19

SATURDAY

I discovered Yo La Tengo as it should be discovered—through a record-store owner who dug the band’s Fakebook collection (featuring, hey, covers of the Kinks and Cat Stevens). But I’m guessing he really dug the band not for what it sounded like—at the time, pleasant if not really innovative jangle rock—but for what it represented. Yo La leaders Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley were living, breathing examples of every rock nerd’s dream: They were married and making a job of music; they were the happy, middle-class Velvet Underground. Eventually, Ira and Georgia made legit masterpieces of marriage’s tension and release, cherry cola, and Hoboken—namely, 1997’s I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. With the new album, Summer Sun, they continue to turn their amps down, let in the loungey organ, and watch as the drums go pitter-patter to their pillow talk. You want their life and, after tonight, you’ll want their tunes. Yo La Tengo plays with Portastatic at 9 p.m. at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $17.50. (202) 393-0930. (Jason Cherkis)