It’s been popping up all over the webs, but I thought I would post it too.  I really hope this means that there is a new Music Tapes album in the works (his last one was one of my favorites of 2008), and I’m also hoping that Julian Koster will be making an appearance on the upcoming Circulatory System tour as well (he did play on the album!).

The Music Tapes- “for the Planet Pluto”

more on the Music Tapes here.

Julian Koster played a short set at the XX Merge afternoon show at The Orange County Social Club (one of the best bars ever!).  During this short, and hot, out door performance Julian played solo (only about 5 songs)…we’ll if you consider solo being acompanied by an organ playing robot, and the huge metronome he totes around.  The Music Tapes were one of the highlights of the festival for me, and I was a little sad the Julian didn’t have all of his E6 friends with him (Theo and Jeff, where were you?) and that he didn’t get to play at the Cat’s Cradle…but his preformace was still wonderful…I can’t wait for a new Music Tapes record.

Julian’s newest friend:

Julian:

saw and accordion time:

how the metronome works:

I also found a video of this demonstration (video by Adam)!

A couple more picture of the Music Tapes from XX Merge can be found here.

More on Julian Koster and his Muic Tapes (more photos, videos, ect) can be found here.

David over at The Creative Intersection posted an interview with Julian a couple months ago as well…read it here.

This is part of my Going To XX Merge series, you can read the rest of the series here.

This is Part II of my Going To XX Merge series, you can read the rest of the series here.

One of the most enchanting bands I have seen in recent years is The Music Tapes, and it is no surprise that they are coming out of the Elephant Six collective.

My first experience was at the Elephant Six Surprise Tour, which was a magical event that Julian Koster put together. It’s not that Elephant Six was dormant but it does appear The Music Tapes’ release of Music Tapes for  Clouds & Tornadoes brought a lively hood back to the Athens scene. Now we are getting an emergence of energy coming from them again, and this really excites me.

Jeff Mangum even played Neutral Milk Hotel songs at a handful of dates (very sad that this didn’t happen in NYC, but if it can happen anywhere else I assume it will be at XX Merge):

Neutral Milk Hotel- “The Fool” & “Engine” Live in Lexington, KT on October 23rd, 2008 at the Holiday Surprise Tour:

The Circulatory System is back, releasing an album in September titled Signal Morning. And the mp3s that have been floating around are wonderful:

[mp3] Circulatory System- “Overjoyed” (via Pitchfork)
[mp3] Circulatory System- “Rocks and Stones” (via No Conclusion)
[mp3] Circulatory System- “Signal Morning” (via No Conclusion)

All of these tracks are from Signal Morning. It will be available at Cloud Recordings on September 8th, 2009 ( many other E6 related releases are already available there). It’s rumored that Circulatory System has more than one album ready, and Will Cullen Hart has said that Olivia Tremor Control has been recording again! They are unsure what will come of this, but that’s ok…I’ll take what I can get.

Elephant Six will release their movie, Major Organ and the Adding Machine as a deluxe DVD/CD package as well. This film premiered at the Holiday Surprise Tour, and while Pitchfork doesn’t seem to be a fan…I am eagerly awaiting it’s release. It has been a long time coming, and I can’t wait to hear the expanded soundtrack (it’s hard to imagine that it can get better than it already is).

Here is the trailer:

Last but not least… I’m loving on some Nana Grizol the newest band to come out of E6. The play indie pop, and in the style that I liked in high school and college, but with lyrics that aren’t cheesy and trite.  It’s really nice to enjoy this style of music again with out cringing when you hear the words.  These are people that I would like to be friends with.  I think their Pink Couch session is a nice introduction.

The Music Tapes will be preforming two times at XX Merge…one at the Cat’s Cradle, and an outdoor show at the Orange County Social Club on the Saturday of the festival. Needless to say they will be one of the highlights of the festival for me (which is less than two weeks away).  With that, I will leave you with this:

The Music Tapes- “Majesty”

The Music Tapes-”Minister of Longitude”

Support the Artists:

• Buy Music Tapes releases here.
• Buy OTC releases here or here.
• Buy Circulatory System releases here or here.
• Buy Neutral Milk Hotel releases here.
• Buy Nana Grizol releases here.

I would like to apologize to my long time readers for re-posting some of these videos, but I truly love them.

Additional Info About this post:

• Photo Credit: Music Tapes tattoo via Daniella Maria Khomuz’s flickr
  • I do not know this person, but they have a rad tattoo.

• More one Elephant Six related musing (including Music Tapes and Dark Meat pictures) here.

• This post is basically a Thank you Julian, for re-lighting this fire in Athens!

Last week when we saw the Music Tapes and Julian Koster was very ill, but he proceeded to play a wonderful show. Two days after the show my friend Brendan got sick.  Brendan coined his sickness Julian Koster Disease.

I’m not the type of person that typically gets sick, but this past Sunday the Julian Koster disease caught up with me.  I have pretty much been out of commission for the past 48 hours, and I have a whole new respect for Mr. Koster if he was in fact playing with an illness even half as bad as mine.  Beware of the changing weather…Julian Koster disease might get you.  I suggest Robotussin, Advil PM, kombucha, ginger ale, a kitten to keep you warm, and Arrested Development….this is what made me feel better.  I hope to be back up in full operation tomorrow…these past 48 hours might be my worst hours of 2009.

Last night Music Tapes, Nana Grizol, and Brian Dewan played a very intimate show at the Bell House.

Nana Grizol

Music Tapes

Julian then asked everyone to write down their most favorite memory, put it into a camel, and then took everyone outside to burn the memories and jump over the fire.

After this Julian took everyone back inside, played one or two more songs by himself, and the full band finished with a cover(?) of the Major Organ and the Adding Machine song “Life Form (Transmission Received).”

for more pictures of the show go here.

for more info about the bands go here.

Julian Koster put together the best tour of 2008:  The Elephant Six Holiday Surprise Tour.  This show was basically The Music Tapes, Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System, Elf Power, The Gerbils, and Nana Grizol doing a round robin switching off songs, and giving the performance of the year.  Everyone was in good spirits, and looked truly happy to be making music.  It was a magical event, and it was preceded by a showing of the Elephant Six movie: Major Organ and the Adding Machine (see trailer below).  I didn’t have the most ideal location for the screening of the movie, but what I was able to see was great…and I have been listening to the sound track ever since.  Jeff Mangum was even at the show, sang back up on a couple songs, was too shy to come out and sing a Neutral Milk Hotel song when Julian played it, and started a beard grabbing fight over a microphone with the singer of the Gerbils during an Olivia Tremor Control song (I assume this was all in good fun).  It was a pretty phenomenal night.

Julian then did a Christmas Caroling tour, where he played peoples houses and the location was only announced to people that contacted Julian directly.  This sounded wonderful, but I didn’t get to see the show.

Now Julian and his Music Tapes are going on tour again (third tour since last fall)…and instead of bringing some new upcoming band on tour with them…they are bringing the newish upcoming Elephant Six band Nana Grizol on tour with them!

For anyone unfamiliar with the Music Tapes it is Julian Koster (who played in Neutral Milk Hotel), a 7-foot-tall metronome, Static the Television (yes, a talking television), the Clapping Hands Machine, and other creations and people making wonderful pop music based around the singing saw and banjo.

When I saw the Elephant Six Surprise Tour there was one guy, he was cute with curly dark hair, and he sang one of the last songs that they played at the Knitting Factory…I went to the merch table and was asking about the records.  Typically the person at the merch table doesn’t know a whole lot about the what they are selling, but this woman knew about all of the records, and pointed me toward the Nana Grizol record!

The cute boy with curly dark hair was Theo Hilton, the front man for Nana Grizol.  The rest of Nana Grizol is a revolving cast of Elephant Six musicians.  If I would have known that their album Love It, Love It came out in 2008 it probably would have made my best of list (it’s too late now for revisions), but when I bought the record I thought I was behind the times and didn’t even think that it could be new (until writing this post).  Nana Grizol make fun indie rock, and they do it better than a lot of the better known acts out there.  Theo’s backing horn section is comprised of Laura Carter and Robbie Cucchiaro, both of whom also played with Neutral Milk Hotel.  Nana Grizol also helps run Orange Twin Records.

Music Tapes and Nana Grizol will also be accompanied by Brain Dewan (musician and artists).  Dewan has worked with many people over the years (Seasame Street, Music Tapes, They Might be Giants) and created album art for They Might be Giants and David Byrne among others.  There is a video of Dewan and Koster playing together below.

Music Tapes, Nana Grizol and Brian Dewan will be playing at the Bell House on Tuesday March 3rd, 2009 (more tour dates below).  Get Tickets for the Bell House show here!

Trailer for Major Organ and the Adding Machine

The Music Tapes- “Majesty”

The Music Tapes-”Minister of Longitude”

Nana Grizol’s Pink Couch Session

Rumpelstiltskin played by Brian Dewan & Julian Koster (thanks to Lucy Ross for the link)

The Music Tapes w/ Nana Grizol and Brian Dewan – Tour Dates for 2009
2/10 Austin, TX Mohawk
2/11 Norman, OK The Opolis
2/13 Tucson, AZ Solar Culture Gallery
2/15 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex
2/17 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
2/19 Seattle, WA The Vera Project
2/20 Anacortes, WA Department of Safety
2/21 Portland, OR Backspace
2/24 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry
2/25 Chicago, IL AV-aerie
2/26 Ann Arbor, MI The B-side
2/27 Toronto, ON Lee’s Palace
2/28 Buffalo, NY Big Orbit’s Soundlab
3/1 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s
3/2 Cambridge, MA Middle East Upstairs
3/3 Brooklyn, NY The Bellhouse
3/4 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church – Basement
3/5 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
3/7 Athens, GA 40 Watt

Photo of Static the Television via Decider Chicago

also Music Tapes made one of my favorite albums of 2008.

This list has taken much longer than expected.  There were a bunch of albums that I liked in 2008, but I feel that this is pretty comprehensive, but the ones that made this list I truly liked from beginning to end…in my opinion solid records.

For example, I really loved the No Kids record (Come into My House), but I was much more into the R&B songs versus the world music songs…and for that reason it didn’t make my list.

Some things got left off because I didn’t get them til early 2009 (examples are Wavves- s/t and Castanets – City of Refuge), but somethings that I didn’t get into until the end of 2008 shot up to the top ten (mainly Grouper).  I was going to do a top 10, but I have been into the blogging and I wanted to do something bigger (also see my best of 7″ and 12″ singles of 2008).

Welcome to my Top 25 albums of 2008:

25. Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls (Mauled By Tigers Records / In the Red)

24. Eat Skull- Sick to Death (Siltbreeze)

23. Abe Vigoda – Skeleton (Post Present Medium)

22. Desolation Wilderness- White Light Strobing (K Records)

21. Matmos – Supreme Balloon (Matador)

20. Arthur Russell – Love is Overtaking Me (Audika)

19.  The Dodos – Visitor (French Kiss)

18.  Xiu Xiu – Women as Lovers (Kill Rock Stars)

17. David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything that Happens Will Happen Today (self released)

16. Beach House – Devotion (Carpark)

15. The Magnetic Fields- Distortion (Nonesuch)

14. Titus Andronicus – Airing of Grievances (Troubleman Unlimited)

13. Bonnie Prince Billy- Lie Down in The Light (Drag City)

12. Lord Dog Bird - s/t (Jagjaguwar)

11. Burning Star Core – Challenger (Hospital Productions/ Plastic Records)

10. No Age – Nouns (Sub Pop)

9. Thee Oh Sees- The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In (Tom Lab)

8. Times NewViking- Rip it Off (Matador)

7. High Places- High Places (Thrill Jockey)

6. Karl Blau- Nature’s Got Away / AM (K Records / Whistler)

5. Grouper- Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill (Type)

4. Deerhunter – Microcastle / Weird Era Cont. (Kranky)

3. Mount Eerie- Dawn / Lost Wisdom / Black Wooden Ceiling Opening (P.W. Elverum and Suns)

2. The Music Tapes- For Clouds and Tornadoes (Merge)

1. Los Campesinos! - Hold on Now, Youngster / We are Beautiful, We are Doomed (Wichita/Arts & Crafts)