the of mirror eye

* Yo La Tengo: Big Day Coming (10.0 mb) | Nowhere Near (8.5 mb) | Big Day Coming (6.0 mb)
From Painful : Matador Records : 92298-2

Despite my obvious penchant for all things noisy and psychedelic, sometimes I like to kick back and do some soft-rockin’ to the old indie standards. And when those urges hit, I usually turn to this band, Yo La Tengo (look here). Together since the early ’80’s, the band only really started to come together in the early ’90’s with the release of this album, Painful.

This album hits the perfect line between the rock and the roll. With the great mellow opening track that’s later reprised as a hard rocker, to everything in between, there’s honestly not a bad song on here. This album, to me, is the epitome of indie-cool. The playing isn’t virtuoso, but that doesn’t matter because they’re playing for the good of the songs.

What I really love about this band though, is their willingness to take chances. They’ve worked with everyone from a who’s who of the improv jazz world, to Jad Fair of Half Japanese. Every year they do a series of hanukkah shows that have become legendary in their own right, featuring tons of great bands and stand-up comics. All in all, this band is a total class act that plays some damn great music.

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So, as you can probably tell, I missed posting last Friday. I’ll try and stick to the schedule of three times/week as much as possible, but I’m probably not going to be able to be as diligent as I was before due to my current schedule.

On a happier note, got to finally see Burning Star Core and it was everything I’d thought it would be, and more. Also got to see Crispin Glover’s movie, What Is It?. Wow, that was a mind bender, and more. Still not quite sure what to think of that one.