her Wallpaper Reverie is great, and Fun Trick Noisemaker is a fucking masterpiece.

Big Eyes on the web: Blog / Bandcamp / Facebook / Twitter
Buy Hard Life: Don Giovanni Records / Insound / Amazon / iTunes / eMusic

The Apples In Stereo on the web: Website / Facebook / Twitter
Buy Velocity of Sound: Amazon / iTunes / eMusic

Video jam of the day: The Pack A.D. / "Cobra Matte" (with Legos!)

Becky Black and Maya Miller play some awesome bluesy garage rock. If you like The Black Keys or The White Stripes or some other color/noun combo-named band, you'll probably dig this stuff. I found their album Funeral Mixtape a couple years ago and it became a jogging soundtrack staple. I can still remember this particular moment where I ran up a large hill near my apartment and right as I crested it and started to sail down the other side, their song "Making Gestures" hit a huge crescendo and the an absolutely slammin' guitar solo came in ... It was fanfuckingtastic. Just listen through the first minute 80 seconds of the song and you'll see what I mean. And then keep listening, because there's just more of that awesomeness.

They released We Kill Computers about a year ago, and put out a video for the chug-a-lug rocker "Cobra Matte". I wrote about that video over at Draw Us Lines a couple months ago when it came out, and you can see that description below.

The Pack a.d. / "Cobra Matte" / We Kill Computers [Mint] / dir. Jimi Cuell


The music of The Pack a.d. and the style of this video are remarkably similar. The goal of both is to make the most mess out of a few basic elements. For the band, the idea is to take a guitar and drums and make some pounding blues-rock sounds with heavy riffs and powerful vocals. For the video, the idea is to take the two band members themselves, with instruments, and film them against a drab backdrop getting slaughtered with food, beverage, silly string, and so forth, in between playing their instruments, all in one seemingly-continuous shot while maintaining the appearance of pristine black clothing. I dig their albums, myself, but even if this song isn’t your bag, try watching and figuring out how in the heck they spliced the video clips together to make it into a seamless view. Did they have to play anything backwards? Who’s tossing the shit in from the sides? Just how tall is the guitarist? And so on.

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The reason I bring this all up today, though, is because some of the band's friends just made a Lego version of the video you saw above! It's an interesting idea to do, in general, and I think it works pretty well with this one. I would have liked to see the "messy" parts of the video a bit more inventive in the Lego version, but I guess you don't want to ruin your toys when you play with them, ya know? Anyway, enjoy this one, too:

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Bonus video! I found this one a while ago and haven't had an occasion to share it, but now it's kinda relevant, so here it is. There's a classic video of Joy Division on the BBC playing "Transmission" (a tune I've "covered" here before, hah). It's a great song and a great performance, especially with Ian Curtis' dance moves. Someone recently made a stop-motion version with Playmobil! Man, I had so many of those toys when I was younger. They're still in my basement somewhere, hmm ... Anyway, check out the original video here, and enjoy the animated one below:

Cover jams: Raveonettes & Black Angels / "Aly, Walk With Me"; Wooden Shjips & LCD Soundsystem / "Drunk Girls"

I'm presenting two jams here, one of them a strict cover version by neo-pyschedelic rock-jam band Wooden Shjips of neo-electronic/dance-rock band LCD Soundsystem's upbeat single "Drunk Girls", and one of them a live version of neo-pscyh-synth-tronic rock band The Raveonette's song "Aly, Walk With Me" played by the band and members of the neo-psychedelic rock-pop band The Black Angels. So yeah, that's a lot of genre labeling and bending, but the truth of the matter is that I sincerely enjoy all 4 of these bands; specifically, The Black Angels put out one of my absolute fave LPs in 2010, I've been a Raveonettes fan for a while thanks to eMusic and a Wooden Shjips fan for a while thanks to random interwebz connectionz and an LCD Soundsystem fan-ish for a little while thanks to their last album (the rest? meh, I say). So yeah, I'm saying "So, yeah" again; also, I'm reiterating the fact that these are great bands.

This version of "Aly, Walk With Me" was performed at the Austin (Texas) Psych Fest in 2010. If there is a festival that I would love to attend, it's this one. Fuck Coachella and Pitchfork and Primavera and all that jazz; this shit is right up my alley. And here are two of my favorite bands performing, together, one of my favorite songs. Awesome. Here's the live "cover" version

and here's the original version.

(Bonus track! Here's an acoustic version by the band, posted by my friend Rumi on my Facebook wall tonight, and part of the inspiration for this post.)

And now, let's consider LCD Soundsystem and Wooden Shjips. The latter is an awesomely-psychedelic, guitar-heavy rock band, and I love 'em. And you know all about the former, and if not, just Google 'em. Here's the Wooden Shjips version

and here's the orginal. ("Embedding disabled by request", says YouTube. Says who? The band? YouTube? Google? Big Brother? WTF?)
So certainly, the video of the LCD S version is better, as in, it exists, but don't let that detract from the WS version, which absolutely fucking rocks the ghee-tarr.

So there ya have it. Enjoy these jams. And for the future, please share your jams with me, covers or otherwise. I like 'em all.

The Song Remains the Same-ish: MGMT + Passion Pit = "Sleepykids"!

[This is a "series" that lets me point out when two songs sound really similar. Its frequency obviously depends on me finding these similarities, so who knows when it will happen again. See the previous entry here.]

Artist:	MGMT	Passion Pit
Song:	"Kids"	"Sleepyhead"
Album:	Oracular Spectacular	Manners
Label:	Columbia	Frenchkiss
Released:	October 2, 200	May 19, 2009

I'll admit, I didn't spot this connection/similarity on my own; rather, a friend posted this video (embedded below) on her Facebook wall and I listened to it and thought it was a pretty good observation. I don't think the connection is totally compelling, but it's similar enough that I could see people confusing the two songs if they've only heard them randomly on the radio once or twice while they're in American Apparel or something like that. Anywho, somebody put together a neat mashup called "Sleepykids". The intro is purely MGMT, but then the opening lyrics of "Sleepyhead" come in right over that, and then the synth riff is sped up to match the pace of "Kids", and then they just stay mixed together like that, racing forward at the same breakneck pace. It's pretty interesting, I gotta say. If you know these songs, try to pretend like you've never heard them before and treat this as a standalone single from the latest indie electro-pop buzz band from, I dunno . . . Brooklyn or Philly or some place like that. How does it sound? Does it work? What if Altered Zones named it top track of 2010 or some shit? Would you like it more? If you've never heard either of these songs, well, where the fuck have you been?



[Side note: I forgot how attractive Joanna Newsom looks in the video for "Kids".]

[Further side note: Here are some interesting cover versions of "Kids", because it is apparently a fucking popular song to cover - Allison Weiss - The Kooks - The Ooks Of Hazzard (seven ukeleles!) - Jason Yang (solo electric violin!) - Some teenage girl playing left-handed acoustic guitar and singing in German! - Some rando high school a capella group - Esther & Fatou (two girls playing acoustic guitar outside in a garden)]

Jams of the day: Yo La Tengo opening tracks (all of 'em!)

Artist: Yo La Tengo
Songs: "The Cone of Silence", "Clunk", "Barnaby, Hardly Working", "Can't Forget", "Detouring America With Horns", "Big Day Coming", "Decora", "(Thin) Blue Line Swinger", "Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop", "Nutricia", "Return to Hot Chicken", Everyday", "Nuclear War Version 1", "Beach Party Tonight", "Shaker", "The River of Water", "Stay Away From Heaven", "Today Is The Day", "Tighten Up", "Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind", "What'cha Gonna Do About It", "Here To Fall"

Albums: Ride The Tiger, New Wave Hot Dogs, President Yo La Tengo, Fakebook, May I Sing With Me, Painful, Electr-O-Pura, Camp Yo La Tengo, Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo (Disc 1 & 2), I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One, And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out, Nuclear War EP, Summer Sun, Prisoners of Love (Disc 1 & 2 & 3), Today Is The Day EP, Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics, I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass, Fuckbook, Popular Songs

I love teaching math, but at the same time, grading exams is a total drag. I put up with it because it's a big part of what I enjoy, but I wish there was a way to just forgo the whole shebang and assess students based on something else. Like personal opinion. Or height. Just kidding. Sort of.

So last weekend, I had to grade a boatload of exams for the class I'm T.A.ing and I holed myself up in my office or the study room and banged 'em out. But I needed the perfect music for it. Typically, I opt for something on the instrumentalish side, so I can pay attention to the words and numbers and symbols I'm reading. In the past, I've had marathon sessions of Deerhunter, Sigur Ròs, and Sonic Youth, but this time I opted for Yo La Tengo. In the process, I realized that part and parcel of having a long list of stellar albums to their credit, the opening tracks on their albums tend to be outstanding examples of the mastery of their instruments and the variety of sounds they can produce with them. So I present to you, dear reader/listener, the opening tracks to every single Yo La Tengo album, ever, in chronological order. I did not listen to all of these during my grading session, so take my claim of stellarness with a metaphorical grain of salt. But still, thinking about the fact that all of these are from one band is mind-blowing.

"The Cone of Silence", from Ride The Tiger (1986)


"Clunk", from New Wave Hot Dogs (1987)


"Barnaby, Hardly Working", from President Yo La Tengo (1989)


"Can't Forget", from Fakebook (1990)


"Detouring America With Horns", from May I Sing With Me (1992)


"Big Day Coming", from Painful (1993)


"Decora", from Electr-O-Pura> (1995)


"(Thin) Blue Line Swinger", from Camp Yo La Tengo EP (1995)


"Evanescent Psychic Pez Drop", from Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo, Disc 1 (1996)


"Nutricia", from Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo, Disc 2 (1996)


"Return to Hot Chicken", from I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One (1997)


"Everyday", from And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (2000)


"Nuclear War Version 1", from Nuclear War EP (2002)


"Beach Party Tonight", from Summer Sun (2003)


"Shaker", from Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs: 1985–2003, Disc 1 (2003)


"The River of Water", from Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Scintillating Senescent Songs: 1985–2003, Disc 2 (2003)


"Stay Away From Heaven", from Prisoners of Love: A Smattering of Outtakes and Rarities 1986–2002 (2003)


"Today Is The Day", from Today Is The Day EP (2003)


"Tighten Up" [Archie Bell and the Drells cover], from Yo La Tengo Is Murdering The Classics (2006)


"Pass the Hatchet, I Think I'm Goodkind", from I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass (2006)


"What'cha Gonna Do About It" [Small Faces cover], from Fuckbook (2007) [released under the name Condo Fucks]


"Here To Fall", from Popular Songs (2009)


Note: I skipped over a couple of film score albums/compilations, a handful of EPs, and a bunch of singles. Sorry. That's partly because I don't have those files and don't feel like seeking them out on the interwebz, and partly because this list was already enough of a labor of love to compile/produce. I love this band, don't forget that, but goddamnit they're prolific!

[If you have mp3s of the missing tracks and want to send them to me so I can YouTube-ify them and make this list satisfy all completists then, by all means, let me know! Also, if there's a broken/misdirected link, let me know; I'm bound to have screwed something up.]