Alison Stewart: This is All of It. I'm Alison Stewart. Today is release day for Yo La Tengo's new album. They are here with us in The Green Space.

[applause]

Alison Stewart: The album titled This Stupid World is the band's 17th, and just about 40 years of consistently making great music, much of it in Hoboken, New Jersey. Pace Magazine has called the new album 'a triumph'. Stereogum described it as 'a staggering collection'. We're going to hear some songs from it shortly. Please, welcome Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew.

[applause]

Alison Stewart: Georgia, when did you start working on songs for this record?

Georgia Hubley: Oh, my. A lot of the songs are compiled from pieces of music we've had for a long time, just on tape, and I guess it wasn't really taped. We often just go dig through things that we've had for a long time, and then start building around it. The real answer is maybe five years ago, but we just continue to keep working. When we zeroed in on this record, some of it we made up on the spot, and some of it we dug through our collection of music.

Alison Stewart: Ira. You had told Pitchfork about this, it was pretty aimless at first. Eventually, the aim enters into it. When does that happen?

Ira Kaplan: I guess at some point, especially nowadays, you just have to plan everything way in advance. I read a lot about music, and you'll read about a group who went into the studio on Monday, and Friday the record came out. It's not quite like that anymore. I think we really had to go over it with the record company, with Matador a year in advance, to put out a record in December, or whenever this is coming out. When do you need it by? At that point, we start focusing and buckling down.

Alison Stewart: [laughs] James, what about this process was different from previous records?

James McNew: We did it all ourselves. It was just the three of us locked in our room in Hoboken. We have a room in a factory. It's not a factory anymore, but in a way, our room is a factory, but that's deep.

[laughter]

James McNew: It's not really a studio, it's just the room where we practice, and where we keep all our junk. It sounds good, because we have a lot of junk, and so there's not-- The room's nice and dead, and really warm-sounding. Now, we've recorded stuff there over the years, movie soundtrack stuff, little things here and there. We've recorded quite a bit of our last album, There's a Riot Going On, there. We mixed that somewhere else, but this time we did everything, just the three of us. There wasn't a fourth person involved until we took it to get mastered by Greg Calbi. That's it. It was just us.

Alison Stewart: What was that experience like for you, Georgia? Just you, youth.

Georgia Hubley: Just me. It was great.

Alison Stewart: Youth.

Georgia Hubley: Yes. [laughs].

Alison Stewart: What did you like about it?

Georgia Hubley: It was super comfortable to be just the three of us that have known each other for quite some time. I think we communicate very easily together. It just was great. I don't know how else to describe it. [laughs]

Ira Kaplan: Another thing that was different about it was because we were doing it ourselves, again, to hark back to rock history. We'll read about queen or somebody making a record. They go to the studio at one o'clock, three o'clock they break for tea, and then they come back five, or six, and work for another hour. Eventually, they put out a record, and we're working on Queen's timetable.

[laughter]

Georgia Hubley: Except for the tea part.

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Ira Kaplan: Normally, not being at their level, we can't afford that kind of thing, where you get a studio, and you're paying for it, so you're going to use it.

Alison Stewart: You're on the clock [unintelligible 00:04:29] you walk in. Yes.

Ira Kaplan: You're there for 10, or 12 hours a day, which is great. It was very different because it was our space. We would come in and would work for a few hours, and we'd go home. I don't think we really thought about how that was affecting what we were doing, but it definitely did. We were able to walk away from songs all the time, and walk away sometimes for weeks, and then come back do another. I can see why Queen did it that way.

[laughter]

James McNew: They knew what they were doing.

Alison Stewart: James, why is it called This Stupid World?

James McNew: What do you mean?

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: What do you mean, what do I mean? [laughs]

James McNew: Seems like anything and everything could be called that. Not just these days, I'm sure it's a time-honored feeling that probably cavemen had as well, just about different things.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Ira, you take turns singing leads on the tracks. How does that break down behind the scenes? Does the song come with like, "Oh, Georgia's going to do this" or--?

Ira Kaplan: No, definitely not. Our songs almost always, they definitely don't have words, and frequently, they don't have singing. Maybe one or two of these songs, the singing, the melody developed with the writing of the song. Even that's generally an afterthought. It's all taking shape together. Sometimes, the melody suggests who will sing it, and sometimes the words suggest-- the three of us sing at least one of them together, and that becomes-- It just happens slowly.

Alison Stewart: As many good things do. The name of the album is This Stupid World, however you want to put that. My guests are Yo La Tengo, Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James MacNew. James, what goes into the sequencing, and the track sequencing?

James McNew: A lot of time, a lot of experimenting. Georgia is our master sequencer for sure. I guess, mostly, we listen for what we like, and to have the songs flow together, and complement the one that came before, and get you into the one that's coming after it. It takes a lot of time, spending a lot of time with it, and getting inside of the whole story.

Alison Stewart: Georgia, what goes into the process of it? You're the master sequencer, they say.

Georgia Hubley: Yes, yes. A lot of it's just the feeling of it, but there's the puzzle aspect, which is helpful because you've got to break it down to sides for a final. How much time? You don't want to load too much time on any one side, so that is something to factor. Then, mood, and who's singing? You have a couple of things to work with, but this time we came up with so many different versions.

Alison Stewart: Versions of it. Oh, that's interesting.

Georgia Hubley: Yes. I think I won.

[laughter]

Ira Kaplan: The first part of the process is pretending that people still listen to records from start to finish.

[laughter]

Georgia Hubley: I know. Yes.

Alison Stewart: I'd like to pretend that. I don't like that world. That's not a stupid world. That's a good world.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: As I mentioned, obviously, folks know you're from Hoboken. You're from the area, stayed in the area. This might sound an obvious question. Why did you stay in the area? You could've gone someplace else. You could have gone anywhere.

Georgia Hubley: You mean to record, or--?

Alison Stewart: To live, to be.

Georgia Hubley: Yes, I know. Well, I grew up here.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Best answer of the day. I'm from Jersey, too. I understand.

Georgia Hubley: I'm actually from New York, but I don't know how many other New Yorkers feel this way, but there's something about I can't leave. I don't know. I want to, but then I always want to come back.

Alison Stewart: James, have you ever thought about leaving, or you just?

James McNew: At some point in every single day, I think about leaving. Yes, sure.

[laughter]

James McNew: It's like ugh. No, I can't. I'm from Virginia originally, and I moved to New York 30,000 years ago. When I first moved to New York, I was just like, "Ah, this is nuts. I don't want to think-- I don't know if I could do this forever. I've got to go back to Virginia." A week later it was like, "No way. I'm here, and this is it and this is where I should be." Yes.

Alison Stewart: How about for you, Ira?

Ira Kaplan: Never really thought about leaving. It's funny that the whole Hoboken thing, we think of ourselves, and always did as New Yorkers, and Hoboken is just our base of operations, and where two of us happened to live for 30 years.

[laughter]

Ira Kaplan: It's just a mere coincidence.

Georgia Hubley: Kind of is.

Alison Stewart: My guests are Yo La Tengo. The name of the new album is This Stupid World. It is out today. We're really lucky to have you guys here, because you're about to head out and tour, going to the West Coast next Wednesday. Have you gotten to road-test these songs at all, or will this be the inaugural?

[crosstalk]

Georgia Hubley: Not really, no, so it's a little nerve-wracking but we've been practicing so much.

[laughter]

James McNew: That would be obvious in just a few minutes.

[crosstalk]

Alison Stewart: What happens when you go out on the road and you play something and it's just different than you imagined it would be or how it had been in the past? Do you adjust on the fly? Is there a meeting afterward like, "This didn't work" or "this works great over here and we need to do more of that"? What happens when a song is very different in real life than it was during the creation process? James, you've gone somewhere.

[laughter]

James McNew: Yes, I sure have.

[laughter]

James McNew: Hopefully, it doesn't get too far. I think things sound different in different rooms and different stages, and not always for the best, so we're prepared for that. We have a great sound engineer that we travel with and we trust them with our lives.

Alison Stewart: [chuckles] Georgia, is there a lot of experimenting on stage when you first go out, or do you do try to stick to what's happened in the rehearsal room?

Georgia Hubley: Well, I guess we're going to find out.

[laughter]

Georgia Hubley: I think we'll mostly stick to the basic stuff of what we've done. Then I think as we get more comfortable, I'm sure things are going to change. We just don't know right now how they're going to change.

Alison Stewart: We're going to get to hear a little bit. We will do a test run after the break. Ira, what are we going to hear?

Ira Kaplan: We do treat things pretty loosely, and this is an example because all of our stuff is on its way to Seattle, our first show. We even had to borrow a guitar for this. Nothing we're going to play now really relates to how we're going to be playing them live unless we decide it does.

Alison Stewart: You like what you hear. [laughs] After the break, we're going to hear some live music from Yo La Tengo. Stay with us.

[applause]

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All of It live from The Greene Space. We have the band Yo La Tengo set up on stage to perform some songs from their brand new album which is out today titled This Stupid World. Ira, I'm going to turn it over to you.

Ira Kaplan: This is the title song from the record, and I'll just start playing and then you'll join in when you can.

[music]

Staring right in front of me

Smoke shows in the mist

Cry from laughter, cry from pain

We see what you think we see

Just as you don't, but do

Repeat as needed, repeat again

This stupid world

It's killing me

This stupid world

Is all we have

Staring in disbelief

Out of body, out of place

Blood on your fingers, but we're carefree

Can't hear a word you say

Reach for the skies

Better not be none, and none will be

This stupid world

It's killing me

This stupid world

Is all we have

This stupid world

It's killing me

This stupid world

Is all we have

[applause]

Ira Kaplan: Thanks, everybody. We thought we would pay tribute to the great Tom Verlaine-

[applause]

Ira Kaplan: -by spending as much time tuning as we do playing.

[laughter]

Ira Kaplan: See, I didn't think that joke was going to go over. It's [unintelligible 00:18:19] audience than I was expecting. It's going to the act. Almost there. Actually, I'm really not.

Georgia Hubley: Luckily, it's not a 12 string.

Ira Kaplan: Oh, technology.

James McNew: Although I'm pretty sure television did it without tuners, which made it extremely entertaining. That's good. Georgia's going to sing this one, it's called Aselestine.

[music]

Aselestine

The TV's on

I see your face

You look the same

The camera moves

The laugh track laughs

Cue applause

I cry for us

One day walking Walking on leaves

Then snow

Aselestine

Where are you?

The drugs don't do

What you said they do

The clock won't tick

I can't predict

I can't sell your books

Though you ask me to

One day walking

Walking upon leaves

And then snow

Alone again

Or time between

I wait for you

It's not the same

Push the pin

Into the map

And I find you

Aselestine

[appaluse]

Alison Stewart: You are listening to All of It on WNYC. Our guests are Yo La Tengo. They are tuning up in The Green Space. Just a quick show of hands, how many of you came to see Yo La Tengo? See, these are your people. These are your people. The next song I think was Fallout. Is that right, you're going to play?

Ira Kaplan: Yes, it is.

Alison Stewart: That was the first single that came out. Why did you choose to have Fallout be the first single? Some folks may have heard it already.

Tengo: The Matador Records proposed that.

[laughter]

Alison Stewart: Well, there you go.

Tengo: Anyone who's worked with us knows how agreeable we are.

Alison Stewart: I'd say that is true. You're on tour, when will we be seeing you in New York?

Georgia Hubley: March 18th. I think, Saturday. Brooklyn Steel.

Alison Stewart: At Brooklyn Steel. These people know what they're talking about, Brooklyn Steel on March 18th. Could you tell us a little bit what Fallout is about? Just set it up a little before we hear.

Ira Kaplan: Oh my goodness. No. I don't think I can.

Alison Stewart: All right then. I'm good.

James McNew: One, two, three.

Alison Stewart: I'm good with that. Here's Yo La Tengo.

[music]

I won't tell you how it's gonna be

I don't have what you want from me

I want to fall out of time

Reach back unwind

Before it gets too loud

Before it knocks me out

Fall out of time

Everyday it hurts to look

I'd turn away if only I could

I want to fall out of time

Hold back unwind

Before it lays me flat out of time

Before it comes to that

Makes me sick what's in my mind

It's so hard to react in kind

I want to fall out of time

Turn back unwind

Before the whole thing stops

Before the hammer drops

Fall out of time

I don't know how it's gonna be

Close your eyеs

fall out of time with me

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

Fall out of time, fall out of timе

[applause]

Alison Stewart: Thank you. Thanks so much to Yo La Tengo, to Emma Straub, Ghetto Gastro, and Jordan Carlos. Thanks to our audience in The Green Space. Thank you for being such a great audience. I'm Allison Stewart. I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you being here and I appreciate you. We'll meet you back here next time. Thanks so much.

 

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