#31. I’m wrapping up my week of Elephant 6 shirts with Neutral Milk Hotel, maybe the most revered band to come out of the E6 scene. In 1998 they released one of my all time favorite albums, In the Aeroplane over the Sea, which is one of the few albums that changed my perception of what music can do.
Populated by surreal characters (the King of Carrot Flowers, the Two-Headed Boy, the Communist’s Daughter), weird anatomical imagery (the fork in daddy’s shoulder, the fingers in the mouth that make the muscles move, fingers later placed in the notches of your spine) and plain, sincere and un-ironic love (the wail “I love you Jesus Christ” initially seems like it must lead to another odd obsession, but ends up as one of the clearest statements on the entire album). The album reaches its peak on Oh Comely with so many wild lyrics and such fervor, it initially comes across as indulgent but eventually became the centerpiece of the album for me.
I actually can’t remember where I bought this shirt. It’s possible I bought it at their Spaceland performance when they toured Aeroplane, a show that also included The Gerbils and Elf Power. I have such fond memories of that show, and even a few false memories. When I recollect the show, the stage was so cluttered with instruments that the band didn’t enter the stage by walking on it. They actually floated down from the ceiling.
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