Neutral Milk Hotel: Classic or Dud?

Not much of a "tour." Too bad no Cali dates...

― schwantz, Monday, 29 April 2013 22:07 (Yesterday) Permalink

It's sort of blowing my mind that they're bothering to call this a tour, and that the headlines are going with it.

It's sort of blowing my mind that you guys didn't notice the part that says

Only a handful have been announced so far, but apparently there is "more to come,"

Yeah, my bad. Crossing my fingers...

are these tickets going to be really expensive?

probably not if you buy them at face value. i think my mangum solos were 30 bucks apiece or so

pretty stoked for this, was listening to the new a hawk and a hacksaw last week and thinking how unlikely it was i'd get to see that band lineup again, when barnes moved out of town that's when it started to be apparent that this 'break after a year of touring' might turn into something more. nmh plus elf power, 1998 all over again, gonna be fun to see mangum pop up to sing in 'the arrow flies close' again.

Enormous honking dud.

If there's one thing I've learned from the oughts, it's that breaking up / losing your mind / retiring forever at some point is the best thing one can do for one's career.

I saw the last ever NMH gig. There were maybe 50 people there. I imagine more people will want to see them this time round.

Was that the Camden Underground show? Where they improvised that song in tribute to the sun at the end? One of the best shows I've ever seen.

That was indeed the Underworld. Brilliant gig. I'd loved In the Aeroplane so much I was convinced everyone else in the world must feel the same, so I was genuinely shocked at how sparsely attended it was. I don't remember the improv, just being bowled over by the whole thing - so ramshackle yet hurtling forward without doubt.

The ramshackle thing was key - I remember the drummer would tumble into these epic drum rolls, and not be able to roll back into the songs, so he'd just stop playing, listen along for a couple of bars and then jump back in. And they were just so joyous, laughing, drunk, a wonderful mess. I couldn't get the Melody Maker to cover them back in the day, but The Times let me mention them in my roundup of the year, and I wrote something about how they played like a Salvation Army Band after their first taste of the demon booze.

The Maker rejected them because an office wag said they sounded like "the panpipe band off the Fast Show".

Got Mark B to write about them for me a couple of years ago. I always wanted to get Simon Schama to do something on them - did you know he's a fan?

Ha! Simon Schama?? Well, the album is steeped in history, I guess...

Get Bieber to write about them.

my gf listens to 'aeroplane' at least once a week but wasn't too excited by the idea of seeing dude solo. we'd both go see the full band though.

ITAOTS was very ~important~ to me but at the ATP JM curated I was pretty cynical about seeing him play for a variety of reasons, and then when he actually played I was a blubbering hysterical wreck from the first note till the last. Dunno how he did it it was just a bloke with a guitar playing some songs I don't have particularly intense feelings for any more ffs.

stalled out on missiontix tryna get a ticket rn...

nvm no one i know got tickets

lol

there are still tickets in columbia mo. for now, at least.

oops. sold out too. fortunately i got one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exRvC0jYOzE

seems like it would be hard to play the ukulele wearing fur gloves. sometimes i feel like my fingers are already too big. kudos to that guy.

Tickets for the January 2014 D.C. show sold out too quick for me. I tried but couldn't get through. Stubhub already has some-- not sure I want to pay $80 a ticket

Just saw them in Jersey City. Thankful there was no gigantic singalong. Such an odd band to become so big.

Hey, me too! I was behind the bar loading drinks for the bartenders. Got to watch the show in full afterwards too! Yeah the audience was not as sappy as I'd imagined they'd be.

i remember a feeling of dread when i checked that indiepop list in the late 90s , that band was "happening" there. i bounced as they say.

If there's one thing I've learned from the oughts, it's that breaking up / losing your mind / retiring forever at some point is the best thing one can do for one's career.

Don't forget dying, that's still a classic move

Friend tweeted from that show "Yes, everyone is old."

saw them over the weekend and it was pretty magical. a surprising number of young kids there, who apparently waited out in the cold all day to get up front (which, it turned out, was totally unnecessary since all the olds were happy to hang out in the tiered seating). i was really impressed at how tight they were, the level of musicianship on that stage is super high. i'll bet they're a way better band than they were in the '90s.

JM was rocking a giant grey beard and kept his hat over his eyes the whole time but sounded spot-on.

"I was really impressed at how tight they were, the level of musicianship on that stage is super high."

Yes! Much more commanding and professional than I was expecting, and I've seen them all perform in other projects over the years.

the drummer and the multi-instrumentalist (jeremy & julian iirc) are particularly great.

Recent DC show sold out fast, but they're coming back to a big shed this summer.

Saw them last night - echoing the comments above, couldn't believe how well they played. I was pretty dubious about seeing a band that I'd cared so much about in 2000, but it was still amazing.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH3CRVVBL9o
I cried all day long after I saw this music video for the first time.
didn't care for any other songs on this album, haven't heard any of their others.

my playlists cataloging the best songs of each decade http://postmusicindustry.blogspot.com

we laughed, we cried, we spammed

http://the-toast.net/2014/10/22/songs-neutral-milk-hotel-album-reference-holocaust/

i was really impressed at how tight they were

well, if you only write, like, 22 songs over the course of a quarter century, I assume you get those songs down pretty good at some point

Who wouldn't get off on being revered like a Christ figure? Dude does not need to write another song in his life. ITAOTS is perfect and only gets better.

huh I could've sworn its stayed p much exactly the same since it was released

its so strange that he doesn't write songs anymore. I figured some new stuff would emerge after the tours he did, but he's still playing all old stuff isnt he?

that well is drty

also dry

I figured some new stuff would emerge after the tours he did

i could see that making it even harder to write new songs.

For a Milk Hotel to be Neutral, at a time like this, is unconscionable

— David Spector (@spectordeforce) January 10, 2021

A funny tweet thread.