Yo La Tengo (Spanish for "I've got it"; also abbreviated as YLT) is an American indie rock band formed in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1984. Since 1992, the lineup has consisted of Ira Kaplan (guitars, piano, vocals), Georgia Hubley (drums, piano, vocals), and James McNew (bass, vocals). In 2015, original guitarist Dave Schramm rejoined the band and appeared on their fourteenth album, Stuff Like That There.
Despite achieving limited mainstream success, Yo La Tengo has been called "the quintessential critics' band" and maintains a strong cult following.
History
Formation and early history, 1984–1985
Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley formed the band as a couple in 1984. They chose the name Yo La Tengo, Spanish for "I have it". The name came from a baseball anecdote from the 1962 season, when New York Mets center fielder Richie Ashburn and shortstop Elio Chacón collided in the outfield. When Ashburn went for a catch, he would yell, "I got it! I got it!" only to run into Chacón, a Venezuelan who spoke only Spanish. Ashburn learned to yell, "Yo la tengo! Yo la tengo!" instead. In a later game, Ashburn happily saw Chacón backing off. He relaxed, positioned himself to catch the ball, and was run over by left fielder Frank Thomas, who understood no Spanish and had missed a team meeting that proposed using the words "Yo la tengo!" as a way to avoid outfield collisions. After getting up, Thomas asked Ashburn, "What the hell is a yellow tango?"
Kaplan and Hubley placed an advertisement to recruit other musicians who shared their love for bands such as the Soft Boys, Mission of Burma, and Arthur Lee's Love. Kaplan was credited as "naive guitar" on the sleeve, and in the liner notes for the 1993 reissue of the album on City Slang Records, went so far as to say "Dave's guitar playing is inarguably the best thing about the record."
Schramm and Lewis left the band after the album's release, with Kaplan subsequently taking on the role of lead guitar and Stephan Wichnewski joining to play bass. The group's next album New Wave Hot Dogs (1987) sold poorly, but, per Deming, "was a quantum leap over the sound of their debut." Produced by Gene Holder of The dB's, the album was the band's last release on Coyote. Despite the album's positive reception, sales were still poor and Wichnewski left the band not long after. Hubley and Kaplan carried on as a duo and began playing two-electric-guitar shows.
Bar/None and Alias Records, 1990–1992
Yo La Tengo reunited with Dave Schramm in 1990 to record Fakebook, an album of mostly acoustic tunes, including covers of Cat Stevens, Gene Clark, the Kinks, Daniel Johnston, among others. It also featured five original songs, including an acoustic version of "Barnaby, Hardly Working". Again produced by Gene Holder, the album's folk sound was a change of pace for the band. Years later, Kaplan recalled that the album was "just me and Georgia looking for an excuse to record with Dave Schramm and Al Greller" who played guitar and double bass on the album, respectively.
In 1991, with Dave Schramm in tow, Yo La Tengo collaborated with Daniel Johnston on the song "Speeding Motorcycle" which was released as a single. The band also released a 7" single on Bar/None Records with the song "Walking Away from You" backed with a cover of Beat Happening's "Cast a Shadow." Gene Holder produced the single and played the bass. The That Is Yo La Tengo EP released later that year included some tracks that would end up on the group's next LP.
After the release of That Is Yo La Tengo, James McNew (who also records under the solo moniker Dump) began playing bass with the band, forming the trio that continues to make up the band today. According to McNew,
The band recorded May I Sing with Me in Boston with Holder producing and Lou Giordano engineering. The album was released on Alias Records in 1992. Three of the album's eleven songs ("Swing for Life", "Out the Window" and "Five-Cornered Drone") were carried over from the That Is Yo La Tengo EP and feature Holder on bass. The Upside-Down EP was released on CD in support of the album, rounding out the band's releases on Alias.
Early Matador period, 1993–2000
In 1993, Yo La Tengo began their partnership with Matador Records, releasing a 7" and CD5 of the song "Shaker" which the band recorded with John Siket in New Jersey. The following LP, 1993's Painful, was also the beginning of the band's fruitful creative partnership with producer Roger Moutenot, who has produced all of their subsequent albums up until 2013's Fade, which was produced by John McEntire. Painful is the first Yo La Tengo album to feature James McNew on every song. Ira Kaplan explains:
Rob Sheffield, writing in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide remarked that McNew "became an essential part of the sound on Painful, the 1993 album that kept every promise Yo La Tengo ever made and blew their previous highlights away." Critical reaction was quite positive, with reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine calling it "a subtly addicting album." Robert Christgau also praised the group once again, writing in his review that Yo La Tengo is "always friendly. This is not the forbidding experimentation of an aspiring vanguard. This is the fooling around of folks who like to go out on Saturday night and make some noise—and then go home humming it." a Warhol-associated band to whom Yo La Tengo were often compared in their early years.
The band's 1997 LP I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One synthesized the group's eclectic combination of folk, punk rock, shoegazing, long instrumental noise-jams, and electronic music into a sprawling, multi-faceted style. Critical reaction was extremely positive; Pitchfork awarded the album a 9.7 out of 10, and AllMusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it was "arguably Yo La Tengo's finest and most coherent album to date." Kaplan recalled a turning point in the band's musical progression: