Yo La Tengo—who, with albums such as Electr-O-Pura and I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One, helped define the sound of ’90s indie rock—found stability in their separation. They weren’t completely isolated from New York, but their true home was a bar planting a flag for a Hoboken-style cultural revolution: Maxwell’s. When the bar came under new ownership in 1978, Jarnow writes, they made a startling decision for a drinking establishment located in Frank Sinatra’s birthplace: no Old Blue Eyes on the jukebox. This wasn’t going to be a bar that celebrated Hoboken’s past. It was going to stare gentrification in the face and build a new future.
