IE: Did the Wheel Of Chance [a device that will dictate the structure of this month's Yo La Tengo tour] come out during your Hanukkah shows?
Ira Kaplan: No. The wheel will be making its debut. We only spin it once. It’ll tell us what to do for the first 40 minutes. I think there’s eight different possibilities for the first set. It’ll determine format – not song-by-song – so we’re just preparing ourselves for any eventuality.

IE: So it’s nothing too complicated.
IK: It’s actually fairly complicated. [Laughs.] The spinning of the wheel won’t be complicated.

IE: Where did the idea come from?
IK: I can’t say specifically, but I think [Kaplan's side-project] Condo Fucks had a big role in it, in that we kind of did and didn’t want to go on tour and were looking for a way that we could do that. Similarly, The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo was another thing we enjoyed, but didn’t want to do another tour that way right away. [Yet] we also didn’t feel like hanging it up in the closet.

IE: Have you seen other bands attempt anything similar?
IK: Not that I can think of. People have referenced the Elvis Costello show where he would spin the wheel. I never saw it, but my understanding was that had actual songs on it, and they would spin it to determine the next [one]. Our wheel will probably be smaller. We can’t afford those big production values.

IE: It’ll have value after the tour.
IK: Actually, we’re borrowing it. It’s a good deal for us. [New Jersey-based radio station] WFMU has a wheel that they use at their record fair and fundraising marathon.

IE: So you need to protect it.
IK: Yes, there will be no Who-style antics. At the last show, we won’t finish with “My Generation” and destroy it.

IE: What about next for the band, new-music-wise?
IK: I think one of the reasons we’re not working on songs constantly is we like what happens when we take a break and then come back. Interrupting the process shakes things up in a way we enjoy. In that sense, not writing/not working on songs is sort of a form of working on them. It’s always leading its way in as meandering a way as we dare – to writing new songs. I have a feeling that’s coming when we give the wheel back to WFMU.

Yo La Tengo play Metro on February 4th. Popular Songs (Matador) is available now. Q&A by Steve Forstneger. Photo Credit: Jesper Eklow

As the Hoboken-based indie-rock veterans Yo La Tengo cruised through “Sugarcube” Tuesday night, it was hard not to think of the song’s video and think that this band still haven’t learned to rock properly.

Ira Kaplan has come furthest along, though his dissonant “solos” still come off like a man frustrated at his guitar cable shorting out than a weedly-deedly flurry of notes. James McNew stares at his keyboard like he’s peering under a car hood for the first time, and Georgia Hubley’s understated drumming makes Low’s Mimi Parker look like Animal the Muppet.

By not making any song seem special (the night’s other audience concession, “Tom Courtenay,” was performed as the alternate-take, Hubley-sung version), however, Yo La Tengo have arranged it so they can play the majority of a new album and everyone goes home happy. And so it was with the ironically titled Popular Songs (Matador), through which they moved from the Curtis Mayfield-meets-Zeppelin darkness of “Here To Fall”; the placid serenity of 10-minute instrumental “More Stars Than There Are In Heaven”; and the Motown stroll of “If It’s True.”

Their range of material was stunning as always, whether the loping pop of McNew’s “I’m On My Way,” the guitar meltdowns in “Flying Lesson,” or managing to cover Devo without going near “Whip It.” Even between songs Kaplan refused to stick to one persona, interrupting his outward geekiness to take a shot at the Chicago Cubs. Yo La Tengo’s rock might not always be right, but it’s got some nasty.

– Steve Forstneger

While we’re still waiting for Pitchfork to hire one of the black-metal bands they wrote so much about in 2008, there is a change in store for this weekend’s festival that proves they’re paying attention.

Last year continued the All Tomorrow’s Parties “Don’t Look Back” series, in which veteran bands revisit a classic recording. In 2007, that meant Sonic Youth playing Daydream Nation, Slint doing Spiderland, and Gza recreating Liquid Swords. Fifty-two (or so) weeks later we got Public Enemy (with a newly VH1′d Flava Flav) and It Takes A Nation Of Millions, Sebadoh and the questionably honored Bubble & Scrape, and an underwhelming offer of Mission Of Burma and Vs.

Instead, 2009 has “Write The Night,” for which ticketholders could vote on sets for Tortoise, Built To Spill, The Jesus Lizard, and Yo La Tengo. Competition with Lollapalooza has put strain on the rest of the weekend, which is bravely headlined by repeaters The National, Grizzly Bear, and The Walkmen, but also one of the premier outdoor-festival bands in The Flaming Lips.

Pitchfork, per its name, should be more about the breaking and unknowns, of which there are many. They lost the bidding for Yeasayer last summer, but the band’s lo-fi Peter Gabriel-ness should translate better in Union Park. Fellow Saturday bands Plants & Animals, Cymbals Eat Guitars, Bowerbirds, and The Antlers tweak known-quantity indie-rock formulae (psychedelia, Up Records, indie pop, and loneliness, respectively) and it’s not an afternoon without abrasions suffered from Fucked Up, Wavves, and Pains Of Being Pure At Heart.

(Only two substantial hip-hop acts this year as well: MF Doom and Pharoahe Monch.)

Sunday represents a more standardized indie-rock lovefest, with M83, Vivian Girls, The Thermals, Blitzen Trapper, Frightened Rabbit, and Mew. But the most pleasant surprise is the return of Chicago’s duellin’ basses Dianogah.