I Saw Yo La Tengo!: BFTW 5/9/25

A little less than thirty years ago, my mom bought me Yo La Tengo’s Electr-O-Pura for my birthday (she loved going to Mike’s Movies & Music with my teenage hipster wishlist, compliments from the clerk guaranteed). I’d never heard the group, but as a religious SPIN reader, I knew that they were a Matador Records act that earned comparisons to The Velvet Underground and Neil Young. There was no way I wasn’t going to like that, but I still wasn’t prepared for how much the album’s distorted keyboards, grand guitar noise and humble vocals would resonate. With all due to respect to the Velvets and Neil, singer/guitarist Ira Kaplan is the primary reason I never got good at guitar solos. I couldn’t play four notes without wanting to twist strings, wrestle harmonics out with my wrist and evoke someone falling down the stairs (I didn’t realize Kaplan also used a whammy bar). (Re)visit my Album Guide entries about Yo La Tengo for more history, compliments and commentary on the band.

A little over twenty years ago, I caught Yo La Tengo live in my central PA hometown, where, joined by Dave Schramm and Sue Garner, they packed a local bar to the gills and gently encouraged us to vote for John Kerry. It’s a treasured memory, but the band was at a low ebb when it came to rocking and the presence of ringer Schramm meant Kaplan wouldn’t be shredding much. (See part 2 of that Album Guide for more huffing about their ‘00s albums). I still hadn’t seen the Yo La Tengo that rocked my adolescent world.

I almost ventured to LA for them in February 2024, but something told me this show would be another Special Event, and sonuvagun if Fred Armisen didn’t join them on a second drum kit for the entire show (no bueno). I got the opposite vibe from setlists for their current jaunt, and was delighted to see tickets were still available earlier this week for their show at the Novo Thursday night. While I saw Heavenly to hang out with a friend in Brooklyn last summer, and walked to see Saccharine Trust in February because I couldn’t believe I could walk to see Saccharine Trust, this would be the first concert I’d drive to since before lockdown. Yes, I could get out more.

The Novo is part of a massive entertainment complex in downtown LA, along with the Crypto Dot Com Arena and the Grammy Museum. There’s a large balcony with seating, an orchestra pit if you want to look up at the band, and a general standing area between the pit and the bar. That last option was the cheapest, and easily the most appealing for someone who has managed to making standing with a drink while watching a band a novelty again. If I wanted to sit, I could stay home. 

As I’m well over six feet, I’d have no problem seeing the band from anywhere in the theater anyway. Plus, it turned out the audience was at least fifty percent women. Short women. I can’t remember the last time I saw a band that started later than 1995, so I won’t say what the average audience for gigs are these days. But for the kind of aging hipster-bait I attend, Yo La Tengo easily had the most co-ed audience. There were young, short ladies there together in groups. I don’t remember that at the Feelies.

Ira Kaplan has confessed to using spreadsheets to make sure Yo La Tengo setlists are super-rewarding for long-time fans, both in terms of the last few shows on the tour and the last few shows in that town. The group has consisted of himself, wife/drummer Georgia Hubley and bassist James McNew since before Electr-O-Pura, so they’ve got a huge catalog to pull from. You’ll never hear every hit, and but you’ll always get a few classics and some real deep cuts from throughout the decades. I’m sure a lot of the folks attending at the Novo had seen them before (maybe back when they were working at record stores), but the novelty for me was finally seeing the core trio on stage with no one else. This was my first chance to watch them hop from their primary instruments to microphones and organs and back, just doing a gig.  

This is part of why I wasn’t remotely bothered that Hoboken’s Finest seemed a little tired and punchy. The legendarily verbose Ira took a few songs to acknowledge the audience, saying something about how the world is depressing enough right now without being in LA. He was immediately apologetic and regretful for that caustic introduction, making clear he was grateful everyone came out and demurring they’d been on the road a while. When Hubley had to restart “Nowhere Near” twice, Kaplan cracked that the Grammy Museum took a lot out of her, and - as a fellow East coast music nerd - I can confirm the Grammy Museum is a bummer. Where the Rock Hall is full of music memorabilia from acts inducted and not, the Grammy Museum is primarily a tribute to the televised event, with all of music history refracted through the trophy delivery and red carpet. Neither I nor my music-obsessed kid got much out of it, and I’m sure a WFMU DJ and his fellow former Pier Platters customers got even less. 

Maybe this is why the “quiet set” featured a Urinals cover, and Georgia declined to sing their “Friday I’m In Love” cover as an encore audience request, James instead singing “You Stupid Asshole” by the Angry Samoans (Ira noted the Cure are from England, and they just wanted to play LA covers). The presence of singles “Tom Courtenay,” “Sugarcube” and their “Little Honda” cover felt a bit conciliatory and uninspired, but I was thrilled to hear Fakebook’s “The Summer” (though not as much as the woman who shrieked upon recognizing it), Electr-O-Pura’s keyboard-crushing “False Alarm” (which I made my 10th grade English class endure as part of a book report on The Andromeda Strain!) and “Tonight’s Episode” from their latest, This Stupid World. That last one I’d already shared with my kid, cuz I knew he’d love McNew listing yo-yo tricks. 

Someday, I hope to see Yo La Tengo at a more inspiring locale (maybe I’ll drive out to catch their next gig at Pappy & Harriet’s in the desert), but I’m glad to have finally seen an ordinary Yo La Tengo gig. A nonevent which — as Ira thoughtfully works to achieve - still had surprises like which epic guitar freakout would climax the show (we got “The Story Of Yo La Tango” from 2006). The encore ended with a hushed rendition Walter Egan’s “Magnet And Steel,” a song I first learned about when MST3K referenced it in their Manos: The Hands Of Fate episode. My inner teen truly couldn’t have asked for more. Ok, “Blue Line Swinger.” But that’s it.

I truly love and respect Steven Soderbergh’s commitment to the John Huston school of auteurism, where you find a good script and use your skills to sell it, rather than treat every film as a personal passion project that must overtly reflect your commercial brand. Post-Tarantino, arthouses don’t have much time for modest entertainments, and God knows Hollywood doesn’t. But Black Bag, coming it at 90 minutes, could have actually benefited from a little air and indulgence. Concerning Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as aging Mr. & Mrs. Smiths working for the same paranoia-inducing spy factory, the film is so tightly edited it felt like Soderbergh wanted to get me off to bed faster than I did.

Knowing Soderbergh’s interest in the formal nature of filmmaking, I wouldn’t be surprised if this pace was intentional, the director curious how densely he could pack 90 minutes without sacrificing coherency or intrigue. It’s certainly an alluring product, with fine performances (who knew Pierce Brosnan could be so effectively cranky?) and neat twists. But there’s “leave them wanting more” and then there’s “having to tell the waiter you’d like to see the dessert menu as they try to give you the check.” Black Bag gets awfully close to the latter. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

Oddity, the second film by Irish horror director Damian McCarthy, also wraps up in under 100 minutes, but probably could have came in at 55. It was filmed in the same barn as his first film, Caveat (whose creepy toy rabbit makes a cameo), adding to the sense that both movies could be anthology episodes. Both involve randos learning the family owning this Irish house is up to some creepy, murderous shit, thanks in part to a creepy-ass curio. Where Caveat’s doll is tiny, Oddity’s is life-size, and truly a doozy. It’s almost unfathomable one could see this monstrous mannequin without responding “oh, hell no” and announcing either it or you will be leaving the premises immediately, and the film has to spend a good bit of time establishing why that doesn’t happen. Both of McCarthy’s films are good “secrets come to light thanks to creepy doll” stories, if lacking any more poignancy or depth than a Twilight Zone episode with the same conceit. Whether McCarthy takes a bigger swing or a prestige horror anthology spot after this, I’ll be checking it out. FIVE BAGS OF POPCORN.

I know I said I’d never review a movie I didn’t watch in full, but I’m compelled to note why I didn’t watch Wolf Man in full. Leigh Whannell’s take on The Invisible Man used modern psychology and updated sci-fi to bring arresting novelty to a familiar concept, centering the experience of the monster’s victim. His Wolf Man is similarly ambitious, concerning a loving “stay-at-home dad” trying to reconnect with his working wife by bring her and their daughter out his dad’s old shack in the woods. The family doesn’t even get the U-haul unpacked before they’re attacked by a hellbeast and dad starts...changing. Supposedly, Whannell was inspired by a friend’s experience with ALS, and it’s possible there could be a worthwhile metaphor here, regarding a parent losing the ability to provide or even communicate with the family that loves them. But with Dad devolving into a night creature so quickly and completely, the specifics of the disease so immediately severe and easily transmittable (how has this contagion remained a legend for decades?), the message is less “wow, it would suck to become a prisoner in your own body” than “wow, it would suck to become a Wolf Man.”

Christopher Abbott’s sincerity as the dad is immediately affecting, but - if I wasn’t aware of her acclaim elsewhere - I’d assume Julia Garner was a terrible actress based on her closed-in performance during the first two-thirds or so. My best guess is she was sincerely trying to convey a young working woman estranged from her family, not realizing this kind of movie requires more transparent telegraphing of the heart beneath the frozen exterior. Once dad is red-eyed and drooling, you won’t be able to reveal why mom was so cold to the handsome, sweet version of him.

The popcorn ratings are explicated here. If you want to suggest a Julia Garner film that reveals her gifts, or an LA club whose calendar is worth keeping an eye on, do so at anthonyisright at gmail dot com.