NEWS: New Book Tells Story of Neutral Milk Hotel's 'Aeroplane'

...explores the band's friendships, its role within Elephant 6 and previously unpublished information on recordings, songwriting and touring. It also features interviews explaining some of the reasons why Jeff Mangum left public life just as his band was taking off. It also includes a dozen rare images.

The story of Neutral Milk Hotel revealed itself to be one of faith and love and trust, of a bunch of talented kids who believed in each other and made magical things happen. It's an inspiring tale, and I think one that has a lot to offer young people who want to be artists, but are unsure of how to go about it or how much to rely on their friends and collaborators. They could do much worse than to follow the Elephant 6 model.

The book is organized chronologically, geographically and thematically, with sections on Ruston, Louisiana (where the players first came together), Athens, Denver, the On Avery Island recording sessions, Queens (where the Jeff-Jeremy-Julian-Scott band manifested), the In The Aeroplane Over The Sea recording sessions, an analysis of each of the songs on Aeroplane, an account of the designing of Aeroplane's sleeve art, life on the road dealing with the band's increasingly popularity, and concluding with the aftermath of the 1998 world tour, how the band ceased to be, and Neutral Milk Hotel's continued influence.

mamet said:
It's an incredible album, but there's no way I could read an entire book about it. That seems a bit excessive.

Keith said:

From what I remember, the 33 1/3 books are fairly thin and short.

jake_lex said:

They're usually between 100 and 150 pages, and they're small books (something like 5 inches tall by 4 inches wide.) I have the ones for Unknown Pleasures, and Low. I read both in one sitting.

In both cases, though they did go into some depth about the actual music, the focus was just as much on what was going on around the artists at the time of the recording.

Chitin said:
Damn. That's probably my favorite album of all time, I'm gonna have to get that!

Margot_Dent said:

same here

please come out of hiding jeff magnum!

FunkySkunk said:
Neutral Milk Hotel astounds me as being the one band that every kid with any idea of underground music is into... seriously anytime i meet an indie kid its one of the first bands i mention because its almost a garaunteed shared interest... Its cool that there are bands that bridge the gap of genres...