Loading ...
While I was on a Brooklyn pier watching aerialists and Franz Ferdinand and the beginning of Indie Rock Celebrity Bumpwatching 2008 (sigh) on Saturday night, New York’s Knitting Factory was playing host to the Holiday Surprise tour, on which various members of the Elephant 6 collective–including Julian Koster of the Music Tapes/Chocolate USA, Will Hart and Eric Harris of Olivia Tremor Control, and Scott Spillane of seemingly every Elephant 6 band’s brass section (as well as the Gerbils)–performed the songs that made me wear down many a CD back in the day. And wouldn’t you know it, Jeff Mangum, of Neutral Milk Hotel and an increasingly large legend thanks to the now 10-years-old In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, also showed up to lend his voice to a few of the evening’s performances: The opening track to the Olivia Tremor Control’s Dusk At Cubist Castle, “The Opera House,” is above, and after the jump, a clip of the evening’s performance of “I Have Been Floated.”
I saw him pop onto the stage for a performance of this song in 2005 and got chills. Kind of sucks, though, that the crowd in this clip seems to not be paying much attention until Mangum gets on stage–the Olivias’ catalog deserves much better, don’t you think?
Jeff Mangum & Elephant 6 at Knitting Factory 10-11-08 [YouTube]
Elephant 6 at Knitting Factory 10-11-08 [YouTube]
“Let’s see if I can start appearing in public again and be treated like a normal person…
…ah, well. Maybe in a few more years….”
Kind of sucks, though, that the crowd in this clip seems to not be paying much attention until Mangum gets on stage-the Olivias’ catalog deserves much better, don’t you think?
Uh, absolutely.
“Hey Mangum! Do the one about semen!”
Bill Doss (OTC, Apples in Stereo, Sunshine Fix) was there, too. Just sayin’. It was like an Olivia’s reunion.
@Lucas Jensen: Twist the knife.
soooooo going to see this tour on wednesday. super excited.
A question on the modern economics of a legendary album: does Mangum make enough off annual sales of In the Aeroplane… that he doesn’t have to do anything else? I know he’s a recluse, but does he have some sort of job? What does he do all day?