'Tis the season of concert announcements. You'll notice that Kansas City has some pretty hefty names headed our way this summer, like Janelle Monae and Arcade Fire. Other notable incomers: Brigh... Continue reading "Florence and the Machine, and four other concert announcements we're hoping for" >

tonight in NYC * A-ha @ Nokia Theatre * Tarek Atoui @ New Museum * Lucky Dragons @ Thirty Days NY * Sia, Girl in a Coma @ Terminal 5 * John Zorn, Marc Ribot @ The Stone * Beach House, Washed Out @ Webster Hall * Patrick Watson, Doveman @ The Bell House * Local Natives, Suckers @ Bowery Ballroom * Mary Halvorson, [...]
Inspired by the news that there's a new Jeff Mangum song (a cover of The Tall Dwarfs' "Sign the Dotted Line", which I've listened to at least 30 times in the past 10 hours), which is available on the Chris Knox tribute album Stroke on Merge Records , I found a couple Mangum videos released by Merge in November to coincide with the release of Neutral Milk Hotel 's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea on 180g vinyl . And the videos are awesome, pretty [...]
Two-Headed Boy, Oh Comely, and more.
It was previously announced that Neutral Milk Hotel's first two albums: "In The Airplane Over The Sea" and "On Avery Island", were going to be reissued on vinyl by Merge. Now the label has released some footage of Jeff Magnum playing 'Two-Headed Boy' solo in New York. The... Click the link to read more

I think that most of us would agree (or maybe not), that Neutral Milk Hotel 's 1998 release In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is one of the classic releases in indie-rock history and the story that followed only ads to the album's status and curiosity. As the album's success thrust the band into the spotlight, singer/songwriter Jeff Magnum uncomfortable with the situation that he found himself in, began to withdraw from the public eye, eventually dissolving the band before the end of 1998. A few acoustic shows, and guest appearances is all that Magnum has managed [...]
a. ATP announced and whoa... HERE . b. MR MIKE GIANT and his company REBEL 8 have a look book, LOOK ! c. oh look... d. in a sudden turn of events, this does not surprise ME . e. the ever popular black metal band from the 80's from mississippi HERE > f. an really interesting article about a WIRED reporter hiding from the internet for a month HERE . g. [...]
To celebrate the vinyl reissue of Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and On Avery Island , Merge Records has unearthed some live footage of the band at the height of their powers in 1998, performing "Two-Headed Boy" at NYC's the Knitting Factory. Every news item about Neutral Milk Hotel inevitably ends with the writer hoping for a reunion, but I won't do that; Jeff Mangum died young and left a beautiful corpse without dying at all. [ Merge ]
It's nice to see Merge Records reissue Neutral Milk Hotel's two albums on 180 gram vinyl . You had better believe that we will be picking these up... but deep down, what we really wish for is to be able to go back in time and be at one of these shows.
Merge just put out some videos from a Neutral Milk Hotel show at the old Knitting Factory in 1998 in conjunction with the reissue of In The Aeroplane Over The Sea on 180-gram vinyl. They're good quality and certainly showcase the sound and song of the band. They also weirdly showcase Jeff as a budding style icon, as one Stereogum commenter astutely points out, rocking what can only be considered a precursor to the Anton Chigurh No Country For Old Men haircut. But that's another story. The only sadness comes in here when we, as (fairly) young music [...]