Yo La Tengo's Ira Kaplan

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn

Jesse Thorn

Society & Culture

4.5 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2023

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ira Kaplan has played guitar and co-fronted the band Yo La Tengo for almost forty years. He founded Yo La Tengo with his wife Georgia Hubley back in 1984. They've put out over a dozen albums since then. Their latest is This Stupid World. On Bullseye, Kaplan talks about Yo La Tengo's latest album, the band's early influences and the story behind their name. Plus, Jesse and Ira discuss the kind of "old guy" musician Ira wants to be as he settles into the back half of middle age.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Bullseye with Jesse Thorne Forne. This is the story and I don't know it may be
0:27.0	apocryphal but it's a famous baseball story. In 1962, Ritchie Ashburn
0:32.4	and Aleutrachone were playing for the New York Mets, and they ran into a problem.
0:37.0	Each other.
0:39.0	Popfly after popfly they would collide on the field.
0:42.0	Ashburn, the veteran center fielder, tried to call
0:45.1	Chacon off, but still, cabump.
0:49.2	Until Ritchie found the key.
0:50.8	Chacon, who was born in Venezuela, didn't speak much English. So Ashburn switched from saying
0:57.0	I got it to saying, Yolatengo. It worked until Ashburn ran into Frank Thomas, who I guess didn't get the memo.
1:06.0	Reportedly, Thomas stood up and said,
1:10.0	What the hell is a yellow tango?
1:12.0	That story ended up being the inspiration for one of Alt Rock's great bands.
1:18.0	Yola Tango, they've been around for almost 40 years,
1:21.0	the pride of Hoboken, New Jersey.
1:23.7	The band is made up of Georgia Hubley, James McNew,
1:26.8	and my guest, Ira Kaplan.
1:29.0	They're beloved by rock critics and artsy dads far and wide, they've just released their 17th album, This Stupid
1:35.9	World.
1:36.9	Before we get into my interview with Ira, let's hear a song off the new record,
1:40.7	Fallout. Fallout. I won't tell you how it's going to be.
1:45.0	I don't have what you want from you.
	...

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