Yo La Tengo made a bold decision before they even started their current tour.
Wanting to find a way to showcase the expansive sonic palette displayed on their latest album, Fade, the New Jersey trio decided to eschew opening acts on the road in favor of delivering two sets each night–the first offered seated, and largely acoustic, and the second electrified and noisy.
While the set-up allows Yo La Tengo–Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley and James McNew–to easily explore all aspects of their three-decade career, it also risks shocking some new fans with the difference between the two halves of the show. Monday at The State Room, anyone who only saw the woozy, narcotic first set, for example, would have no idea that the latter half showcased some arty noise-rock that veered between thrilling and perplexing.
Even so, the show was always entertaining, with the three members trading turns on vocals and the stacks of guitars, keyboards and drums on stage. At this point in their career, Yo La Tengo is seemingly capable of easily creating ballads that are painfully beautiful and pop-rock gems that in a more just world would fill the airwaves of radio stations from coast to coast.
That’s not going to happen, so we’ll have to be happy with seeing Yo La Tengo in concert every few years and listening to their music through our headphones.
Monday, they opened with a sprawling, delicate version of Fade‘s opener, “Ohm,” a song that appears to address the ambiguous morality of our world via lines like, “Sometimes the bad guys come out on top, sometimes the good guys lose.” Kaplan, McNew and Hubley traded lines and gently strummed through before proceeding into the quiet half of the show by leaning heavily on other songs from the new album, including “Two Trains,” “Cornelia and Jane” and the excellent “I’ll Be Around.” Other highlights of the show’s “acoustic” portion were McNew’s “Gentle Hour” and Hubley’s take on old fave “Tom Courtenay.”
After a short break, Yo La Tengo returned to a slightly reconfigured stage and proceeded to provide a deliriously and joyfully noisy excursion into their noisier tendencies. A beefed-up re-imagining of the set opener “Ohm” was a definite highlight, as were takes on “Stockholm Syndrome” and a couple of my personal favorites from the band’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One album: “Little Honda” and “Moby Octopad.” Before the show was over, they had covered an NRBQ tune (perhaps “Magnet;” I’m not positive) and closed with an excellent version of “What Can I Say,” a tune from their 1990 album, Fakebook.
1990 was also, as Kaplan noted, the first time Yo La Tengo toured through Salt Lake City, for a gig at the Speedway Cafe. I missed that show, but I’m older now–and that means I’m smart enough to never miss them again.
VAMPIRE WEEKEND, RED BUTTE GARDEN, Tuesday, May 21, 7 p.m., Sold Out
Despite the fact that Vampire Weekend’s 2010 sophomore album Contra debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s album-sales charts, it still seemed like the band was perhaps a one-tricky pony, even though that trick was a good one–creating catchy, world beat-influenced pop-rock in excellent three-minute nuggets. On the band’s new release, Modern Vampires of the City, the quartet has taken a significant leap forward, lyrically and musically. While there is still the joyful, jagged edge that is familiar from the band’s first two albums, there’s something darker at work now, and it comes through in some foreboding new songs. It should be a real treat to hear the band explore their new-found diversity at the season opener of Red Butte Garden’s summer concert series. The High Highs open the show.
YO LA TENGO, THE STATE ROOM, Monday, May 20, 8 p.m., $25
Considering that dreamy indie-rock trio Yo La Tengo literally went about two decades between Utah gigs, fans in Zion have had it pretty good of late. Since taking that extended pause from our fair state between a late ’80s gig at the Speedway Cafe and a show at the U’s Union Ballroom a few years back, Georgia Hubley, Ira Kaplan and James McNew have played a Twilight Concert Series show and at least one Urban Lounge gig. Now they’re returning on a tour supporting the band’s excellent new album, Fade, that arrived over the winter. Featuring all the expansive beauty, rough-and-tumble guitar and sly pop hooks that we’ve come to expect from the long-running New Jersey crew, Fade is one of the band’s best efforts, despite it being the first time they worked with producer John McEntire of Tortoise at his Chicago studio. Whether delivering extended jams or concise gems, Yo La Tengo is hard to beat in a live setting, and the fact that they’re touring without opening acts this time around–instead doing two sets at every stop–is a true bonus. I saw the show Friday night in Seattle, and the first set was full of the mellow stuff, much of it acoustic, while the second featured Yo La Tengo at their electrified, unleashed best.
LIVING TRADITIONS FESTIVAL, SALT LAKE CITY & COUNTY BUILDING, Friday, May 17-Sunday, May 19, Free
Simply put, the annual Living Traditions Festival thrown by the Salt Lake Arts Council is one of my favorite civic events in Utah’s capitol city. Bringing together virtually all of the various ethnic communities that make up Salt Lake City, the festival is a celebration of the highest order. You can educate yourself on different folk arts from around the world, eat your way through a global feast and witness an array of live performances that match any of the dance performances or concerts we get to enjoy the rest of the year. And it’s all free! This year’s headliners include the Mariachi Divas on Friday, French-Canadian roots musicians De Temps Antan and Celtic folkie Maura O’Connell on Saturday, and what I consider the highlight of the whole weekend–the Relatives on Sunday night. The Relatives (pictured) are a gospel-funk group that originally formed in the ’70s, only to disband. Now they’re back, and include members of Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears among their members. Their high-energy show Sunday afternoon should make for a perfect capper on a great weekend.
Who says there’s no role for socialism in Utah County?
Vern Swanson, one of a respected art scholar and director of the Springville Museum of Art, has been honored by the Russian government for his dedication to Soviet-era art.
Swanson is being awarded the Plastov International Prize, which, includes the world’s largest financial reward for an art prize— 25 million rubles! Which is about $125.37 by the current exchange rate. (Ha. Ha. No seriously, it comes to $833,000).
Swanson will receive the award in Russia, along with a diploma, a cool statue and a medal from the Russian Federation, 300,000 rubles down and all the borsht he can carry.
What’s the connection, you ask? Swanson is one of the foremost experts on the school of 20th Century Social Realism. The Springville Museum of Art has one of the world’s best collections of Soviet art outside of Russia, with five of 29 galleries dedicated to it, which puts in far in the lead as the Little Stalingrad of Utah.
“I consider this award a great honor because it came from the family of my favorite Russian artist,” Swanson said. “I am humbled to think they know my work and considered it significant enough to confer the Plastov Prize.”
State Sen. Jim Dabakis, who is also and art dealer and commissar of the Utah Democratic Party and therefore sort of a socialist too, said that, “Dr Swanson’s dedication to Russian Art and the people of Utah is a major contribution to the art heritage of the United States and especially to Utah.”
Before the Utah Legislature convenes the Committee on Un-Utah Activities, Swanson is no fellow traveller. “I firmly believe that Socialist Realism has much to teach and inspire Utah artists about humanity, power, sensitivity, and ambitiousness in art,” he says. “I come to this conclusion as a staunch anti-Communist and a lover of the Russian Motherland and people.”
Seriously, having interviewed Swanson many times, he’s the real deal in art—operating from the red heartland. Er, not that kind of red.
JUNIOR BROWN, THE STATE ROOM, Wednesday, May 15, 9 p.m., $23
While the “one of a kind” label is thrown around a bit too easily in the music world, Junior Brown certainly fits the bill. Let’s start with his own invention, the “guit-steel,” a double-necked guitar that allows Brown to quickly move between wicked steel-guitar licks and a more traditional six-string in a flash. Then there’s his deep growl of a voice that fits perfectly with his honky tonk-meets-rockabilly songs. Throw in his cowboy hat and a wife, Tanya Rae, who plays a mean rhythm guitar, and you have a man with a distinct look and sound who will NEVER be confused for just another country pretty boy. The Hollering Pines, a local group made up of a couple Folka Dots (Marie Bradshaw and Kiki Jane Buehner), a Trapper (Dan Buehner) and guitar man Dylan Schorer, will open the show.
Daniel Nailen 