Ira Kaplan vs. Neil Hagerty

ylt is the worst, pretty much. trux for life.

Never liked the Trux very much.

that's ok, they're not for everyone. there are a couple ylt songs i like ("tony orlando's house", "little eyes") but mostly they sound so unobjectionable and milquetoast.. but in a creepy narc/c.i. kind of way. is kaplan really considered a great guitar player?

Idk I consider him pretty great. Hagerty might be better though

Feel like Pablo and Andrea and Blue Line Swinger are both pretty awesome guitar workouts

he gets good tone, i'll give him that

YLT are a bit too droney to really fuck with tricky rhythm guitar parts (which I kind of almost blame Mc New for tbh) but Kaplan as a lead player seems to exhibit an aptitude towards both melodicism and, erm, amelodicism, which I feel is semi-rare (though obv Hagerty is someone else who is very good at both, and tbh I might actually like him more. I def think Neil is a bit more interesting as a songwriter and that Trux albums tend to be more cerebrally compelling)

Kaplan is deft at synthesising a range of indie guitar approaches - REM jangle, Spacemen 3 drone, shoegazey wash, SY noise - but he's nowhere as distinctive or as freaky as Hagerty. Kaplan's a bit too much of a self-concsiously tasteful rock librarian nerd to go either full on funky or sleazy like Hagerty, and he could never come up with a solo as sky-scrapingly beautiful as that on Trux's Stevie. I could never see Kaplan having the wit to deploy some of the cheesy effects Hagerty turns to gold either (that insane step delay and phase cycle he has on Yo Se! for example)
Sounds like I'm shitting on Kaplan here, but at his best he's a total demon and I've enjoyed his epic freakouts at live shows. I also ripped him off in my old indie band no end. But in my old age, I'm much less attracted to 'good taste' and indie politeness. Gimme Haggerty's wonky boogie any day.

Yeah, Kaplan's epic freakouts are a good point. I've never been to a YLT show but I've been watching live clips on Youtube all weekend, and let me tell you, after the sixth live version of Deeper Into Movies I was ready to proclaim in the nebbish-Jewish Makoto Kawabata. To be able to credibly come across like that and still have the soft-rock singer-songwriter mode nailed down is really special imo, however in thrall to rock history he might be (lol like Kawabata isn't?)

*to proclaim HIM *ahem*

But yeah you're right, still doesn't quite match the Trux, who are incredibly unique

I saw YLT four times over about 10 years and the guitar freakouts were less energetic and less interesting each time. But dang, Kaplan really tore it up in 2000. I guess I should listen to something by the Trux someday.

That said, I was pretty bored by a recent Hagerty gig. I really dug that live album, but I just wasn't feeling his wonky polka boogie, great as that sounds on paper. Didn't help that there were stuck behind a creepy guy staring at my friend throughout. That definitely harshed my buzz. I definitely think he needs Herema to bring out the best in him though.

*help that WE were stuck*

kaplan is tasteful, hagerty is all-time

i get that self-satisfied vibe from ylt too nowadays, don't like them as much as i used to. kaplan has a couple of cool lovely sounding tricks but hagerty is a truly inventive freaky genius.

wmc listen to this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSL59YgCPak

Hag all the way. YLT is nice and all but Hagerty is possibly the best/most consistently inventive and unpredictable guitarist of his generation.

Only guy in his league is michio kurihara

Nice! I, uh, don't know how much of a challop this is, but there is a lot of Zappa in that solo/those solos.

xxp

hag for me

Not the biggest YLT fan but never got into RT at all, love the album Fakebook plus scattered other stuff and got the impression recently that Ira's hearing is Lind of messed up so him.

i had to look up who Neil Michael Hagerty is, so piss on this poll.

Lol

yeah everybody i've never heard of sucks too.

i had to snort 500mg of horny goat weed to make it through 1/4 of a yo la tengo album

You will meet Pavement

vote hagerty because I hear Kaplan chews with his mouth open

Voted Kaplan. With the exception of "Sleeping Pill" (the best thing YLT has ever done), Kaplan's greatest moments have never been captured on record. For at least a few months in the mid-90s, he was Jimi Hendrix, Derek Bailey, and Frank Wright all rolled into one.

Haha I was just thinking this weekend, that if I had to explain YLT with someone completely unfamiliar with indie rock, I would probably say "think Jimi Hendrix but sweeter and more lovey-dovey"

I dont think I could explain Trux to anyone completely unfamiliar with indie rock

Hendrix??? Yikes, I'm out.

The Jimi Hendrix of indie rock is a phrase I literally would have never thought would be applied to Ira Kaplan (and YLT is fine although I can't imagine feeling need to pull out one of their records).

I actually saw Hegarty solo a while back and I literally have no memory of it.

cool post

I'm actually trying to figure out if I saw him play Earth Junk or Rogue Moon (apparently he played each in back to back sets). My mind is seriously a sieve. Whichever I saw it definitely made me nostalgic for Royal Trux.

Im not saying he's the Hendrix of indie rock, I'm saying Hendrix is a not-terrible reference point for anyone who knows fuck-all about indie, ie most ppl

they don't sound like hendrix though, why not just say r.e.m. or something

Kaplan will be the first to tell you he is imitating Tara Key of Antietam with his soloing, but he definitely brings his own thing along.

is kaplan really considered a great guitar player?

don't know if he is considered a great guitar player but he is a great guitar player. cf from 3:00 on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr0-njPFWJ0

Im not saying he's the Hendrix of indie rock, I'm saying Hendrix is a not-terrible reference point for anyone who knows fuck-all about indie, ie most ppl

It's a pretty terrible reference since most of the stuff that Hendrix is famous for (pretty much revolutionizing guitar or at least being huge influential, first power trio, one of the first interracial bands, jazz collaborations, died pretty young) Ira Kaplan is decidedly not.

still, i might have to vote hagerty because
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-OLldU8Vi8

I dig a few YLT albums but Trux is probably in my all-time top five, and Hagerty is still doing interesting stuff. Haven't heard a new YLT album since the early 2000s, though, TBRH.

It's a pretty terrible reference since most of the stuff that Hendrix is famous for (pretty much revolutionizing guitar or at least being huge influential, first power trio, one of the first interracial bands, jazz collaborations, died pretty young) Ira Kaplan is decidedly not.

Like, I can't even

(Conversation with someone who has never heard of the Velvet Underground)

Me: well, if I had to describe [some psych-noise act, not necessarily YLT], I guess I would say they kinda sound like Hendrix...
Other Person: what, you mean they're bi-racial, and also the first power trio?
Me: uh.....
Other Person: I mean, they died young, though, right?

That said, now that I've given it some thought, I now think there's probably no situation ever where comparing YLT or Kaplan solely to Hendrix isn't probably at least a little daft, so mission accomplished, I guess

yeah i don't think the hendrix comparison point is unfair, but if someone hadn't heard of the velvet underground i probably wouldn't be recommending yo la tengo to them

Thats fair enough

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

for me 'the hendrix of this time' just really means 'the best at the time' and that's it, no need to think about it too much. i'm with you Drugs.

Lol I appreciate the sentiment but I didn't mean it like that, and I would've voted for Neil if I hadn't lost interest in this thread...

Neil is the best: http://thetalkhouse.com/music/talks/neil-hagerty-royal-trux-pussy-galore-talks-justin-biebers-purpose/

poll is a bit of a banana question imho. both these dudes rule. cannot begin to relate to sentiments upthread that ira is milquetoast, except to imagine having grown up in a trustfundie hipster commune that played only white light / white heat, the shaggs, 1/2 gentlemen not beats and twin infinitives simultaneously 24/7

more like live dead, live rust and abraxas 24/7 but nice guess

if YLT aren't milquetoast, we may as well just retire the word

xp meaning it doesn't take an amalgamation of 3 noise rock albums to come up with something orders of magnitude less milquetoast that ylt, just grab any random 3 good rock records

I love Ira, I've never knowingly heard RT/Hagerty. But I've got a lot of room in my life for great guitarists so I'm going to have to do some investigating.

this thing with bardo pond they did is so milquetoast

https://threelobed.bandcamp.com/album/parallelogram-4

I hear a lot of I Heard Her Call My Name in Ira's guitar-playing and it is righteous

Disappointed to see that it's a split LP not a collab. Still looks worth checking out.
xpost

love it if it were a collaboration. ira going full skronk meltdown with the gibbons boys would be epic (if totally milquetoast)

I hear a lot of I Heard Her Call My Name in Ira's guitar-playing and it is righteous

― please don't shampoo your eyes (stevie), Sunday, November 22, 2015 4:26 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I saw YLT play this for an encore in 1994. It was the last in a series of seemingly impossible peaks in a show I will never, ever forget.

No one who saw YLT in the 90s could or would describe them as "milquetoast." They were untouchable/unstoppable.

He's an insanely wonderful guitar player imo. His live freakouts are always the highlights of the many sets of theirs I've seen (though I also have a soft spot for the ambient excursions of the era when they'd jam on Night Falls On Hoboken for ages) and We're An American Band contains perhaps the most perfect guitar solo I've ever heard.

As for Hagerty, the sunblasted noodling throughout Back To School is equally genius, and Trux's Cats & Dogs is one of my favourite LPs of all time.

Anyone who uses the phrase "milquetoast" who isn't simultaneously picking a fight with Hells Angels or lighting a crack-pipe on the discharge of a jet-engine is a hopeless hypocrite imo, and I include myself in this.

Ira is on WTF/Maron tomorrow

I wonder what his take on the new Bieber album will be

I hear a lot of I Heard Her Call My Name in Ira's guitar-playing

One time at Maxwell's, I had way too much to drink and went up to Ira Kaplan and started explaining to him how YLT was better than The Velvet Underground. The crux of my thesis was there were only 4 VU albums, but YLT has several times that. Just so many more good songs. He seemed VERY amused by my argument, but not convinced.

He's a humble man, and no mistake.

They're both aces on the ax but I dunno, I just feel Neil more. I regularly get lost in the soundscape of Cats And Dogs.