Yo La Tengo Collaborates with dB's Chris Stamey to Encourage Voters on January Full-Length

Chris Stamey, best known as one of two primary songwriters in the dB's classic lineup (i.e. the one that produced Stands for Decibels and Repercussion), has recorded an album with Yo La Tengo. Entitled V.O.T.E., and somehow flying beneath the radar despite the now very past-tenseness of the 2004 presidential election, the album takes its name from an unnervingly corny pro-voting jingle Public Service Announcement that is available for free download on the album's website. We get that part, even if we have serious reservations about the lyric, "If you don't get out and vote this year / You're not really groovin'." What we don't get is the album's projected January release date-- although, in fairness, Stamey's label, Yep Roc, is selling the album online presently. According to the Yep Roc website, V.O.T.E. is a collection of originals and covers, and was mixed by none other than Mitch Easter, formerly of Let's Active, and producer of bands like Helium, Wilco, and Superchunk. Tracklist:

01 V.O.T.E. (Public Service Announcement)
02 Shapes Of Things
03 Venus
04 Politician
05 Plainest Thing
06 Compared To What
07 The Summer Sun
08 Sleepless Nights
09 McCauley Street (Let's Go Downtown)
10 Desperate Man
11 Sleepless Nights Again

Stamey's post-dB's resume is impressive: He's been a producer (Butchies, Whiskeytown, Le Tigre, etc.) as often as a musician (working with Matthew Sweet, The Golden Palominos, Peter Blegvad, and a serious asston of others). In addition, he and YLT go way back, with Stamey contributing guitar work to their second album, 1987's New Wave Hot Dogs.

And what of New Jersey's favorite trio? While they've made no declaration of future recording plans, Yo La Tengo have announced that they'll be playing their third Hanukkah concert series, taking place at Maxwell's in Hoboken December 7th-14th. The shows will run $20 a night, which, if we may say so, is a motherfucking bargain considering the acts they packed in for the 2002 edition-- Janeane Garofalo, David Cross, Fred Armisen, Portastatic, The Ladybug Transistor, Sue Garner, Rick Brown, and The Sun Ra Arkestra, among many others. They started the annual eight-day charity event in 2001, but took last year off.

.: Pitchfork Review: Yo La Tengo: Summer Sun