FN News Roundup: April 16, 2012

WELL HELLO THERE. How was your weekend? Pretty great? Cool, happy to hear it. Have some news, won't you?

• WERE YOU AWARE: Coachella happened over the weekend! It's also happening again NEXT weekend, for the first time in its history! The Internet being how it is, you can likely find professional-or-otherwise footage of everything that happened, but to boil it down: Radiohead was there, and so was an apparently pretty cool but still very odd holographic Tupac. Check out footage of both of those happenings below the jump (Stereogum)


• If you happened to be here in NYC over the weekend, you had the opportunity to see the original mid-'90s lineup of Hole (including Courtney Love) perform two songs together for the low low price of $10 at Brooklyn's Public Assembly. But even if you were here, you probably missed it. Ah well, that's what YouTube is for! (Consequence of Sound)


• One of the great joys of music news reporting is that, every so often, you hear about something that seems designed to blow your mind specifically. St. Vincent teaming up with former Talking Heads frontman David Byrne to release a new album this Fall is very much an example of tha-YAAAAAAY!!! (Rolling Stone)


• M. Ward is playing Prospect Park with Yo La Tengo on August 7, with tickets on sale this Friday (4/20). Sometimes you really don't need to set up a news item at all (BrooklynVegan)


• Ah what the hell, let's watch Jeff Mangum's full Coachella too (Beats Per Minute)

Yo La Tengo's Hanukkah shows still happening despite Ira Kaplan's health scare

Ira Kaplan w/ Yo La Tengo @ The Bell House in May (more here)

In a statement released on YoLaTengo.com...

"Hi everybody, especially those of you with tickets to next week’s shows, 

We strive to make our Hanukkah shows unpredictable, and in one unfortunate regard we’ve outdone ourselves this year. I’m going to be a little vague here, but I had a pretty serious health scare earlier this month. I’m well on the way to recovery, but I’ve not yet been deemed ready to Rock. The good news is . . . well, the good news is I’m on the way to recovery . . . but vis-à-vis next week, the good news is that I’ve been deemed ready to sit in a chair and play the concerts that mean more to me, Georgia and James than most anything else we do together. Our sets will undoubtedly be tweaked accordingly. In other words, if you were hoping to be in attendance for our annual airing of “Mushroom Cloud of Hiss,” I’m afraid that is now zooming up the Unlikely chart with a bullet. But we’re confident that it’s going to be a great eight days. We’re looking forward to seeing you all, and to not answering any questions about what happened to me! 

As long as I’ve got your attention, I’ll let you know about one other change this year. We’ve filled the walls of Maxwell’s front room with a bunch of posters and other ephemera from our various closets. Some of it will be for sale (all proceeds to charity) and all of it will hopefully be entertaining.

Hanukkahly yours,
Ira"

We're hoping Ira is doing okay, and we're still looking forward to eight nights of greatness! Also... who do you think is opening?

Who Are The Openers For Yo La Tengo's Hanukkah Shows?! (Speculations)

More shots from YLT @ The Bell House over here!

Everyone's got their own reasons for loving and/or hating the holiday season, and for us NYC-based music fans our love is focused on a very special event that comes but 8 times a year: The 8 Nights Of Hanukkah With Yo La Tengo! Find your way into one of the shows at the legendary Maxwell's in the slightly-less-legendary Hoboken, NJ from December 20-27 if you can, because each and every year they're all great times.

But in a yearly mystery that rivals the suspense of The Simpsons' "Who Shot Mr. Burns?" cliffhanger from back in the day (it was Maggie, in case you somehow never saw that), we're sitting here a week out from the first night of Hanukkah wondering... who the hell are the openers going to be? Last year's festivities featured musicians like Fucking Nostalgic heroes Mission of Burma, The National, and Jeff Tweedy from some band called Wilco - along with comedians like Todd Barry, Jim Gaffigan, Marc Maron, and Eugene Mirman - so that all re-emphasizes the "you don't want to miss this" aspect of these shows.

But if there's anything we've learned in the past nine months of existing, it's that Fucking Nostalgic fans are a very sharp, clued-in set of people. So go ahead and throw out your best guesses (or even leaks!) about who the 2011 YLT Hanukkah openers will be in the comments of this post or over on our Facebook page. So far we're hearing The Feelies may show up for one night - who else ya got?

This Week's Nostalgia (10/31-11/6)

Even though things seem to be winding down as it gets colder and uglier out (yesterday was particularly bad), there are still plenty of reasons to make it out to some shows this fall. Personally, I've realized that I've been pushing myself a little too hard during the week, with the revelation that some scary incidents where my vision basically stopped working were the result of sleep deprivation and stress. So, a public service announcement: getting three hours of sleep and working a 9-5 job is not good for your health.

That said, here are some shows this week that I may or may not make it out to...

Ween @ Hammerstein Ballroom (Sold Out)
Monday, October 31

Battles @ Webster Hall (Tickets)
Tuesday, November 1

Battles @ ATP (more here)

Special Disco Version (James Murphy & Pat Mahoney of LCD Soundsystem) @ House of Vans (RSVP)
Tuesday, November 1

James Murphy @ Hudson Hotel (more here)

Bob Mould (reading & performance) @ The Bell House (Tickets)
Thursday, November 3

Bob Mould @ The Rock Shop (more here)

Meat Puppets @ Le Poisson Rouge (Tickets)
Friday, November 4

The Glands (w/ Condo Fucks, a.k.a. Yo La Tengo opening) (Tickets)
Friday, November 4

Be sure to check out our special Spotify playlist for This Week's Nostalgia (subscribe to it so you have a new playlist each week too!) If there are any shows you feel we missed, please let us know in the comments below. Until next week...

Yo La Tengo Playing Hannukah 2011 Shows At Maxwell's, Tickets Onsale Friday

Check out more pics and a review of YLT's Bell House show back in May over here!

We here at FN, like pretty much every sane person in the world, love the hell out of Yo La Tengo. And it's been my personal mission for way too many years now to see one of their legendary Hanukkah shows at Maxwell's in nearby Hoboken. Well on Friday (10/28) at noon, the time will come again to fight tooth and nail for tickets, as the venue has just announced all eight shows are on for December 20 through December 27.

Keep the site bookmarked and grab 'em if you can. But not before I do. Good luck! (And cheers to NYCTaper for the tip!)

Listen: Yo La Tengo @ the Bell House (Night 1)

Ira, Georgia and James being adorable

On Tuesday I had the pleasure of seeing and photographing Yo La Tengo for one of their Wheel Spin shows at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Now, courtesy of New York City's live music archivist nyctaper, you can listen to that show in full. If you really need a reason to do that as soon as humanly possible, here is their setlist:

Set 1
Griselda
Georgia vs Yo La Tengo
Song For Mahlia
Moby Octopad
Avalon or Someone Very Similar
Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House
Watch Out For Me, Ronnie
The Evil That Men Do
Pass The Hatchet, I Think I’m Goodkind

Set 2

Our Way To Fall
Barnaby, Hardly Working
Demons
Stockholm Syndrome
The Crying of Lot G
Double Dare
Nothing To Hide
Decora
I Heard You Looking
The Door Into Summer [Monkees]
Drug Test
For The Turnstiles [Neil Young]

Thanks to nyctaper for posting our photo and link!

Photos: Yo La Tengo @ the Bell House (Night 1)

Yo La Tengo @ the Bell House, May 10th, 2011

Yo La Tengo played the first of two "Spin the Wheel" shows last night at the Bell House in Gowanus, Brooklyn. The fate of the show was in the hands of a random fan invited on stage to spin the band's meticulously designed wheel. After being presented with some rather scary options, including the possibility the band would act out an entire episode of a classic sitcom (the chance of that happening was purposely slim), the wheel landed on the "Name Game," in which all the songs for the first set (about 45 minutes) were songs named after someone.

This led to quite an amazing first set including Fakebook's "Griselda," I Am Not Afraid of You And I Will Beat Your Ass's "Watch Out For Me Ronnie," And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out's "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House, and a stellar rendition of "Moby Octopad" (yep, Moby is a name). A lot of these songs I've never seen performed live before, so it really was a treat seeing them whip out some of these.

After a rather long intermission, the second set included Yo La classics such as "Stockholm Syndrome," "Nothing to Hide" and "The Crying of Lot G." Who knows what tonight's show will bring, as there is always a chance you'll get an entire set of Condo Fucks songs, or even all of The Sounds of Science. As long as Yo La Tengo doesn't act out an episode of Family Matters, I think everyone will leave happy. Actually, that sounds pretty amazing...

For those going tonight, opener Antietam (who opened for YLT's first show at Maxwell's 26 years ago) took the stage at 8:30pm, and Yo La Tengo followed at 9:30pm. The Baxx Sisis's open tonight. Tickets for the show are sold out, but again, try your luck with craigslist, as there seem to be a lot of people selling tickets on there. There was also that woman walking around scalping tickets that I've seen at literally EVERY Yo La Tengo show doing just that. Good luck! Full set of photos of Yo La Tengo are below....

Yo La Tengo's Wheel show in Brooklyn this week

The quintessential indie band from Hoboken, NJ (and of my favorites), Yo La Tengo are playing two shows this week at the Bell House. Tomorrow, May 10th and Wednesday, May 11th will see the group bringing their “Spin the Wheel” shows to the very awesome Gowanus, Brooklyn venue. Wackiness will ensue.

Tickets online are sold out, but when I was at Other Music last week, they still had a few tickets for both shows and they are without fee for $25. You can also check out craigslist, which apparently is a haven for Yo La Tengo tickets… I myself got a ticket to one of the Hanukkah shows at great ease through craigslist back in December.

Fucking Nostalgic will be at tomorrow’s show and will post a full set of photos and a review, so be sure to check back here on Wednesday for that! Not sure what a “Spin the Wheel” show is? Take a look below the jump for Yo La Tengo’s very wacky official statement…

Big Star's "Third" was paid tribute to

Big Star’s classic (and final) studio album Third was given tribute on 3/26 at Baruch College’s Mason Hall. Rolling Stone has a report you can read here. I wish I could have made it to this one. Not only was the lineup fantastic (Ira Kaplan, Matthew Sweet and *gasp* Michael Stipe), but Third is a severely underrated album, even in Big Star terms. Hopefully this was not a one-off show and this will be taken on the road.

Yo La Tengo's upcoming Wheel Spin Shows @ the Bell House

Ira Kaplan w/ Yo La Tengo @ Maxwells 12/3/10. More here.

I am pretty excited for the upcoming Wheel Spin Yo La Tengo shows that were just announced for Brooklyn’s Bell House on 5/10 & 5/11. The essential indie group from Hoboken, despite having some deeply moving songs, also have a connection with the alternative comedy scene. And the fact that there’s a possibility the trio will act out a classic sitcom is reason enough to buy a ticket to at least one of these.

I caught two of Yo La Tengo’s notorious Hanukkah shows back in December, one where Jeff Tweedy was the opener and the other where Mission of Burma not only opened, but merged to form the supergroup Yo La Burma. Blasting through a slew of covers, it was pretty fucking nostalgic. Needless to say, but Yo La have a vast catalogue of music so every show is completely different. Tickets for both shows go on sale tomorrow, 4/1 at noon. Read Yo La Tengo's official (and wacky) statement below...