(from Champaign-Urbana to) ATP New York

Hello Folks,

We are gearing up for a monumental drive from the Pygmalion Music Festival in Champaign-Urbana on September 20 to ATP New York Festival where we will be playing on September 21.

Both festivals should be a blast. Follow the following links for info:

First, the Pygmalion Fest

http://ev9.evenue.net/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/SEGetEventInfo?ticketCode=GS%3AIBM%3A08-09%3APYGM%3A&linkID=kcpa&shopperContext=&caller=&appCode=

and now, the ATP show

http://www.atpfestival.com

Hope to see you all there.

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Summer and Fall 2008 Shows, Starting to Roll In

Please stay posted for our summer and fall dates. We already have Spain and Greece posted . . . hopefully there is more to come.

6:49 PM - 7 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Condo Fucks rock Magnetic Field’s Closing Weekend Bash

Sorry to see the venerable Brooklyn venue known as Magnetic Field close its door two weekends ago.

To celebrate, the Condo Fucks brought the house down opening for the A-Bones. Here is the set list:

Whatcha Gonna Do About It (Small Faces)
Accident (Electric Eels)
This Is Where I Belong (Kinks)
Shut Down (Beach Boys)
Shut Down, part II (Beach Boys)
With a Girl Like You (Troggs)
The Kids with the Replaceable Head (Richard Hell)
Dog Meat (Flamin’ Groovies)
So Easy Baby (Zantees)
Come On Up (Young Rascals)
Gudbuy T’Jane (Slade)

7:39 AM - 2 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

WFMU Pledge the Stooges (with video link)

Hi everybody,
Film of the new-look Yo La Tengo (Peter Walsh filling in for an ailing Georgia; Bruce Bennett as always for this event on guitar) attempting "The Passenger" last Sunday on WFMU for their 2008 Pledge Drive.

Follow this link for viewing:

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/03/yo-la-tengo-vid.html

8:21 AM - 2 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

I’m a Man

Good morning good morning,

"Who knows where the time goes?"
"It was a very good year."

I'm speaking in song titles because I'm thinking in song titles, because it's that time of year again. On Sunday March 2 from 5-8 p.m. eastern time, the Yo La Tengo, accompanied by Bruce Bennett of rock 'n' roll's the A-Bones, will be on your radio and your computer, playing the songs that you request as we once again help our favorite radio station, WFMU, raise the money they need for another year of fantabulousness. If you pledge to the station while we're on the air, you get to make a song request and we'll do our best to play a "Song for You." It's that simple.

WFMU is on 91.1 in the greater Jersey City area and 90.1 (on WXHD) in the Hudson Valley, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, then you should probably tune in on your computer at wfmu.org. And not only that, but this is our Bar Mitvah year! That's right--the 13th anniversary of our first requestathon. You won't want to miss a second.

While I've got your attention, I promised in a previous email not to bother you again with my radio shows on WFMU, but like the Four Tops before me, I can't help myself. In what may well prove even more death-defying than taking your requests, I will be waking up, let's call it "late in the evening" to do a shift from 6-9 a.m. eastern time on the web only this Thursday, February 28. For those of you with short-term memory issues, that's wfmu.org. Please tune in to see if I can form a coherent sentence
at that hour, and if I can, please consider throwing a few dollars WFMU's way.

I Thank You,
Ira

5:26 PM - 10 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

WFMU Mailing List

Hey Folks,

Ira has been doing a radio show at 'FMU. Please sign-up for 'FMU mailing list to receive info about it and, if you feel inclined, listen on-line as well.

Don't say we didn't warn you though!

http://www.yolatengo.com/wfmu.html

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Hanukkah 2007 Encore for Night 8

How do you end a marathon?

Well, for those running in the Hebraic 8K you bring Beth from Times New Viking up to play a little piano (at least she thinks she was playing piano--seated in front of my guitar amp, she couldn't hear anything but me) and do one more shout-out to our adopted home: "Hungry Heart." As the second verse began, Howard Kaylan (aka Eddie of Flo & Eddie--and noted Yo La Tengo fan!) took the stage to sing backup, just as he did on The River. Thus began a thrilling six-song spin through the amazing career of Howard Kaylan. We did the Turtles classic "You Baby" (written by the Jewish songwriting team of Sloan and Barri), the pre-Turtles Crossfires' "One Potato Two Potato" (which 20 lucky attendees of Thursday's show picked up on Todd-o-phonic Todd's mix cd), "Love Songs in the Night" from Howard's supercool solo record Dust Bunnies (another Jewish number, this time from the pen of the legendary Michael Brown), followed by one last seasonal number, T.Rex's "Metal Guru," sung by James, with Howard adding the iconic backup part just as he & Flo did on the original. For our last donut choice, we went back to the Turtles songbook for "She'd Rather Be with Me." If there was a dry eye in the house, it wasn't mine.

What an amazing way to end an amazing eight days. -- Ira

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Hanukkah 2007 Encore for Night 7

For the encore, we brought out our old pal Bruce Bennett to play guitar with our new pal, the amazing Roy Loney, original lead singer of one of our favorite bands ever, the Flamin' Groovies. When we heard Roy was coming to town to play the Norton holiday spectacular, we thought wouldn't it be great if we could get him to come out a day or two earlier and play with him too. We started with a song by noted Jewish songwriter (Academy Award winning Jewish songwriter, Roy helpfully added) Randy Newman, "Have You Seen My Baby," as heard on the classic Groovies lp Teenage Head. Then two more from that record--"High Flyin' Baby" and the title tune--before closing with a "Slow Death" that was, at the risk of immodesty, quite nice.

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Hanukkah 2007 Encore for Night 6

Redd Kross en masse joined us for the encore. We bid a fond adieu to Alex Chilton with "September Gurls" and then moved on to the wild world of the Jewish songwriter: "Bus Stop," "Who Loves the Sun" and finally "Calling Dr. Love." I could have listened to Roy McDonald and Georgia play extended drum fills all night, but we had one more guest to bring up.

In 2005, my mom concluded night one by singing "My Little Corner of the World" with us, as chronicled in that year's Hanukkah diary. Sadly there was no photographic evidence of her appearance, which I thought was too bad, but qualified as circumstances beyond our control. My mom saw it another way, demanding another turn in the spotlight, and this time we'd better have photographers at the ready. She didn't have to get all huffy about it--we wouldn't have dreamt of not inviting her back.

7:41 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Hanukkah 2007 Encore for Night 5

Alex Chilton was willing to come back for a second night of special guesthood, and we were thrilled to have him. We reprised "Femme Fatale," "Let Me Get Close to You" and "Hey! Little Child" from Friday night, and worked up Brenton Wood's "Oogum Boogum," (as heard on Alex's Set cd), an old Cossacks favorite, the Modern Lovers' "Government Center," longtime staple of Big Star's repertoire T.Rex's "Baby Strange," and went back to Alex's Like Flies on Sherbert record for the Bell Notes' "I've Had It." We even taught him a few words of Hebrew.

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