Yo La Tengo have been on the scene so long (their debut record, 1986’s scruffy-sounding Ride The Tiger was recently reissued on CD) that it’s easy to pass them over.

But, since signing with the Matador label in the early ‘90’s, the Hoboken, N.Y.-based band has (sometimes quietly, sometimes rancorously) released some of this decade’s best rock ‘n’ roll, with the recent, mostly-subdued, I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One showing off still more of their eclectic art-pop.

The band’s live act (leader / lead guitarist Ira Kaplan, drummer / co-conspirator Georgia Hubley and former Charlottesville, Va. native / bassist James McNew) is a considerably noisier affair than on record, with Kaplan occasionally spazing out on electric, Neil Young / Television style.

Kaplan, the co-founder of the band, sounded a bit cranky on the day he called Grip’s own Don Harrison to shoot the breeze on several subjects (not the least of which was his own stint as a ‘rock journalist’ working for Spin). He had just gotten up from the late night remnants of another tour stop and, calling to plug the upon Trax gig, was promptly harangued upon before his morning coffee. Sorry, Ira!

Grip Monthly: Where are you calling from?

Ira Kaplan: San Francisco.

Grip: Wow. This must be a pretty big tour if you are working your way over to Virginia early next month.

Kaplan: We’re not going to do ‘the four corners’ but we’re going to Halifax, down to Florida, Phoenix. . .

Grip: Yo La Tengo just played D.C. this summer. Are you guys on a constant, never-ending tour?

Kaplan: We were home for most of the month of August and got to do some things other than tour, but it’s pretty constant.

Grip: The band is always referred to as being ‘Hoboken-based.’ Are you still located there?

Kaplan: I guess. Georgia and me still live there, James doesn’t. We practice there and still get our mail there. . . so you could say we’re ‘Hoboken-based.’

Grip: That always seemed like an idealized little scene there, especially if you are a dB’s or a Feelies fan: Hoboken rock!

Kaplan: (Pained) Well, I mean. . . y’know. . . I always wonder about that. There was some people there that. . .

Grip: Is there anything there now?

Kaplan: Not that I can see. What there was— and unfortunately this is all in the past tense— was an amazing club called Maxwells, which was incredibly supportive of the dB’s and other bands. But those groups really didn’t live there, or practice there. I mean, certain members of the Feelies lived there at different times but even they were never based, even remotely, in Hoboken. They just did their shows there.

Grip: So Maxwells was one of the clubs in that area that was open-minded.

Kaplan: No, Maxwells was the club. (Laughs) That’s the thing. I mean I don’t know what things are like in Charlottesville, I guess we’ve played places there other than Trax in the past.

Grip: Really?

Kaplan: In Hoboken, there’s even less places to play. I think it’s a place that people have gotten some idea about (Hoboken) really wasn’t true.

Grip: You had some members of the dB’s play on some of the early Yo La Tengo records (like 1989’s President Yo La Tengo, produced by dB’s bassist Gene Holder), right?

Kaplan: We were giant, giant fans of (the dBs), and I think at one time or another we’ve been able to work with each of them. Of course, we worked closely with Gene Holder (who played also played bass on the album), and not that long ago we did a live radio broadcast in New York and expanded the band to include Will Rigby and a steel guitar player.

Grip: Speaking of the early days, didn’t Yo La’s debut LP, Ride The Tiger, recently get reissued on CD? How do you feel about that stuff now.

Kaplan: Not my favorite record (laughs)

Grip: How come? I really like your version of the Kinks’ "Big Sky"— of course it’s one of my favorite songs.

Kaplan: Well. . . (our version) does at least remind you of what a good song that is.

Grip: What don’t you like about the disc, the fact that it’s so rough-sounding?

Kaplan: I guess we’re always searching for. . . in a way, it’s a lot like looking at an old picture of yourself. . . you can’t stand the clothes you’re wearing. I certainly wouldn’t want to try to talk anyone out of enjoying the record, if they like it.

Grip: Was the Genius + Love = Yo La Tengo compilation CD some way of reconciling the scattershot early days with today’s approach?

Kaplan: Not really. We had gotten a couple of fan letters asking us if we could make that (early) stuff a little easier to find. We had thought about it, but hadn’t come up with an approach that really engaged us.

Grip: Plus, I guess that could be viewed as pretentious— putting out a 2-CD package of ‘hits’.

Kaplan: Even more pretentious because it’s not even ‘greatest hits.’ There is something amazingly brazen (laughs) about saying, ‘Hey, here’s 2 discs full of stuff we had just lying around.’ But I think when our idea of putting together the thing, and came up with the most audacious idea of all— the notion of two CDs— that was when we really got interested. I’m pretty sure that was Georgia’s idea.

Grip: Matador has been incredibly supportive of you. In fact, I think of Yo La Tengo almost becoming a totally different band since it signed to the label (in 1994). I’ve really enjoyed the discs since Painful.

Kaplan: Ah, so you enjoy President Yo La Tengo (from 1989) more now that it’s been reissued on Matador?

Grip: I didn’t say that. It just seems to me that you developed a different sound, or there’s a different approach, since you hooked up with Matador. Maybe it’s just having more studio time at your disposal. . .

Kaplan: Well, there is that. I think there’s an element (of truth) there. We had bounced around for awhile. We were on Coyote and then Coyote went defunct and then we made a record for Bar-None and then Alias. All of a sudden we were getting some stability after all that, and after having so many different bass players, and then James joined and it looked like he was going to stick around for awhile. I don’t know— we just felt it was time to settle down. We had talked to Matador a lot over the years and to Gerard (Cosloy, the label’s founder) when he was with Homestead Records. A lot of things fell into place all at once. . .

Grip: I get the impression that (Cosloy) is very supportive of Yo La Tengo.

Kaplan: Absolutely.

Grip: You and Georgia have been together for 11 years. . .

Kaplan: Longer than that.

Grip:. . . how has that evolved, that collaboration?

Kaplan: It’s such a huge question. (The songwriting) has changed recently, or not even that recently now. We now do stuff more as a band. For (I Can Feel The Heart. . .), only two songs were brought to the band rather than worked out by everyone— James hadone and me and Georgia the other one.

Grip: Oh. Which two?

Kaplan: "Stockholm Syndrome" (James) and "Center of Gravity" (Ira & Georgia)

Grip: I love "Stockholm Syndrome." That’s a wonderful little tune. It sounds different too. Was that recorded on four-track or something?

Kaplan: Nah.

Grip: It just has a wonderful kind of hootannany sound to it.

Kaplan: (Laughs) James does have a four-track version of it. I guess it does sound a little bare and stripped down.

Grip: I guess you get asked a lot about being a rock journalist.

Kaplan: (With a sigh) Yeah, I do.

Grip: Were you writing about music before you started playing music?

Kaplan: My rock journalism career and my musician career. . . there’s very little overlap if any.

Grip: I remember your interview with Neil Young in Spin. A very revealing talk, as I remember.

Kaplan: Thanks. But even there, I wasn’t really interviewing him as a ‘rock journalist.’ That was kinda how they pitched him the article after he had initially turned them down. He was tired of doing press and he then Spin went back to him and said, ‘well, you know, we have this guy from a band that wants to interview you.’

Grip: So, had Neil heard of Yo La Tengo?

Kaplan: No. So then, I also did something on the Velvet Underground. A couple of things for Spin. . . pretty much three or four pieces of writing in the last 12 years.

Grip: Which is three or four more pieces of writing than your normal rock star.

Kaplan: I don’t know if that’s true, actually. I mean, you’re always seeing tour diaries and stuff. I guess it didn’t seem weird to me— I used to see the dBs submit things to New York Rocker and it never seemed that weird to me. They were doing it as band members, like I remember reading an interview that Will Rigby did with Dwight Twilley.

Grip: So, was Neil cool?

Kaplan: Oh, yeah.

Grip: It seems to me, after seeing Yo La Tengo live, that you play more guitar, or feature it more, than on record.

Kaplan: Well, we’ll stretch out more. The time to work in the studio, the number of tracks and things, you can work on texture and layering stuff. When you are live with people watching you, I think the setting produces something else.

Grip: It also seems like the last two records (Electr-O-Pura and I Can Hear The Heart Beat As One) has gotten a bit more electronic. More use of keyboards.

Kaplan: Yeah, I guess.

Grip: More ambient, maybe.

Kaplan: But I can look back at almost any of our early records and hear us fooling around with that stuff too. I mean, we’re not unaware of what’s going on around us, by any means. But we’re not trying to be trendy. I don’t think anyone thinks they are being trendy, except maybe David Bowie.

Grip: That’s his secret.

Kaplan: That’s right.