You probably can't tell this now, but I was pretty big on Yo La Tengo back in the late '80s. I loved "President Yo La Tengo" and the one before it ("New Wave Hot Dogs"), and when I saw them in Naugatuck at the Nightshift they were totally ferocious, with Ira Kaplan throwing out chunks of noise and feedback like a J Mascis starter kit. Most of the stuff I was listening to at that time was admittedly pretty over-the-top dumb and burly-- bands like the Thrown Ups, Head of David, Killdozer, Drunks With Guns, Bastards, etc., as well as the usual shitload of NY hardcore -- all against a backdrop of hundreds of stupid metal bands that were all over the radio, so when I first saw Yo La Tengo it was like, cool, the nerds in the back of the room finally have a band now, and they rock out just as hard as everyone else.
"Dreams" first came out on a 7" inside Chemical Imbalance zine, which was by leaps and bounds the worst fanzine of all time, and is probably the only good thing the zine ever put out. Mike McGonigal even made one of those 33-1/3 books once (about the Partridge Family I think), and I'm still amazed that ANYONE paid that fucker to write. "Dreams" isn't so much a cover as a deconstruction, with a layer of squalls and dirt thrown over it, and remains (alongside Alex's "Jumpin' Jack Flash") as one of my favorite cover versions of all time. You'll notice there's some other songs on this record too, but they all suck.
"Dreams"
just as an extra -- one of my favorite early YLT tracks:
"Barnaby, Hardly Working"
4 comments:
I absolutely share your sentiments re AC's Jumpin' Jack Flash cover.
Phew. I was worried I was gonna be alone on that one, like with everything else.
You're dead on right. As bad as CI was, Yeti is ten times worse.
I had no idea what Yeti was, I had to google it. Looks like Away From The Pulsebeat crossed with all of those terrible '90s music zines with glossy covers that tried to be semi-mainstream.
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