Ride the Tiger
In the liner notes for Matador's rerelease of Yo La Tengo's first album, YLT singer and then-rhythm guitarist Ira Kaplan writes, "To me, [Ride the Tiger] sounds like a Dave Schramm album." He's not completely off; back in those days, Schramm's guitar work (which can be heard, to better effect, in theSchramms) easily dominated the sound of the then-folky YLT. But it's not entirely a bad thing, either, since Schramm's guitar invigorated Kaplan's songs just as easily as it dominated them. Without his influence (see "The Forest Green"), there's no telling whether Kaplan would have developed into the guitar player evident on YLT's later works. There's also some ace taste in covers, including Arthur Lee & Love, theKinks, andPete Seeger.--Randy Silver