Famous UK DJ John Peel once explained why he counted The Fall as his favorite group: “They are always different; they are always the same.” Much could be said of the 25 (that’s right, hipsters, twenty-flippin’-five) year career of Yo La Tengo, whose unmalicious but complete avoidance of our town ends this Monday night.
The husband and wife team of Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, along with bassist James McNew, formed in 1984 (McNew joined in 1991) and they have been with Matador Records since 1993’s “Painful,” which the group and critics agree was the turning point after five albums into its current mature sound. Those earlier records were good, of course, but the ones that came after were fantastic, displaying an encyclopedic knowledge of music and history, blending Velvet Underground simplicity, Krautrock dronage, bucolic alt-folk and whatever strikes their fancy.