Dave Schramm

While best known for his brief stint as a guitarist with Yo La Tengo, Dave Schramm has quietly developed a potent reputation among his fellow musicians as one of the most gifted and versatile musicians to emerge from the Hoboken/Manhattan indie rock axis, blending a folkie's delicate sense of space and aural punctuation with a rocker's passion and desire for creative adventure. Born and raised on Long Island, Dave Schramm began playing music when he was eight years old, and by the time he was in his teens, he'd picked up the guitar after early attempts to master the clarinet, the trombone, and the piano. In high school, he wrote a symphonic piece that was performed by a local orchestra, but he was also wearing out treasured albums by Captain Beefheart, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Bob Dylan. Schramm began playing guitar with a variety of local groups after high school, but it wasn't until the early '80s that he landed in a group of any renown when he played with a latter-day edition of the Human Switchboard. (Schramm joined the group too late to play on their sole studio album, but he did appear on After Words, a 1987 solo effort from the group's leader, Rob Pfeifer.) After Human Switchboard broke up, Schramm did a brief stint with Jon Klages (formerly of the Individuals) before joining Yo La Tengo. Schramm played lead guitar on their debut album, 1986's Ride the Tiger, as well as writing and singing two songs, "The Way Some People Die" and "Five Years." Not long after completing Ride the Tiger, Schramm decided he wanted to front his own group and amicably left Yo La Tengo (he did briefly return to the band to help them record their 1990 album Fakebook). Schramm joined forces with former Human Switchboard drummer Ron Metz, guitarist Todd Novak, bassist Mike...