Neutral Milk Hotel

Nick Offerman Knows How To Work His Wood, Can Get Into All Kinds of Nudity

Some people may only recognize Nick Offerman from his role as the iconic Ron Swanson on NBC's Parks and Recreation or from his appearances in movies like The Men Who Stare at Goats and the recent-ish remake of 21 Jump Street. But only knowing Nick Offerman in this context is a tragedy, because he is ... More >>

The People's Bailout

Yeah, banks, we can bail 
out our own, too

Ween: In Memoriam

"There are things in my life that no one can understand except Aaron," Mickey Melchiondo noted of his bandmate Aaron Freeman in 2007, when they—as Dean and Gene Ween—put out their last album, La Cucaracha. "We kind of have a parallel life. We went through everything together: junior high ... More >>

Download: Bright Moments' Yacht Rock Gone Gypsy Punk Anthem "Tourists"

True to its name, Bright Moments is a big sunshiny explosion of optimism: joyous found sounds, Afro-Brazilian rhythms, Beach Boys harmonies, anime keyboards and big explosions of billowing brass. It's the demented brainchild of New Yorker Kelly Pratt, a multi-instrumentalist who's played horns for B ... More >>

Live: Suckers Spread The Pain Around At The Knitting Factory

​Suckers w/Devin, Writer Knitting Factory Saturday, February 4 Better than: Shoving people over to grab a seat on the L on a Saturday night. Before Suckers took the Knitting Factory stage on Saturday, the audience segregated itself, seemingly by age. The youth enjoyed the opening acts, using ... More >>

THOSE WERE THE DAYS

Jeff  Mangum stirs up more ’90s nostalgia

Jeff Mangum

Facebook + Music: Most People Are DJs

The site's foray into music and the act of performative listening

Jeff Mangum And Michael Franti Play Occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park continues to be a magnet for celebrity musicians offering their support and serenading the occupiers with unamplified sets. Last night, the performances bracketing the twice-daily General Assembly meeting came from dramatically different corners: the ... More >>

Live: Shellac Mixes Jokes, Questions, And Baseball Talk With Songs Like "I Came In You" At The Bell House

Shellac w/Helen Money The Bell House Monday, October 3 Better than: Bawling indie-rock wuss tears as Jeff Mangum sings a Neutral Milk Hotel weeper. For the second year in a row, Chicago post-punk veteran goliaths Shellac graced The Bell House stage for two post-All Tomorrow's Parties hangover show ... More >>

Live: Portishead And Jeff Mangum Come Out Of The Shadows In Asbury Park

All Tomorrow's Parties: I'll Be Your Mirror Asbury Park, NJ September 30-October 2 Better than: Your favorite worn-out band tee. Timelessness isn't a foresight. Most experiences can't predict their own longevity, and as much as any creator strives to avoid miring his or her work in a dated exterio ... More >>

Live: Olivia Tremor Control Keep Hope Alive

​Olivia Tremor Control w/the Music Tapes (le) poisson rouge Wednesday, September 21 Better than: Poring over photos from May 1997 on Flickr. In the '90s—that increasingly storied decade that everyone under 30 is probably sick of hearing about the way I was tired of listening to yarns ... More >>

Second Jeff Mangum Show Added To Portishead's Big Three-Day Fest In Asbury Park

​The Portishead/All Tomorrow's Parties-curated festival I'll Be Your Mirror, taking place down the shore in Asbury Park from September 30 through October 2, has added a second performance by the no-longer-all-that-reclusive Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum to its itinerary, and is relea ... More >>

How Much Would You Pay To See The Concert Of Your Dreams?

​The Daily Swarm got wind of an eBay auction for a pair of tickets to Elephant 6 cult hero Jeff Mangum's September 9 show at the Sanders Theatre in Cambridge, which predates his appearance at the Portishead-curated ATP in Asbury Park by about three weeks. The asking price for the chance to be ... More >>

Neutral Milk Hotel's Parks & Rec Shoutout

Via GoldenfiddleDon't look now, Andy, but you just landed On Bad Boyfriend Island.​ Prime-time shout-outs to one of the most cult-beloved indie bands of the past 20 years shouldn't surprise too much. [Insert lengthy rant about the culture industry, and people creating culture pitched toward th ... More >>

Live: The Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour Keeps It Together at the Knitting Factory

The group in Ohio, a few days back. The Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour Knitting Factory Monday, March 21 Better than: Seeing any band currently attached to any kind of micro-genre-related hype or anything remotely timely. The titular amazement of Elephant 6's second Holiday Surprise revu ... More >>

Jeff Mangum Tickets For Town Hall Are On Sale At 11 A.M.

​Update: This is already sold out. Let the weeping begin. Just a friendly reminder that tickets for Neutral Milk Hotel guru Jeff Mangum's feverishly awaited solo show at Town Hall (happening October 29, which is an impossibly far-away date to conceive of right now, but those Pavement shows hap ... More >>

Jeff Mangum at Town Hall Tickets Sell Out Instantly, And a Twitter Nation Laments

At 11 a.m., New Yorkers got their long awaited, announced in advance, ticketed-and-everything, first official Neutral Milk Hotel show (slated for October 29th) in a long, long time. And at 11:01 a.m., perhaps unsurprisingly, it was already over--if LCD Soundsystem can sell out Madison Square Garde ... More >>

Jeff Mangum Is Touring, Playing Town Hall

​The greatest indie-rock comeback story of all time (probably) (hopefully) continues apace: Neutral Milk Hotel deity Jeff Mangum has now announced a clutch of East Coast shows to complement his appearance at that crazy Asbury Park ATP event that I'm assuming is all sorts of sold out by now. Th ... More >>

Portishead And Jeff Mangum Are Headlining All Tomorrow's Parties In Asbury Park, NJ

​Good lord. All Tomorrow's Parties is bringing their boutique full-immersion indie-rock weekend blowout to a new spot this year: Asbury Park, NJ. ATP's three-day I'll Be Your Mirror fest will be partially curated by Portishead (!) and headlined by none other than fuckin' Jeff Mangum (!!!!), la ... More >>

Week In Review: Stop Looking At My Moms

​In the week we continued counting down the worst songs of 2010, noting atrocities from Susan Boyle, Liz Phair, Christina Aguilera, Jackyl, and NeverShoutNever, and Die Antwoord, we also began our overall year in review, listing the 10 biggest music stories of 2010, our 10 favorite concerts, t ... More >>

Yes, Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum Performed A Surprise Show In Brooklyn On Saturday Night

via​We feel bad for Jeff Mangum, who probably has some trouble leaving the house in this city without people acting a little strange. So we respect and applaud his decision to return to the stage in secrecy, as he did on Saturday night, when he played ten Neutral Milk Hotel songs to a delighte ... More >>

More On Jeff Mangum's Bushwick Show: Co-Organizer Ben Goldberg Explains Why You Weren't There

This is pretty much what it was like​So Jeff Mangum played a bunch of Neutral Milk Hotel songs in a Bushwick loft on Saturday night, for a crowd of around 75 people, you not among them. The show was partly set up by Ba Da Bing Records guru Ben Goldberg, who has a lot of explaining to do, so we ... More >>

Ten Bands From The '90s That Haven't Reunited

Mark Ibold, still happier about the Pavement reunion than you are​So Chavez is reuniting, or whatever you want to call it. A Pavement reunion just dominated most of last week in New York City. Before that, it was a never-dissolved-but-certainly-largely-inactive Superchunk. In the past few year ... More >>

Watch The Swell Season Cover Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy"

​I've followed the Onion A.V. Club's "Undercover" series -- they picked 25 songs, and have invited 25 bands to cover them one at a time, so the first band has 25 songs to choose from, and the last has no choice at all -- just to see which tune will suffer the indignity of being the last one re ... More >>

One Man's Desperate Attempt to Find a Reason to Like the Arcade Fire

Look, we're trying here, OK?​There is a thing where people get on the internet and express a strong, contrary opinion in the interests of getting other people angry. This is not that thing. There is a thing where a person sees a lot of other people getting excited about a cultural phenomenon a ... More >>

The Apples in Stereo

Jeff Mangum Performed Neutral Milk Hotel Songs For Chris Knox Last Night at Le Poisson Rouge

The benefit Le Poisson Rouge hosted last night for Tall Dwarfs frontman and New Zealand rock godfather Chris Knox, who suffered a devastating stroke last summer, raised over forty thousand dollars within days of tickets going on sale; last night, a big part of the reason for that windfall took the ... More >>

More from Last Night's Chris Knox Benefit at Le Poisson Rouge, Including Weeping at Jeff Mangum

The six-hour benefit for underground New Zealand songwriter Chris Knox at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday was indie-fundraising done right: all-star jams that made sense, meaty set lengths, a thoroughly worthwhile lineup, decidedly fan-oriented ticketing, and a stunning marquee name to sell out the r ... More >>

Week in Review: May Day

Salute. Photo by Sam Horine.​In the week we finally got to unleash the initial Siren Festival details on the world (July 17! 10th anniversary! Matt & Kim, Ted Leo, Surfer Blood, Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and Harlem! Totally free!), we celebrated Cinco De Mayo like Anna Wintour, Pharrell, a ... More >>

Tonight! Clipse, Ninjasonik, Lucky Dragons, Beach House, Washed Out, Sia, Local Natives, Jeff Mangum, a-ha, Bear Hands, Lemonade, And Dinosaur Feathers

Having learned about Pusha T's badass grandma (not to mention that Rambo-themed pizza joint) yesterday, you can better appreciate NYC tour guides/coke rap extraordinaires Clipse tonight at Highline Ballroom. For obvious moral support, Ninjasonik will also be there, "squeezing into tight pants and ... More >>

ONE QUESTION

How many songs will Jeff Mangum do?

Surfer Blood Cover Neutral Milk Hotel, Owe Todd P Everything According to Miami New Times

Hey, wouldn't you know it, Surfer Blood casually cover Neutral Milk Hotel's "Two-Headed Boy" over a bottle of El Presidente, and it's not half bad for a bunch of dudes who won't even get up off the couch! They even screw up a couple times and it's still better than that awful Apples in Stereo vers ... More >>

Freaks Of The Industry III: Thursday's CMJ Panels, Crassly Distilled

You haven't seen a CMJ panel yet? You missed a lot yesterday. And the day before. Here's today's lineup, with unrequested editorial comment.

What You Didn't See on Last Night's Colbert Report: A Mountain Goats-Colbert Duet

Preview the New Merge Records Book, Then Go See Superchunk Tomorrow Night

Cheating a bit here, as we peripherally know one of the dudes involved (no, not Ryan Adams), but nonetheless Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, out in September, seems to be a splendid little tome, as evinced by this snazzy-ass website, which in addition to tossing out an illustrated timeline an ... More >>

News Roundup: Brendan Flowers, Live Nation, Neutral Milk Hotel, Chris Brown/Rihanna

--The Killers' Brendan Flowers likely got to live out a childhood fantasy Saturday when he joined Bruce Springsteen for a duet of "Thunder Road" at the opening night of the Neatherlands Pinkpop Festival. Nowadays, it's a right of passage for Springsteen-influenced acts to join their idol onstage. Th ... More >>

Neutral Milk Hotel Are Trying To Preserve a Monument from My Childhood, Help Them Please

This morning, Merge Records issued a press release on behalf of Julian Koster--former Neutral Milk Hotel member, singing saw savant, man from the Music Tapes--asking for help in preserving a Massachusetts merry-go-round. Weird, right? Weirder: This is my shit!

Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour at the Knitting Factory

MPFrees: Shit We Downloaded That Isn't "Icky Thump"

Some Thunder, But Too Much Lightning

Fancy overproduction nearly sinks blog-rock's gawky golden boys

CMJ Music Marathon Highlights

The Great Cover-up, Part 2

Post-Post-Rap

Opposing sides of Anticon spectrum leave convention long behind

French Rappers Pretend to Be Rappers

Seamen and Booty

Mutiny on the Bounty's what these stevedores are all about

Music

A Scene Grows in Brooklyn

Live Rock Finds a New Home Across the Williamsburg Bridge

Julian Koster's loop-the- loop

Drums Along the Hudson Again