Jeff Mangum on Slate.com

[NightOfJoy]

Prepare to either be taken off into a state of transcendent bliss, or to run away screaming with your hands over your ears.

(I am of the former camp.)

 

I listened to it a few times over the weekend.......I liked it.....at times I was reminded of early XTC and the Flaming Lips..........it'll never be in heavy rotation but it'll have its moments.

[bigideas]

i didn't remember REM asking him to open for them.

 

has anyone bought the field recording record?

 

(oddly enough, i just saw the article writer on tv they other day talking about his Starbucked book)

[the carlos]

has anyone bought the field recording record?

I have it. If you like that sort of thing(I do quite a bit) you'll enjoy it.

[bigideas]

after looking up other stuff i came across

Major Organ and the Adding Machine

pitchfork tore it a new one when it came out.

the clips on Amazon sound very promising.

 

and for whatever reason, i never got Avery Island.

i had Aeroplane and Avery got little mention, so i figured it was very embrionic in comparison, but those clips sounded quite good as well.

 

there's Jittery Joe's, too.

 

what's the feeling on these 3 releases?

[the carlos]

I dig Major Organ and the Adding Machine a bunch but I really like that kind of stuff. On Avery Island actually gets more play in our house than In The Aeroplane... and Jittery Joe's is a nice intimate show. There are some great live recordings of both Jeff and Neutral Milk Hotel out there that better though. At least in my opinion. I'd like to hear what others think though.

[bigideas]

it looks like Major Organ is OOP?

and i heard something about a film under that name rumored to be made...

[the carlos]

yes, there is a trailer for the film online.

 

[mpolak21]

I dig Major Organ and the Adding Machine a bunch but I really like that kind of stuff. On Avery Island actually gets more play in our house than In The Aeroplane... and Jittery Joe's is a nice intimate show. There are some great live recordings of both Jeff and Neutral Milk Hotel out there that better though. At least in my opinion. I'd like to hear what others think though.

 

I have Major Organ but have only listened to it couple of times, parts of it were quite good, but I need to revisit it. Jittery Joes is a nice show, but the video that comes with it isn't of the best quality. There are some great bootlegs here, particularly the 4/12/1998 Bottom of the Hill show Neutral Milk Hotel Bootlegs

 

--Mike

[bigideas]

i wrote the record co and they said they plan to rerelease the album bundled with a dvd of the film when it's finished, forecast for fall.

[mpolak21]

I am sure I lifted the phrase from somewhere myself, but I actually wrote an overview of Mangum and Aeroplane for my school newspaper that was also titled "The J.D. Salinger of Indie Rock." It was not much better than this piece. Carlos is right virtually anyone on the E6 boards could have easily written this article. It's basically a re-write of the Creative Loafing article from five years ago (they even use the same pitchfork quote) and a summary of Kim Cooper's book. That said, Mangum hasn't really given anyone that much to write about in the last ten years, how many different ways can you ask/answer is he ever going to record another album?

 

This was driving me crazy, but today I remembered where I got the Salinger of Indie Rock phrase, I lifted it from Andrew Unterberger, who wrote for the now defunct Stylus Magazine. These are the things I think of at three a.m.

 

--Mike

[bigideas]

you hear Salinger and Mangum,

but no Emmitt Rhodes?

[mpolak21]

you hear Salinger and Mangum,

but no Emmitt Rhodes?

 

Oh, I love Emmitt Rhodes as well.

 

--Mike

[Good Old Neon]

FYI - from Pitchfork:

 

Videos: Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Tomatoes & RadioWire Tribute)

 

 

If you read Pitchfork regularly you probably know that this year was the tenth anniversary of the release of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. We marked the event with Jeff Mangum interview materials provided by Pitchfork's Mike McGonigal, as well as by having some musicians talk about how this wonderful and one-of-a-kind record inspired them. There were many other tributes. In February of this year, an event called Tomatoes & RadioWire took place in Brooklyn, at which 11 short films were screened, one for each track on Aeroplane. Now all eleven of those films have been gathered together on the Tomatoes & RadioWire website.

 

As T&R curator Kirk Wells explains in a piece on the site, he first heard the record three years ago during a long drive headed south (lucky bastard) and was inspired to make short animated films based on the tracks. Realizing that he would never have the time or energy to do everything himself, he enlisted the help of other filmmakers and, three years later, Tomatoes & RadioWire was born. Particularly inspiring watching these is the range of interpretations; from flash animations that use imagery from the lyrics (Wells' "Communist Daughter") to live Super 8 footage that conjures the vibe of the song ("King of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1" by Casey DeLong) to silly goofs that don't go where you'd expect (Travis Wheeling's piece for the title track). Quality varies, to be sure, but this is a worthwhile project with its heart in the right place and it's definitely worth exploring. Bravo.

 

http://www.tomatoes-radiowire.com/