Sunday Morning Jazz and Blues

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Sunday, January 19, 2014

Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock

“The Massachusetts-born singer had seen the Velvet Underground at the Tea Party in Boston, launching the Modern Lovers in 1970 to dish out ecstatic, Velvet-loving wryness.  In Cleveland, high school students Peter Laughner and Jaime Klimek were regulars at the post-John Cale VU’s appearances at La Cave, hanging out with Lou Reed between sets.  Within a year, there was a small Ohio Underground of bands like Klimek’s Mirrors and Laughner’s Rocket from the Tombs.


Much of what Richman, Laughner, Klimek, and others felt was Maureen Tucker’s Bo Diddley-by-Babatunde Olatunji drums, thumped on a minimal kit, kick drum upturned, cymbal crashes almost entirely absent.  Her simplicity created a language that supported skiffle twangs, gentle folk, classic R&B, Reed’s tender pop, Nico’s Nordic moans, and John Cale’s fueled drone.”


p. 28-29

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