If Cody Roberts of the Associated Students of the University of Utah’s Presenter’s Office is right, then people might finally be ready for Yo La Tengo.
Roberts believes that young people are “getting sick of the stuff on the radio” and are consciously seeking out music “that is worthwhile”-music like that of genre-bending, quiet alterna-poppers Yo La Tengo.
In fact, Roberts more than believes in the desire of college kids to be exposed to music that falls outside the paltry confines of the mainstream-he’s banking on it.
As the individual responsible for signing bands and acts to perform at the U, Roberts must rely on his sense of ‘good music/bad music’ and his ability to be in touch with the tastes of his collegiate cohorts to direct student ears to quality sounds.
“I think people are tired of being force-fed bad music,” Roberts said. “Indie rock is so big right now, that whole college-rock appeal, it’s a perfect time to capitalize on that sound.”
Enter Yo La Tengo.
The genre-bending indie band is playing at the Union Ballroom on Thursday Jan. 27 (U student tickets are only $8) as part of the Presenter’s Office’s ongoing concert series. Though the band maintains a deservedly revered position amongst college-aged music-heads, the band’s tendencies can be qualified as almost anything other than conventional.
Yo La Tengo’s music isn’t quite jazz, but its inventive mystery falls well within the genre’s discipline. The band isn’t electronic, but its mechanical soundscapes retain a similar degree of digital personality. Yo La Tengo doesn’t sound exactly like anyone, but they’ve got dimensions of almost everyone.
Such paradoxes are typical of Yo La Tengo’s atypical style. Yo La Tengo is a spelunking, cave-probing outfit, a band whose sound borders on the territory of innumerable musical others, but always retains a sensibility (or lack thereof) all its own.
What is that sensibility? In line with its mystery, Yo La Tengo’s style isn’t necessarily the most easily classifiable. It pulls from Sonic Youth as equally as it does Radiohead. It is ethereal in the fashion of ambient electronica and it is earthy in its lack of artifice.
It starts with a sonic movement, something like a simple, profound chord progression or a key, and it flowers from there. Yo La Tengo songs always remain coherent, despite the band’s apparent desire to travel all of the potentially trodden musical footpaths-kind of like big, airy improv sessions undertaken by a trio of genuinely talented and psychologically connected musicians. In this way, Yo La Tengo’s music is less about its individual components than the abstract, spacious effect achieved by their interaction.
Yo La Tengo’s music is characterized by its random and unforeseeable-though rarely ill-advised-transitions and progressions. The basic foundation generally consists of distortion-fuzz or syncopated electronic beats eventually collided with breezy and come-hither vocals, courtesy of singers Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan.
The vocals are subdued, to say the least-quiet and open like a California field in October when nobody’s around. There is always a hint of secrecy in the withheld vocals, as though Hubley and Kaplan are trying to tell their listeners something they might not be totally comfortable hearing.
A far cry from its emo-indie cohorts, Yo La Tengo’s sound, though plaintive, is never pitiful. It’s kind of like the music one might expect to hear in the presence of harmonizing ghosts-chilling but not intimidating, otherworldly but always relatable. The songs are dreary, no doubt, but they are never angry-there is no angst, there is no bitter resentment, there is no feeling of under-appreciation. Yo La Tengo is evidently a band comfortable in its musical shoes, spacious and empty as they may be, and the band has not built its notoriety catering to the tastes of the masses.
However, while ceaselessly interesting and a long-time staple of the college-radio music scene, Yo La Tengo’s music is a little difficult to get into. Its off-beat nature catches some listeners off-guard and, consequently, alienating-a fact that Roberts kept in mind when he made the decision to invite Yo La Tengo to the U. “At first, we were concerned that Yo La Tengo wasn’t popular enough to sell out the ballroom and we weren’t going to be able to make our money back,” Roberts said. “Then I saw thay they were coming for Sundance and I knew it was going to be OK.”
However, bands like Yo La Tengo don’t just fall from trees-they cost money, and though the Presenter’s Office’s budget is equipped to take a few financial hits, the continuance of bringing quality acts to the U rests on students willingness to come out and support shows.
“Students need to realize that our concert series have been incredible [in the past] and that if they want us to keep brining the same caliber of [bands], we need student support,” Roberts said.
This is largely because the Presenter’s Office budget is revenue-based, as well as dependent on student fees, so the more money students help generate for concerts, the better chance they’ll have to keep seeing important, interesting bands at the U.
“We’re trying our hardest, but we need students, too,” Roberts said. “I mean, there’s no reason not to take advantage of being a student. Our school has a real problem with going to activities, and we need to change that. Even if [students] don’t know the bands that are playing, it’s only $8, why not go check it out?”
Yo La TengoJan. 27, Union BallroomDoors at 8:15 p.m.Student tickets $8, general public $18For more ticket information, call 581-7100, 355-ARTS, 1-888-451-ARTS or visit the Kingsbury Hall ticket office. Order online at www.arttix.org.