Yo La Tengo @ the Wellmont 12/31/2008

"Yo" like to trade instruments. James McNew, on guitar in the start frame, usually plays bass; Ira Kaplan, usually on guitar, plays keyboards on this one. Georgia Hubley is the drummer.

Yo la Tengo is a band I had always wanted to see. A melodious, decidedly fringe, cult-indi psychedelic/noise groove trio from the early 80's that (gasp!) stayed together. Their style varies from folky to noisy to covers from north, east, south and west, done... differently. So here they were, the eve of 2009, true adults, still at it, and my wife and I were taking two of our kids to see them. The result: The best and most wonderful parenting moment in the history of my fatherhood and my son's childhood. More on that later.

About the show:

How to describe their sound? Well I just tried, but it's best to listen. That might not do justice to the live show I saw. A lot of their recorded songs have a sing-song, melodic calm to them that, in live performance, coexists with a wild, brash intensity. Contrast and breadth is clearly important to them: a conventional, verse-chorus pop song structure with a minimal, tight groove is interrupted by the most insane, feedback-laden, bang it, bend it guitar solo you have ever heard. And that goes on for a long, long time. And it's musical. This band doesn't suck.

The New Year's Eve plan ran into a snag right away when my ten year old looked up the band on youtube. This decade old guitarist/skateboard dude decided Yo la Tengo were a bunch of nerdy old folks. He didn't appreciate the group's avant-a-cappella in that particular video, but we dragged him to the show under protest.

After a forgettable first band, the second came on. They were The Feelies, a 70's group recently back together. They were all pushing 60, I'd say, but you wouldn't know it from the energy. The Wellmont is old too, a movie palace that's been recently transformed into a music venue. Clearly it wasn't build for loud rock and roll, because the sound system was too loud and muddy. I brought ear plugs for everyone, and that helped at least curb the bleeding. The Feelies have a fun rolling groove, and their set was really great.

The moment of truth came when Yo la Tengo played. They did a bit of cornball holiday music sung along with an big band backing track. My kid rolled his eyes. But within a minute or two of picking up their instruments, Ira Kaplan launched into one of those totally over the top, body writhing, feedback squealing, guitar abusing, noisy solos. For like 15 minutes.

This was not what my ten-year-old had expected. He was truly in a state of shock. He threw his hands in the air. His mouth hung open and the look on his face seemed to say: "Holy sh*t, what the hell is going on?"

Vestax MR-44 4-track Cassette Deck

You may have read about my 4-track adventures, beginning with the original Portastudio cassette multi-track, the Teac 144.

After I wore that one down I had a Porta One. It didn't measure up to the original. For one thing I don't think it ran at high speed. Also the transport buttons were mechanical push down types, not the touch sensitive electronic ones the original had. Punch-ins were seemless and smooth as silk on the 144. Nonetheless, I think I may have even had two Porta Ones over a few years.


Then came the tiny Fostex X-15. It could run on batteries and had pegs like a guitar to strap it over your shoulder. Truely portable, it lacked the inputs and sends I was used to. I did strap it on and bring it to my friend Wally's place for a session. It never got back home.

That brings us to the subject of the vintage ad above, the Vestax MR-44, shown at the top of this page. Who had ever heard of this company? I hadn't. I was taking a chance, but I went for it because of the rack mounted convenience and the good ins and outs on the front. It was simple but well thought out.

This thing was great. It was smooth mechanically, the buttons were the soft touch electronic type, and even though it lacked individual EQ, it had multi-band equalization over the whole mix that worked well to patch things up and cut the mud out.

It sounded really good and was very, very quiet as far as tape hiss went. I made some good sounding recordings on it.

To my chagrin, one day it just stopped in its tracks.

It was out of warranty but I called the California number in the manual and a guy with a heavy Asian accent picked up the phone. His seeming confusion and the clamor in the background made me think I'd reached a Chinese restaurant. After determining that I'd called the right place, I described the problem to the guy. There was a silence, then. . .

"Ahh. Yeess! Not your fault. Our fault. We fix. Send," he said.

I did, and they repaired it for free.

Later, when I went to a Roland VS-880 digital 8-track, I sold the Vestax on Ebay for $175. The father of the kid who bought it wrote me a long email thanking me for making his son's first ebay purchase such a great experience. The MR-44 seemed to have endless good karma.

Vestax is still around, but they've switched to DJ gear. I bet it's pretty good stuff.