After last year’s painfully cool cluster of releases on the Matador-4AD-Beggars Banquet group (Cave Singers, Mogwai, Times New Viking, Fucked Up, Stephen Malkmus, Jay Reatard, Cat Power, Stereolab etc..), and the news that they have signed Sonic Youth, I have kept an eye on the Matador site. One band caught my eye…The Condo Fucks.

“Legendary New London, CT trio the Condo Fucks returned to the stage last March after a long absence from the Tri-State Area’s concert circuit. A secretive Hoboken rehearsal was recorded and is being released March 24, 2009 by Matador as the LP/CD, Fuckbook. Eschewing such Condo Fucks originals as ?Fuckin? Gary Sandy? and ?Let?s Get Rid Of New Haven?, the trio ? Georgia Condo (drums), Kid Condo (guitar), and James McNew (bass) ? instead tear through covers of The Small Faces, Richard Hell, Beach Boys, Electric Eels, Troggs, Flaming Groovies and Slade classics in the style that previously won them so much acclaim from the Nutmeg State?s music journalists and radio programmers all those years ago. In the go-go 1990s, the Condo Fucks released 4 titles on the Matador label (see right), some of which were prominently advertised on the inner sleeve of Yo La Tengo?s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One. Sadly, these titles are long out of print and we are unable to provide the media with copies. With Fuckbook, a full tour of major Connecticut nightspots is planned upon release. Also though the band are somewhat ?old-school? about the modern social networking phenomena, there?s an unofficial MySpace page launching very soon. ”

The name rang a bell and I smelt a rat…the same rat I smelt when I’d read the names on the sleeve of Yo La tengo’s I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One LP, about these seminal bands who’d released records on Matador.

So I googled it …and Wiki came up…and it transpires it’s Yo La Tengo! Perverse buggers. The references to Hoboken should have alerted me.

Their album as the Condo Fucks, entitled Fuck Book, will be released on either March 10 or 24 (the website says both, rather unhelpfully). This is from it. This probably won’t be getting much play on daytime Radio 1…oh hang on, they’ve been going for twenty years and I suspect they’re not bothered about it in the slightest.

I rather like this…

Condo Fucks -‘Whatcha Gonna Do About It?’