Yo La Tango's Ira Kaplan talks about his ballet his cats and Neil Young.
LYME KONSTNITIN STAFF WRITER
consistently moved forward, fine tuning, es-
sentially, the members' love of music.
This eighth album smoothly blends transi-
tions — with typical Tengo humor and style —
such as a cover of the Beach Boys' Little Hon-
da," Grand Funk Railroad's 'We're an Ameri-
can Band" as well as "Moby Octopad," which
incorporates a sampling of Burt Bacharach's
"Bird Bath."
Yet through all the innovation and ambient
distortion, the band still retains its accessibil-
ity — it's simultaneously sharp fun to listen to
and alluringly beautiful to hear.
Kaplan has always been as interested in oth-
ers who excel at his art as he is in creating his
own. Growing up in a suburb outside of New
York City, Kaplan, 40, started playing guitar
as a kid ("or," he laughs, "three years into the
band's existence, depending on how you want
to define it").
Throughout high school, he was always in a
band. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence,
he found his way into rock reporting.
"Basically, I was like a number of people who
end up writing about music. I wanted to be in
"
a band, and was a musician," says Kaplan. "I
was doing things in that world. [Besides writ-
ing], I also was a sound mixer at Maxwell's
[in New Jersey]. I tried to be as much in that
world as possible."
Kaplan's music critic days were put to good
use in the band's fourth album, Fakebook. A
compilation of covers that are not necessarily
indicative of the band's musical style, it does
exhibit its playful/morose duality in its choice
of covers, ranging from NRBQ to John Cale
to the Flamin' Groovies.
Being in that world also allowed Kaplan to
pick the brains of some of his own musical he-
roes, such as the Kinks' Ray Davies, as well as
Neil Young.
"Actually, I was pretty well out of the rock-
writing racket at that time; I think that was
how I had been able to interview him. He had
been promised [by Spin magazine] that it would
be a musician interviewing him, not a writer,
per se," says Kaplan.
Besides the experience of talking with the
musician, the interview eventually produced
the photograph for a Yo La Tengo CD. "Neil or-
dered some fries while we were talking that he
didn't finish. After he left, Georgia and I were
like, Wow, Neil Young's french fries.' So we put
them in a doggie bag and brought them home.
'We thought about bronzing them; now I
wish we had," mourns Kaplan. Instead, Hub-
ley took a Polaroid of them; the photo now
graces the cover of the Painful CD.
That attitude seems to sum up the philoso-
phy of Tengo, and Kaplan. 'We're not trying to
do anything in that Straight A line; we like to
see where our intuition takes us," he says.
'When we're rehearsing, lyrics always come
last. We're happy to play for a really long time
without anything happening. If something
worth repeating happens, we try to remember
it.
"Essentially, we don't do much envisioning.
We just by to enjoy right now and not think too
hard about where it's going." 0
Yo La Tengo will perform with Magnetic
Field 9 p.m. Friday, May 30. $10. Magic Stick,
above the Majestic, 4120 Woodward, Detroit.
Call (313) 833-POOL.
It takes three to Tengo:
Georgia Hubley, her
husband Ira Kaplan
and James McNew.