Eighties indie rockers to host mini S.F. residency
Yo La Tengo is a true rock 'n' roll love story.
The New Jersey indie rock band was formed in 1984 by vocalist/guitarist Ira Kaplan and vocalist/percussionist Georgia Hubley, who linked up after spotting each other out and about at record shops and concerts. They got married three years after starting the band and have been together ever since.
While the band has seen a few members come and go over the years, Kaplan and Hubley have been staples since the beginning. The group released its first LP, 'Ride the Tiger,' in 1986, and began to establish more of a following with its third release, 'President Yo La Tengo' (1989). It has been widely celebrated for its experimental incorporation of shoegaze, R&B and country sounds in its rock music foundation ever since.
For decades, Yo La Tengo has been steadily rolling out albums, and now the group is set to take on a mini residency at the Chapel in San Francisco from Friday-Saturday, May 9-10, and Monday-Tuesday, May 12-13, giving Bay Area fans four days to catch them live.
Yo La Tengo: 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, May 9-10; 8:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, May 12-13. Tickets start at $170. The Chapel, 777 Valencia St., S.F. 415-551-5157.
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San Francisco Chronicle
26-04-2025
- San Francisco Chronicle
Eighties indie rockers to host mini S.F. residency
Yo La Tengo is a true rock 'n' roll love story. The New Jersey indie rock band was formed in 1984 by vocalist/guitarist Ira Kaplan and vocalist/percussionist Georgia Hubley, who linked up after spotting each other out and about at record shops and concerts. They got married three years after starting the band and have been together ever since. While the band has seen a few members come and go over the years, Kaplan and Hubley have been staples since the beginning. The group released its first LP, 'Ride the Tiger,' in 1986, and began to establish more of a following with its third release, 'President Yo La Tengo' (1989). It has been widely celebrated for its experimental incorporation of shoegaze, R&B and country sounds in its rock music foundation ever since. For decades, Yo La Tengo has been steadily rolling out albums, and now the group is set to take on a mini residency at the Chapel in San Francisco from Friday-Saturday, May 9-10, and Monday-Tuesday, May 12-13, giving Bay Area fans four days to catch them live. Yo La Tengo: 9 p.m. Friday-Saturday, May 9-10; 8:30 p.m. Monday-Tuesday, May 12-13. Tickets start at $170. The Chapel, 777 Valencia St., S.F. 415-551-5157.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Yahoo
The Everlasting Cool of My Uncle, Garage Rock Trailblazer Larry Tamblyn
I grew up in a bohemian household in Southern California where icons of the literary, film, and music worlds would often converge. On any given evening, there might be a noted author in our living room reading something they'd just written, or a titan of the fine arts drinking whiskey with my parents at the dinner table. These guests were friends of my parents, one of whom is the actor and artist Russ Tamblyn. As a kid, I knew them to be godfather-type figures — Dean Stockwell, Dennis Hopper, and Neil Young among them — whose presence informed my own life as an artist. But out of all the cool people I was fortunate to grow up around, the coolest of the cool was by far my dad's little brother, my uncle Larry. Larry Tamblyn was born in Los Angeles in 1943 to performer parents who toured the Orpheum Circuit together in their heyday. Both my father and uncle would go on to follow in their parents' artistic footsteps in different ways. While my dad became a young movie star of the studio system era, signed under contract to MGM and starring in films such as West Side Story, my uncle Larry became a talented keyboardist who was deeply immersed in the budding underground scene known as garage rock — a precursor to what would eventually be called punk. More from Rolling Stone Lost 1980s Indie Rock Pioneers Salem 66 Are Getting Their Moment in the Sun Larry Tamblyn, Keyboardist for 'Dirty Water' Garage Rock Pioneers the Standells, Dead at 82 Ed Sheeran Plays Surprise Set at Boston Pub for St. Patrick's Day In the 1960s, Larry was a founding member of the Standells, who would become one of the most influential garage rock bands in the U.S. The music they made has been cited as a key influence by everyone from the Ramones to the Sex Pistols to present-day musicians like my friends in Yo La Tengo. In 2012, Yo La Tengo performed at my wedding, and asked if my uncle would come on stage to perform a Standells song with them, which he did. This week, I reached out to Yo La Tengo's lead vocalist, Ira Kaplan, to ask him about any thoughts from that night. Ira told me that getting to play with my uncle that night was 'a surreal and special moment' for him and the whole band. In 1965, the Standells released their most famous song, 'Dirty Water,' a mock tribute of sorts to the city of Boston with a hypnotic and memorable guitar riff. It did well on the Billboard charts and catapulted their unruly rock & roll sound into the mainstream. The song became an anthem of the working class and misfits of all kinds, as well as the official victory song of the Boston Red Sox, and it still gets radio play in New England to this day. The Standells even reunited in 2004 to perform at the World Series in Boston, which was the year they won, and I like to think it was the magic of my uncle that had a little something to do with breaking the 86-year-no-win curse. (That, and probably seven shutout innings by Pedro Martinez.) The Standells also recorded 'Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White' (which I can guarantee every guy who ever worked for Vice knows the lyrics to). Over the decades, these songs have been treated with incredible reverence by other artists, something I learned about while discovering punk music myself as a teenager. In the Nineties, while on a road trip with my dad, I asked to play a song for him by my favorite punk band, Minor Threat. As their cover of 'Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White' began, my dad laughed. 'You know whose song this is?' he asked. 'Yeah, Dad, it's Ian MacKaye,' I said like a little know-it-all who clearly knew nothing. 'No,' he smiled. 'It's your uncle's.' The Standells were the original cool band, informing culture in ways that would go on for generations. They performed in cult classic films like Riot on Sunset Strip, and even appeared in an episode of The Munsters. They may have dressed and looked like the Beatles, but they sounded like something far more far out. When garage rock gave way to the age of disco, Larry pivoted, refusing to be pigeonholed. He turned his skills as a keyboardist and songwriter toward full orchestrations, teaching himself how to use Pro Tools and other audio engineering software to create his own scores for everything from audiobooks and films, to interesting side hustles (one of them being a song for a comedy sketch written by my husband, David Cross). Once, during a particularly resistance-fueled punk rock period of my own teenage years, I was sent to stay at my aunt and uncle's house for a week after some truly heinous behavior on my part. I remember being outraged at being forced to stay there, but also unexpectedly intrigued by my uncle's music studio: a nest of instruments and gear that would make even the biggest music geek salivate. My uncle showed me his massive keyboard, with buttons and functions for creating whole orchestral symphonies, something more intricate and impressive than anything I'd ever seen. He showed me how it all worked while playing me some of his songs. I like to think that he saw some version of himself and my dad brewing in me at that young age — the lineage of the bad boy of Hollywood's golden age and the godfather of punk. As I grew older and came to appreciate him more and more, we connected over more than just music, but over the inherently punk rock topics of politics, resistance, and activism, too. My uncle was a progressive, through and through, and a feminist at heart. During the #MeToo Movement in 2017, I was writing a lot about gender inequality, and abuse and harassment in the workplace, across industries. My uncle Larry was always one of the first people I knew to share anything I wrote on his infamous amongst friends and family Facebook page (if you know, you know) or yell from the rooftops how proud of me he was for using my voice in the ways that I did. My uncle Larry passed away last Friday at the age of 82 after a formidable battle with a rare blood cancer called MDS (which he was able to fight in the way he did in large part due to the support, financially and otherwise, of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society). When that fight finally came to its end for my uncle, he was surrounded by his six kids and his wife of three decades, the actress Glenda Chism-Tamblyn. 'Larry's love of family, life, and music was boundless; he was a noble warrior til the very end,' Glenda said to me recently. 'It was my greatest blessing to be his wife.' Larry was the epitome of punk rock and what it stands for — to fight for yourself and your art and unapologetically make waves doing it — right up until the very end of his life. That's a legacy to be proud of. When I called my parents' house just after my uncle passed away, my dad answered the phone. He sounded unfamiliar, almost childlike. I asked him how he was doing. 'I lost my little brother today,' he said to me. 'I know. The cool Tamblyn,' I said, trying to make him laugh a little. But it wasn't a joke. In many ways, it's the truth; my uncle Larry was the cool one in the family, who had done so much for music and American culture in such a unique and profound way. Both Dad and I know it, and everyone who knew my uncle and loved his music knows it, too. Amber Tamblyn is a third-generation Angeleno; the author of seven books across genres, including the bestselling novel 'Any Man'; the creator of the popular Substack newsletter Listening in the Dark; an Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actress; and an award-winning director. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
CBS News
13-02-2025
- CBS News
Celebrated Bay Area songwriter Chuck Prophet plays Valentine's show at the Chapel
Beloved SF raconteur and guitarist Chuck Prophet plays a special Valentine's set of songs backed by a string quartet at the Chapel Friday night. Born in the Southern California town of Whittier and raised the Bay Area suburbs, Prophet first came to fame in the mid-1980s after joining the country-influenced neo-psychedelic band Green On Red when the group relocated to Los Angeles from Tuscon, Arizona. The band would record it's landmark Enigma Records effort Gas Food Lodging, earning the group accolades in the U.S. and Europe and a major label deal with Mercury. While the band continued to receive critical acclaim for the vivid character studies and rootsy country psychedelia heard on 1987's The Killer Inside Me and Stones-flavored Here Come the Snakes two years later, by 1992 the group had called it quits. That freed Prophet up to pursue his solo songwriting career that he started with his first recording Brother Aldo in 1990. Mixing modern lo-fi sensibilities with his storytelling songs and swampy roots influences, Prophet released a string of celebrated albums during the 1990s including the semi-autobiographical Homemade Blood and the clanking, Tom Waits-tinged The Hurting Business. The songwriter's contemporaries took notice of his skills as a tunesmith, with the likes of Texas punk-roots singer Alejandro Escovedo, rock band Heart and blues great Solomon Burke covering his songs. Early in the 2000s, Prophet convened the first line-up of his backing band the Mission Express, a crew that drew on some of the finest players in the city. The songwriter continued his solid hitting streak, releasing more critically lauded albums such as the eclectic Soap and Water in 2007 and his more recent triumphs like the historical San Francisco travelogue Temple Beautiful in 2012 and the character-driven Night Surfer two years later. The gifted guitarist released his acclaimed effort Bobby Fuller Died For Your Sins on Yep Roc Records in 2017, earning another round of ecstatic reviews. Self-described by Prophet as "California noir," the songs on the collection ruminate on mortality whether lamenting SFPD officer-involved shooting victim "Alex Nieto" or paying respects to David Bowie and other passed legends on "Bad Year For Rock And Roll." While his most recent recording for Yep Rock -- entitled The Land That Time Forgot -- came out in 2020 during the height of the pandemic, Prophet has maintained a steady pace of activity with online and in-person concerts showcasing the evocative new tunes including the wistful lament "High As Johnny Thunders" and the pointed salvo directed at former President Trump, "Get Off the Stage." Prophet has also been performing as part of the Casual Coalition, a collective of Bay Area all-stars including members of Mother Hips, Phil Lesh & Friends and Stu Allen and the Mars Hotel playing music from Bob Dylan's landmark late '60s recordings with the Band that eventually saw partial release in 1975 as The Basement Tapes. The ensemble appeared at the Huichica Music Festival in 2019 and has reconvened for a number of local performances since. Prophet made a sobering announcement last year when he confirmed that he had been diagnosed with lymphoma and was undergoing treatment. While the diagnosis forced the singer to cancel a number of shows, he returned to the live stage this past summer, delivering the kind of performances that have made him a Northern California institution. Late last year, Prophet and the Mission Express also released their first proper live document, a fiery 2LP recording of a concert in Paris showcasing the songwriter's later work that was originally only available as a CD sold on tour in Europe. This past October, the songwriter released a new album for Yep Rock that stands as a major stylistic departure: a collaboration with cumbia group ¿Qiensave? entitled Wake the Dead. Formed from jam sessions with the group in their hometown of Salinas during his lymphoma recovery, the songs heard on Wake the Dead run the gamut from sharp social commentary ("In the Shadows (For Elon)" and "Sally Was a Cop") to Prophet's trademark vivid, character-driven tales of loss and redemption ("Sugar into Water" and "First Came the Thunder"), closing with the heartfelt celebrations of survival "It's a Good Day to Be Alive." Recorded live with ¿Qiensave? and augmented by members of the Mission Express the album has earned the songwriter some of the best reviews of his illustrious career. The songwriter showcased the tunes with his new ensemble the Cumbia Shoes for a sold-out show at the Chapel late last year. For this special Valentine's Day show, Prophet and a stripped-down trio featuring his wife and longtime bandmate Stephanie Finch (vocals/keyboards) and drummer Vincente Rodriguez reprise their live collaboration with the Make Out Quartet for the second year in a row. Prophet revisited songs from The Land That Time Forgot in 2021, featuring the same string section on a live EP that was recorded and filmed at SF Mission District bar the Make Out Room. The Friday show at the Chapel with Prophet performing a career spanning set with the same trio plus strings format, putting a cinematic twist on some of his greatest hits before he and his band head across the Atlantic for a UK tour. The group will also be playing a seated sold-out show on Saturday night at the HopMonk Tavern in Novato.
