Simple Indie Gold

Like most modern indie bands with a 30-year discography, a tendency to genre-bend and a mountain of critical acclaim, you’d think Yo La Tengo was too complex to fall for in an instant, but I did.

A living, breathing cliché of a 16-year-old, I rolled down the windows in the backseat of my cool older friend’s SUV. It was the suburban Midwest, and this strange, cheery, cowbell-dotted song came on the mix CD: “Hey, Mr. Tough/ Don’t you think we’ve suffered enough/ Why don’t you meet me on the dance floor/ When it’s time to talk tough.”

“Mr. Tough” was something I could dance to that was also sad.

“We all started making music as kids,” Yo La Tengo bassist James McNew tells EW. He describes his musical coming-of-age as mostly messing around, “playing along to records and learning covers, for ages before we even considered writing our own songs.”

Even now, YLT keeps up an extensive repertoire of covers, which, like its originals, vary in style from Fleetwood Mac to Sun Ra to Daniel Johnston. This, McNew says, is “just a part of who we are and how we think about music.”

In fact, the band’s amassed such a body of work they’re even (in a most humble way) paying homage to themselves. The new full-length release, Stuff Like That There, is a collection of brushed-cymbal, upright bass-type afternoon tunes meant to recall YLT’s now classic 1990 LP Fakebook.

McNew, when asked about his inspirations, says he’s listening to Bronx-based hip-hop producer Lord Finesse, who is “currently influencing me to feel great.” This sentiment is the common thread running through the diverse YLT discography: The band does what feels right to them, and the results are at once sophisticated and simple.

Catch Yo La Tengo’s new acoustic tour featuring Dave Schramm 8 pm Tuesday, Nov. 17, at WOW Hall; $15 adv., $18 door.

A Note From the Publisher

Dear Readers,

The last two years have been some of the hardest in Eugene Weekly’s 43 years. There were moments when keeping the paper alive felt uncertain. And yet, here we are — still publishing, still investigating, still showing up every week.

That’s because of you!

Not just because of financial support (though that matters enormously), but because of the emails, notes, conversations, encouragement and ideas you shared along the way. You reminded us why this paper exists and who it’s for.

Listening to readers has always been at the heart of Eugene Weekly. This year, that meant launching our popular weekly Activist Alert column, after many of you told us there was no single, reliable place to find information about rallies, meetings and ways to get involved. You asked. We responded.

We’ve also continued to deepen the coverage that sets Eugene Weekly apart, including our in-depth reporting on local real estate development through Bricks & Mortar — digging into what’s being built, who’s behind it and how those decisions shape our community.

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None of this happens by accident. It happens because readers step up and say: this matters.

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Thank you for standing with us!