Is Tom Courtenay your Dad?

not unlike yo la tengo on Thursday

At a Sicilian eatery James Dutton and I washed down a variety of pizza pie and mouth-watering eggplant fritters with several Sicilian ales, a bottle of superb Sangiovese, flanked by two wild and crazy girls. Actually they were sensible rock chicks who grew gradually less sensible as the night progressed (which is only sensible).

This is about Yo La Tengo though and at the Thornbury Theatre the trio sat on the lip of the stage and took our questions. My boorish blithering probably sucked the fun out of the indie rock press conference for some, perhaps even the band themselves! Questions from me not limited to:
• What’s your favourite motel chain?
• What’s your favourite chapstick?
• Ever met Alex Chilton in Bangkok?

My, their answers to these questions were perfectly droll. Ira looks just like Garry Shandling these days.
A guy stood up in a Flipper t-shirt at one point and James McNew said nice Flipper t-shirt and I blurted out play some Flipper, which of course wasn’t a question. They didn’t play any Flipper.

De Campo quickly knocked back a tequila shot at the bar to gain the fortitude to ask them what their wedding song was. It was ACTUALLY kind of cute. Then they played a fizzy tropical number which seemed appropriate to us as that’s sort of the vibe we’re gonna be investigating.

Towards the end of the night, the most sensible woman in rock asked Georgia if she had ever been a victim of a kidnapping crime. Georgia said no but I once ran from bullies who had stolen my pizza, losing my clogs which the perpetrators then threw at me!

James Dutton asked if they ever met Patty Hearst and they were like oh yeah when you arrive in the US she’s one of the first people you meet. Anyway, James and his sensible wife were fishing for Stockholm Syndrome and the band nailed it. Ira played feedback-fanging exquisite acoustic. Cool covers of Love and the Dead C. Highlights of the original variety included a godly Pass the Hatchet and a sweetly-slaying From a Motel 6. Yeah.

Never really been a fan of Yo La live. Love their records, but the expert musicianship tends to make me yawn, but last night they were folk-rock trailblazers like The Feelies. You my friend know fuck nothing, I can hear James Dutton saying now in his best David Niven. I found him and his wife schmoozing Ira at the merch desk. “Hey Ira,” I said. “What do you think of the Cannanes?”
“I like the Cannanes.”
“What’s your favourite album then?”
“Uh…uh…is?”
You mean “Love?”
“Uh-yeah…with?”
Um…Nature?”
“Nature?”
“Yes.”
“You mean, Love affair with nature!”
I then introduced Garry, I mean Ira, to the Cannanes rhythm guitarist James Dutton, thus making Ira’s vacation a 10/10.