Neutral Milk Hotel Pictures

Jeff Mangum plays rare live set at NYC benefit

By Simon Vozick-Levinson Simon Vozick-Levinson on a beautiful acoustic performance by Neutral Milk Hotel singer to raise money for ailing musician Chris Knox

Published: 2010-05-10 Provider: Entertainment Weekly

Single Minded: Britney Spears Remix, Wilco Cover Neutral Milk Hotel and More

Photo: Bedder/Getty Britney Spears, “Circus” [Diplo Remix] We’ve been hard on Diplo lately (but not as hard as, say, Diplo has been on Nirvana), so to make amends: his Morse Code redo of Britney’s ode to Ringling Bros. is smooth, sinister and sublime. Wilco, “King of Carrot Flowers” [Neutral Milk Hotel Cover] If indie rock had been invented in the deep South by people who wore overalls all the time, this is what it would sound like. Even Wilco, who haven’t been “country” in decades now, pull off a pretty respectable bluegrass burn. It doesn’t hurt that they have as their source material one of the greatest songs ever written. Lady Rizo & “Moby,” “Whatever You Like” [T.I. Cover] Lady Rizo and half of Kiki & Herb (we’re pretty sure, anyway) bring out the Broadway in this T.I. chart-topper, making the lyrics “late night sex, so wet, so tight” seem like they’d sound natural coming from a guy with half a porcelain mask on his face. Franz Ferdinand, “No You Girls” [Christian Vorbeau Remix] We sort of wish we were named Christian Vorbeau. It’s a ridiculously badass name. And then you could turn out thumping big-beat remixes of rock songs, like this one. Ema & the Ghosts, “Victoria” [Kinks Cover] We don’t know anything about Ema & the Ghosts, and the post that accompanies this song was written in another language which, when run through the always-reliable Babelfish, comes up like this: “Ema & the Ghosts are a supreme hot dog, full of slippery and sleep. Onetime math equation of Ray Davies is cake icing, done with a downtown 7 train and the color of laughing.” So, all that.

Published: 2009-01-23 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Single Minded

The Vault: Today's Monday, So Neutral Milk Hotel Will Love You Tomorrow

Over the weekend, we found the Yo Yo A Go Go compilation in a local bargain bin; it's a double-disc set of performances from the 1994 Yoyo A Go Go Festival in Olympia, Wash., and it has live tracks...

Published: 2007-02-05 Provider: Idolator Keywords: Mp3, neutral milk hotel

Weekend Rock List: Songs By The Numbers

This week, it’s been all about the numbers. Delegate margins between Obama and Clinton. Twenty-four finalists on American Idol (and the return of 24). Feist’s lackluster performance of “1 2 3 4″ on the Grammys. In honor of all things numerical, this weekend’s Rock List salutes those songs that feature numbers in their titles. Let us know your favorites, and on Tuesday we’ll do all the math and reveal the readers’ list of best songs with numbers. Here are our picks: • Bob Dylan – “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35″ • Neutral Milk Hotel – “Holland, 1945″ • Prince – “I Would Die 4 U” • Jay-Z – “99 Problems” • Daft Punk – “One More Time”

Published: 2008-02-15 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock Lists, Rock Daily

Radiohead, Neutral Milk Hotel Help Vinyl Sales Almost Double In 2008

Photo: Getty While CD sales continue to decline, vinyl is still experience a renaissance: 89 percent more LPs were sold last year than in ‘07. Part of the leap can be attributed to Capitol Records’ decision to reissue many of their most famous albums on vinyl, as the Beatles’ Abbey Road was the year’s second-highest-selling vinyl album, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon ranked seventh and Radiohead’s OK Computer rounded out the Top 10. Radiohead’s In Rainbows, an album that began its career as a free download, was 2008’s biggest vinyl seller, a position that was no doubt aided by the fact that the album came out on January 1st of last year and therefore had plenty of time on shelves. Other shockers: Neutral Milk Hotel’s 1998 classic In The Aeroplane Over the Sea came in sixth, ahead of Dark Side, Fleet Foxes and Metallica’s Death Magnetic. Guns n’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy, while struggling to sell CDs, sold enough vinyls to place third on the Top 10 list. But the biggest surprise: The B-52’s’ new album Funplex was the year’s fourth best-selling record as it bridged the gap between people who probably owned record players decades ago and the new class of vinyl buyers. As we examined back in June in our “Vinyl Returns” feature, the death of the CD and the influx of the MP3 — with its varying degrees of less-than-CD-quality sound — have opened the door for vinyl to be relevant again. Plus, the artwork for Aeroplane looks so much better on a larger canvas. In all, the number of records sold last year leapt from 988,000 in ‘07 to 1.88 million in ‘08. Still, the sales from vinyl only made up 0.1 percent of the music sales in 2008, a year that saw a 14 percent decrease across the board. Related Stories: • Vinyl Returns in the Age of MP3 • EMI/Capitol Catch Vinyl Fever with Radiohead, “Pet Sounds” Reissues • What Will the Music Industry Look Like in Five Years?

Published: 2009-01-08 Provider: Rolling Stone Keywords: Rock News

The Neutral Milk Hotel "Reunion": Is April Fool's Day Coming A Little Early?

Look, we know that April Fool's Day falling on a Sunday is throwing off a lot of Internet pranksters' schedules, but come on--are we really supposed to believe that the folks at Tiny Mix Tapes don't...

Published: 2007-03-30 Provider: Idolator Keywords: April Fool's Day, Blogs, neutral milk hotel, tinymixtapes

"The Flying Club Cup" by Beirut

Geography is important for Beirut's Zach Condon, a 21-year-old Brooklynite who won the indie world over with his trusty ukulele and 2006's modest Balkan experiment, Gulag Orkestar. Relying on the aid of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeremy Barnes, the record's Eastern European mixture of acrobatic vocals, brass and hand-pounded percussion somehow sounded both antiqued and contemporary. Indeed, the music could have just as easily been lifted from an Emir Kusturica film (an admitted influence), as from the cutting room floor of Barnes' gypsy-tinged side project, A Hawk and a Hacksaw. Old or new, however, it was firmly rooted on a distant continent, a characteristic The Flying Club Cup shares. But while Gulag looked to the Balkans for inspiration, Condon's latest is a Francophile's wildest dream. Draped in the ornate arrangements of Final Fantasy's Owen Pallett, and drawing from a different French city for each outing's motivation, Cup casts its focus

Published: 2007-10-09 Provider: Artist Direct

Broken Bells Cover Neutral Milk Hotel At Debut Gig

Published: 2010-02-22 Provider: StereoGum

Benjamin Nugent Explains, Exemplifies a Certain Type of New York ‘Nerd’

Benjamin Nugent, nerd.Photo: Gothamist In Benjamin Nugent's book, American Nerd, the author posits that some New York creative professionals, in order to disguise a slavering ambition that might be seen as unattractive or uncool, adopt a "sartorial and conversational pose … to make it look like they're in whatever creative profession they're in because they're helplessly obsessed with it and big nerds about it and couldn't be any other way." Gothamist interviewed Nugent today, and his answer to their question about how he felt about being included in the Observer's recent Brooklyn Literary 100 gives us an inkling as to why Nugent developed said theory: I just want my old life back. I'm fucking sick of these families stopping me on DeKalb and making me pose for pictures. I was having drinks with Sarah Fan last night at Art Bar and we were just minding our own business and having this amazing discussion about Neutral Milk Hotel when some asshole from TMZ walked in and out came the flash bulb. He must have texted his buddies because it was paparazzi central in there in two minutes. Christian Lorentzen came over with his entourage and they got us out of there okay, but it's like, I didn't ask for this shit, you know? Did you get that? Real obsession masked behind pretend obsession in an anecdote about imaginary obsession. Hm. The plain old unconcealed version of obsession doesn't seem so distasteful now, does it? Benjamin Nugent [Gothamist]

Published: 2008-06-05 Provider: New York Magazine

“The Baby Has Two Faces,” Or “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!H!H!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Remember that story about the two-faced baby born in India, everyone who isn't named Michelle Collins or shares an office with Michelle Collins? I'm not talking about some underhanded baby traitor, or the baby version of the Batman villain Two-Face -- I mean, a literal baby that has one face and also has another face. Sound disgusting? Well, CNN.com now has video of said two-headed baby, who is apparently being "worshipped as a goddess" in India, likely by one mistranslated kook who just ensured that Americans will be scoffin' at some Hinduism around the water cooler tomorrow morning (in addition to just being generally weirded-out): Deeeeeffffinitely makes me wish that it really was just a story about a two-faced traitor baby. Or at least a boy, so we could play Neutral Milk Hotel over it.

Published: 2008-04-09 Provider: VH1

New Music Tapes Video - "Majesty"

The spate of recent Jeff Mangum sightings tended to obscure the fact that, yes, there are other people who were/are involved with Elephant 6, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc. One such lifer is wire recorder, singing saw, and Christmas enthusiast Julian Koster, w

Published: 2008-11-05 Provider: StereoGum Keywords: stereogum,indie,rock,mp3,blog

25 Bands That Should Maybe, Kind Of, Reunite Or Something?

Shoutmouth.com offers us a brutally comprehensive list of "25 Bands That Should Reunite," which, in addition to being a blatent attempt to generate user comments during these slow August weeks (heh....heh...), actually made me realize that there aren't actually a lot of bands I would care to see get back together. The more I thought about it, the more I surprised myself by how much I "meh'd" some of these suggestions: 15. The Grateful Dead What?? Is anyone so moved to anger by Dead members' solo endeavors that they'd actually rather see the surviving members trapse around the country with a new lead singer, a la "The Doors?" Maybe they could get Mike Love and tour as a Grateful Dead / Beach Boys double bill? 12. My Bloody Valentine, 7. Neutral Milk Hotel "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" is a top 5 album for myself and for many others, and "Loveless" is right up there too, but after a decade-plus of our indie worship for these two estranged groups, could their reunions possibly produce anything except annoyingly argued-about new albums that'd be impossible to hear over every music blog dishing out obligatory gushing/bashing opinions? 6. The Replacements, 4. Pavement Again, two of my favorite bands, but ones which I associate so strongly with an angsty/apathetic (angstathetic?) college mentality, I'm not so sure seeing them onstage as 40-year olds singing "school's out, what did you expect?" wouldn't just make me laugh. I hope I'm wrong? 1. Pink Floyd When I was in high school, I would have stolen a car and sold it to afford tickets to a Floyd reunion show. I wish them well, but even my copies of "Meddle" and "Animals," the official "I'm not a poser fan anymore, now I'm discovering their true greatness" albums haven't been touched in three years. If I made a list of bands that I really, truly want to see reunite, I'm pretty sure it'd just be about three bands long: 1. Talking Heads 2. The Smiths, I guess 3. The Ramones. I'll wait as long as it takes, damnit. Other peo

Published: 2007-08-23 Provider: Best Week Ever Keywords: Entertainment