Crib Notes

The folks over at Merge Records have released some great recordings over the years, almost none of which* have sold as many copies as the locally-brewed, universally-lauded Neutral Milk Hotel classic In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. To put a yummy little cherry on top of their recent 180-gram vinyl reissues of both of that band’s albums (!), they recently posted two live videos of an exuberant Jeff Mangum tearing through two great NMH jams – Aeroplane’s “Two-Headed Boy” and “April 8th” from the underrated On Avery Island. The video was apparently shot way back in 1998 during a show at NYC’s famed Knitting Factory.

Alls I gotta say is what basically everyone has to say, which is where you at, Mangum?

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This week NPR’s “All Songs Considered” posted a stream of last week’s Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise tour stop at The Bottom Lounge in Chicago on Oct. 21. The stream of the concert features the large ensemble’s two-and-a-half hour performance plus an interview with Julian Koster of Olivia Tremor Control, the Music Tapes.

To listen to the concert click here.

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In celebration of Music Tapes‘ For Clouds and Tornadoes, and the release of the long-awaited film, Major Organ and the Adding Machine, many members of the famed Elephant 6 collective will converge for a variety show tour in October. Julian Koster, William Cullen Hart, Scott Spillane, Laura Carter, Eric Harris, Nesey Gallons along with The Singing Saw, the 7 Foot Tall Metronome, Static the Television and many others will host what Julian Koster describes as “a big orchestra, variety show, silly happy thing.” The large gathering of E-6 members will be playing numbers from the catalogues of the Music Tapes, the Circulatory System, Scott Spillane, Gerbils, Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control, Nana Grizol, Nesey Gallons and more.

In addition, Orange Twin Records has announced the imminent release of Major Organ and the Adding Machine, a short film by Joey Foreman and Eric Harris. The film is nearing completion and will premiere during the E-6 “Holiday Surprise” shows in October. The film is currently being submitted to film festivals and will be coming out as a CD/DVD set in the fall of 2009. Accompanying the Orange Twin DVD edition will be the expanded version of the film’s soundtrack, originally released in early 2000, that includes several unreleased bonus tracks and new liner notes by co-director Harris. The film and album feature musical and theatrical contributions from Jeff Mangum, Kevin Barnes, William Cullen Hart, Julian Koster, Andrew Rieger, Dixie Blood Moustache and other participants from Athens music scene of the late-90’s.

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For the 10th anniversary of Neutral Milk Hotel’s landmark album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Slate has published a story about the defunct Athens group’s leader, Jeff Mangum.

If you’re a longtime CL reader and the story rings a bell, that’s because it covers much of the same ground covered in CL’s popular 2003 cover story, “Have you seen Jeff Mangum?”, written by former staffer Kevin Griffis.

And for those of you wondering what happened to Kevin Griffis, he left journalism in 2004 to become a political consultant. Last time I looked, he was with the Obama campaign.

(photo by Jim Stawniak)

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