... Feared Dead In Yo La Tengo Concert Disaster

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/27870

and it's the (I think) most recent one: I am not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

The first track is a ten-minute squall of feedback and drone (which, perversely, I quite like), but then the remainder of the tracks are simply brilliant pop songs. I'd highly recommend them - in fact, I'd like to discover more myself. They seem a highly diverse and inventive bunch of chaps

I didn't realise they had any?

They are the kind of band that magazines like The Wire (not the series!) always go on about - music for chin stroking bods who want to seem more elitist than normal non-chin stroking bods who just like music in general (see also Autechre and Boards of Canada)

My opinion (for what its worth) - steal some of it off your friends and make your own mind up, rather than spod-out on an overpriced CD that you may only play once then consign to the 'ooh look i'm cultured in my music taste' section of your CD collection!

But hey hat do i know (nothing as i'm always being reminded - you know who you are!!)

Maybe they might as its a strange old world - but a friend of mine always bangs on about them, reads the Wire and she goes to gigs where bands i've ever heard of are playing so she can look cool in front of all her students she teaches (this is true, as i once caught her listening to Girls Aloud!) and she said it was he nieces CD that shes left!!!

Ohwell, each to their own i guess!

I was at university with a girl from Bearsuit. I didn't know they were widely known

Best starting point has to be Fakebook, but it might be hard to find now though.

They played as the Factory house band (ie not at all the Velvet Underground) in "I Shot Andy Warhol"

is your friend.
Providing you live in the parts of the civilised world what can access it, like.

Start here:

http://www.owlandbear.com/tag/yo-la-tengo/

Make up your own mind.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of new on line and the used stuff creeps over the £100 mark at times. Think I'll give the comp a go but secretly hoping that I don't like it. Being a YLT fan seems to be an expensive pass-time

I would start with I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. Moby Octopad is a brilliant track and Autumn Sweater as well but the whole album's good in quiet / noisy kind of way.

The follow up And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out is a mellower proposition and worth it for the last track alone the 17 minutes of Night Falls On Hoboken plus the "disco" cover of George McRae's "You Can Have It All". I don't think they are a Wire band at all. They write really good pop songs and occasionally like to go off on 10 minute noise fests, but even these are worth a listen.

They are all on Spotify.

http://open.spotify.com/user/willdabeast/playlist/6sTOmBqqYqGBE8OHll8dSQ

This is the album for me - three or four classic tunes on there, including a drone-rock re-imagining of Grand Funk's We're An American Band, cute easy listening on My Little Corner Of The Wrold, superior country-rock on Stockholm Syndrome, and many a Sonic Youth-esque feedback wig-out. Buy it, and you'll see what the fuss is about. My guess is that you like the Fanclub, you'll get it straight away (You know the Fannies did a cover of YLT's I Heard You Looking, right?) Their remix album Danelectro is also worth a listen, particularly the Nobukazu Takemura mix.

I'd forgotten about those other tracks from I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. I also really like the samba / pop track (new genre anyone) Centre Of Gravity. I was lucky enough to see them at The Garage round the time of that record and they were brilliant.

It may seem quite perverse but I enjoy buying a cd and getting it home from the shop/ through the post, sticking the disk in and seeing if that £10 was worth it.

I'm also quite an album person so would rather hear the tracks in some kind of context than snippets here and there on You Tube, Spotify etc. That said, I'm not adverse to a good 'best of...'

Phrases like 'squalling feedback' and 'Sonic Youth-esque' get me quite excited so I think it may well be worth a punt!

... a cover of Sun Ra's Nuclear War.

They make a bunch of children sing sweary backing vocals. It's brilliant.

have always seemed a right load of cack to me. Don't suppose that really helps. Always preferred Yo Yo Ma.

Spotify, you say? Just another corner of the internet I'm going to have to brave... I am SO not good at this computer malarky.

*As if to prove my point, this is supposed to be about four places up ^there^ *

I have managed to live to (almost) 54 without having troubled a La Tengo tune before. But thanks to Spotify (insert up there, or indeed down there) I can type this AND listen to them at the same time. Interesting too.

I will not be specialising on "The Yo" on Mastermind but at least I could spot them from 10 paces in a pub quiz.

More! Throw more at me. It might stick. That Petrol Emotion? Bring it on.

Nipped into Wall of Sound on the way from work and picked up I Am Not Afraid... for £6. Then sat in a theatre for the last two hours with the album burning a hole in my bag.

Stuck it on and to my ears it's a bit Surfjan', a bit Bens Fold, a bit J&MC. All of these are good things.

I will have to work out spotify though, I'm off to check out First Aid Kit!

Up "The Yo"!