Pitchfork media Wrote:
Yo La Tengo Murder the Classics for a Good Cause
Kati Llewellyn reports:
Every year, countless people across the world fall into dunk tanks, compete on celebrity game shows, and go door-to-door selling wrapping paper, all in the name of charity. Yo La Tengo are no exception. Ever since 1996, they have made appearances on the New York City-area community radio station WFMU as part of the station's annual fund drives. Listeners pledging money to 91.1 FM buy themselves a request for Yo La Tengo to play a song of their choice, and then Yo La Tengo valiantly attempt to honor that request. Sometimes it's a success, most of the time it's a miserable failure.
Now, the band have released a CD, Yo La Tengo is Murdering the Classics, documenting their WFMU covers from 1996-2003. The disc is available through mail order via Yo La Tengo's website, where it is described as "a Best-of, or Best-of-the-Worst, or Worst-of-the-Best, or... oh, what's the use, it's dreadful."
Death by stereo:
01 "Tighten Up" (Archie Bell and the Drells)
02 "The Night Chicago Died" (Paper Lace)
03 "Raw Power" (The Stooges)
04 "Sea Cruise" (Huey "Piano" Smith)
05 "Favorite Thing" (The Replacements)
05 "Baseball Altamont" (Ned Hayden-Philip Shelley)
07 "Meet the Mets" (Bill Katz-Ruth Roberts)
08 "Oh Bondage, Up Yours!" (X-Ray Spex)
09 "Ding Dang" / "Interplanetary Music" (Brian Wilson-Roger McGuinn / Sun Ra)
10 "Captain Lou" (NRBQ)
11 "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'" (Lou Reed)
12 "Route 66" (Bobby Troup)
13 "Roadrunner" (Jonathan Richman)
14 "Tijuana Taxi" (Ervan Coleman)
15 "Mendocino" / "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (Doug Sahm / Burt Bacharach)
16 "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (Eurythmics)
17 "Baby's on Fire" (Brian Eno)
18 "Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand" (The Who)
19 "The Hokey Pokey" (Larry Laprise-Taftt Baker-Charles Macak)
20 "You May Be Right" (Billy Joel)
21 "Mama Told Me" (Not to Come) (Randy Newman)
22 "Roundabout" (Yes)
23 "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" (Bachman-Turner Overdrive)
24 "Don't Worry, Kyoko" (Mummy's Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow) (Yoko Ono)
25 "Downtown" (Petula Clark)
26 "Let the Good Times Roll" (Shirley Goodman-Leonard Lee)
27 "Never on Sunday" (Manos Hadjidakis-Billy Towne)
28 "20th Century Boy" (T. Rex)
29 "Rock the Boat" (Hues Corporation)
30 "Shotgun" (Junior Walker and the All-Stars)
Medley: "My Sharona" (The Knack), "Mr. Apollo" (Bonzo Dog Band), "Sonic Reducer" (Dead Boys), "God Only Knows" (Beach Boys), "If and When/The Summer Sun" (Chris Stamey), "Schizophrenia" (Sonic Youth), "Another Girl, Another Planet" (The Only Ones), "Bedazzled" (Peter Cook-Dudley Moore)
Only $13 with shipping at the YLT website. I bought it, but Im a sucker.