Hey this is Doug. Wanted to say how absolutely honored I feel to have been asked to take part in the Yo La Tengo annual Hanukkah celebration at Maxwell's. This was the second of 8 shows on Dec. 22nd, and since the guests each night are secret, even to other guests, I was pretty thrilled to see Magnetic Fields coming into the club and also the great John Hodgman. (check out his appearance with Tom Scharpling on "The Best Show On WFMU" in their archives - http://www.wfmu.org) 

  The rule of thumb for these shows is to play songs by writers of Jewish origin. So I thought "No Milk Today" by Graham Gouldman was ripe for the picking, and, I had done Gershwin's "A Foggy Day" in the past, so, there ya go. Ira suggested the Dictator's "Next Big Thing", so given the rare chance to try to be Ross The Boss for 3 minutes, it was a natural. 

 Not only was this a great way to sing and play for myself, but a great excuse to see a full set from Yo La Tengo and the great Magnetic Fields.

 Georgia, Ira, James, and crew are among the nicest and coolest people I've met in music, and they deserve the acclaim they've built over the last 22 or so years. It was a treat to see Stephin and Claudia sing the MF songs live, of whom I've been a fan since The Sixths project came out. They pulled out some 69 Love Songs tunes, had Georgia Hubley sing on a Sixths track, and had the crowd hangin on every well-crafted lyric.

 John Hodgman was funny, discussing double entendre Xmas lyrics, even if he missed a couple ("hung where you can see" would get my vote, for instance).

YLT -what can one say? Great set, with a few nice covers (Velvet's "Guess I'm Falling In Love" for ince). Ending with "The Story Of Yo La Tengo", Stephin Merritt came out for the first song of the encore, followed by the 3 songs I sang and played on. I had to remind myself that right then Yo La Tengo was my backing band. Pretty unbelievable. Ira Kaplan then brought his mom to the stage to sing "My Little Corner Of The World", a song made famous by (but not written by) Anita Bryant, who is an extreme Gentile.

(Its author, Lee Pockriss, wrote "Catch A Falling Star for Como, and "Johnny Angel" by Coach's Shelly Fabares - all cute but catchy tunes).

Todd-o-phonic Todd was in the house, overseeing the festivities, and occasionally bringing out food to diners. What's also notable is that 22 years ago,the band I was in, Death of Samantha , played Maxwell's a couple times and Ira Kaplan did our sound. Todd-o-phonic Todd was there too, of course.

I was hoping Jon Glaser would've been one of the guests this night, so I could play the riff from "Life In the Fast Lane" and say "Are you with me Shofar?", at which point Glaser could come out with his shofar, from the Conan skits. Wrong holiday?  Oh....

Here are some nice links to reviews of the night, starting with Ira's own blog:

 http://www.yolatengo.com/ylt/hanukkah2008diary.html

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2008/12/yo_la_tengo_joh.html

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2008/12/live_yo_la_teng.php

Next, I have to thank WFMU's Pseu Braun for posting links to audio clips of my appearance on her radio show in October. She writes an amazing blog for wfmu, and is great with them links. I can't do that sh*t.

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/12/doug-gillard-on.html

Looking forward to seeing you at the residency in january at Pianos.

Happy Holidays, everyone, and Happy New Year !!   DG

(photo by Ana Luisa Morales)

 

 

 

 

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