S/D, C or D: Elephant Six?

I mean, if you genuinely hate it all, go for it, but you should explain yrself beyond "all that is wrong with indie since the mid 90s" if you don't just want to sound like a reactionary fool..

I can think of a lot worse stuff that happened in the mid 90s to indie rock, though the complete blind fawning over everything Brian Wilson that came with E6 was pretty deplorable..

Destroyable: The Music Tapes (there's a difference between childlike and childish), Essex Green (noxious 60s-retread folk-psych), Dressy Bessy (E6 + Kindercore = hyperglycemic shock).

Addition: People who say, "Thats why everything in (genre) has sucked since (the year this person stopped listening to it)" are total idiots.

Of Montreal are the worst E6 band. Even worse than Music Tapes, who are fucking awful. Minders & Beulah are classic.

As far as I know, Mangum never made an attempt to draw attention to the subject matter of the songs. If he had made it an advertising focal point, I think he would have gotten a lot more shit for it. As it stands, I bet a good portion of album listeners never really made that connection. (Excepting, obviously nerdy types who read review after review and sit for hours analyzing lyrics.)

OTC were quite open for ridicule, I think, because of the huge artsy bullshit factor to a lot of what they did. The "Green Typewriters" section of Dusk At Cubist Castle comes to mind immedately.

bucket
naomi

search: ladybug transistor , circulatory system, 35% of summer hymns , marshmallow coast IF (big if) YOU HAVE HIGH TOLERANCE AND LOVE OF NAIVE diy POP and mr j. barnes staggering a hawk and a hacksaw project, for which *ADVERT* i made this:

www.pickled-egg.co.uk/hawk

NHM live was all right, these two twee dorks loudly singing along on both sides of me pretty much ruined it. i like almost all of Aeroplane except for a couple songs, that long dirge-y one gets skipped every time.

the first OTC single is good, that first song is good. so is "define a transparent dream" off their first record.

best apples song: "touch the water", the version recorded with "wally" of Lilys when he was living in denver.

someone should propose an E6 C90 thread? or is that too much... how about a best of 3" CD?

this is weird, but i've been listening to a lot of Elf Power's "Vainly CLutching At Phantom Limbs" recently, and i must say it is my absolute favorite E6 record.

so bleak and negative and psychedelic-punk in tone.

Destroy everything but NMH. Well, "Hooray for Tuesday" by the Minders is good, though when I found myself listening to it a few days after Tuesday, September 11, 2001, I couldn't bring myself to listen to it anymore because I kept making that uncomfortable association. Also, the first Gerbils album is okay. Everything else sucks.

sorry yr wrong.

i see NMH are still the most overrated E6-associated band

Listen to "Song Against Sex" and get back to me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVeDMJYRA1g

NMH haters are mad tiresome imo. both of their albums are straight classics for me, as are both olivia tremor controls. i like selected apples in stereo too but i know they're too sugary-sweet for some ('her wallpaper reverie' best avoids this problem).

I can see how if I hadn't-- by chance-- bought NMH on the day it came out in 1997 (or was it 98?) I may not have been able to get into it. I really think it's best listened to in a vacuum, maybe if you're traveling alone in an unknown land.

the way their whole scene played out is kind of sad and depressing. like there was some promise there, a few good-to-great records, and then the scene got eaten by its own over-exposure. one of those things that withered in the limelight.

Jeez, I am seeing the E6 supermega tour in March and I have only rly heard both NMH and both OTC. What else should I seek out?

http://www.r5productions.com/event/22855/ lol jesus wht have I gotten myself into

lol @ them doing NMH songs without Jeff

Oh they couldn't ACTUALLY... could they? I mean, my friend who has seen Julian Koster/E6 tours like this in the past/etc says that Jeff will *probably* be there so who knows.

they just seem like a small scene that would have been better-served (and longer lasting/more resilient) had they just stayed small and out of the limelight. but the internet happened and sorta ruined any cult mystery they might have maintained. and then there were the Apples, who clearly wanted to be as big as they could get.

xp

Of Montreal obviously ambitious too

Elf Power have some really great tracks scattered over all their records, imo.
Weird that they are the longest running (besides Of Montreal and Apples, I suppose) E6 concern.

the way their whole scene played out is kind of sad and depressing. like there was some promise there, a few good-to-great records, and then the scene got eaten by its own over-exposure. one of those things that withered in the limelight.

― assorted curses (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, January 7, 2011 8:13 PM (12 minutes ago)

I wouldn't say they got "eaten by their own exposure". from the very beginning they were a bunch of college-aged artsy stoners who didn't have the means to maintain steady, mature recording careers. thus all the bizarre side projects, name changes, breakups, and so on.

I think it was inevitable that once acts like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control released a couple of neat, ambitious, traditionally "classic" full-length works, they either disappeared or indulged in more difficult side projects. the fact that the media picked up on the scene for a brief window of time didn't really change the progression for better or for worse.

when E6 ceased to be a more-or-less cohesive scene, journalists lost interest, and the handful of acts that hadn't fizzled out by then (Elf Power, Apples, Of Montreal) racked up fairly steady runs of LP's while others (OTC and NMH dudes) chimed in with the occasional side project. obviously some of them lost their muses along the way, but that's bound to happen.

I think it was inevitable that once acts like Neutral Milk Hotel and the Olivia Tremor Control released a couple of neat, ambitious, traditionally "classic" full-length works, they either disappeared or indulged in more difficult side projects otm. i'm just glad they each gave us 2 great LPs of that kind first.

will hart's post-OTC output has been pretty incredible if sparse -- first circulatory system album is one of my all-time favs.

Circulatory System were amazing in concert the one time I saw them. They were better than OTC, imo.

will hart's post-OTC output has been pretty incredible if sparse -- first circulatory system album is one of my all-time favs.

Inside Views (a sort of remix of the first Circ. System album) is great too and shows the endless possibilities the guys had in front of them when it came time to arrange and mix the loads and loads of recording sessions that go into the typical OTC/CS release. I haven't heard the second CS album (even though I kinda waited 4 years for it) but have heard that it's noisier than usual.

problem i had with most e6 bands was that the vocalists were all mostly terrible.

(not to say i didn't like some of the records)

^^^ yeah---it's like Weird Al was their role model, vocal-wise.

A Hawk and a Hacksaw's 2007 EP with the Hun Hangár Ensemble contains some really tight, austere, traditional Balkan folk music. it's great and not at all what you'd expect from an old E6 dude. no vocals either.

Oh yeah, that reminds me of Bablicon. Never heard their record(s?) but they were really great in concert, too.

(make no mistake: I love Weird Al)

(would have loved a Weird Al version of "The Opera House"; coulda hammed it up with "The Opera Mouse" & maybe gotten an animated video out of it, maybe a tie-in with some movie or tv show: championship material imo)

Dig Olivia Tremor the most; Apples In Stereo and Neutral Milk can go to hell.

Apples went so far downhill. I really find everything post like '97 or so just intolerable.

yeah i've only got one apples thing -- a singles comp from around 96? but it is pretty good!

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/bee7087a6020025068cae31556ee457a/366.jpg
this one

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/bee7087a6020025068cae31556ee457a/366.jpg

oops?

anyhoo it's called science faire

"Discovery Of A World Inside The Moone" has some great tracks on it, but otherwise, yeah, "Tone Sole Evolution" was the peak for me.

Science Faire is all you need

Schneider was clearly the collective's best studio technician but unfortunately he's one if it's worst conceptualizers/songwriters

When I heard that shitty dance single from the latest record, I thought, "Hillarie would never have allowed this shit to go on :( "

is she not in the band anymore?

No, she quit right before "New Magnetic Wonder" came out.

The Apples' first album (Fun Trick Noisemaker) is ok, and "Tidal Wave" rocks harder (in a '90s powerpop way, not a '60s psych-pop way) rocks harder than most E6 stuff. but a full album of Schneider's nasile, pinched, childlike vocals is a bit wearying. Hilarie is a decent singer, though she definitely had that cutesy little girl Isobel Campbell thing going on. I had no idea she quit.

are Robert and Hilarie still married?

are ladybug transistor an e6 band? i liked one of their records, but i don't think i have it anymore ...

I think so...? too twee for me

for some reason I'm more forgiving of tweeness in Britishers

yeah they were super twee, but some of the songs were nice iirc.

Elf Power have some really great tracks scattered over all their records, imo.

'creatures' has a coupla killer guitar pop tracks iirc

I think I'm more forgiving of tweeness in girls than in boys, although I'm quick to condemn the worst offenders regardless of gender.

The thing w/ E6 that I find, despite all their insistence, is that they aren't very experimental or progressive as they claim. It's just all very conventional music redone in the modern era - laxer limitations on lyrical content ("semen on the mountain-tops" and such); easier, more available and ultimately cheaper production techniques; and the obvious influence punk/grunge had upon simplyifying songs. But otherwise I just don't find these dudes the zany foward-thinkers pushing the limits of the future soundscape as they tend to describe themselves.

still like OTC but everything else is like whatever.

Living close to Athens where most of these bands are from has spoiled me, because aside from maybe a couple years in the middle of last decade, E6 is pretty much going as strong as it always has. Some of the bands are much much bigger, some of them has splintered off into side projects, but it is all the same musicians and they all join in on new projects all the time, like you would imagine a collective of musicians & artists to do. Ever since their resurgence The Music Tapes have been playing really great DIY tours and releasing wonderful music and videos. Circulatory System is a good enough substitution for OTC and bands like Casper & The Cookies might not be putting out classic discs but they're a damn fun show if you want to go experience some southern T-Rex style glam psych.

adam did you go to any of those ash ra tempel tribute shows they were doing every week or so at flicker over the summer?

No. I really wanted to go to the Halloween stuff but had to be in ATL playing a show at Wonderroot.

The thing w/ E6 that I find, despite all their insistence, is that they aren't very experimental or progressive as they claim

This is really funny to me for some reason. After a Circulatory System show I saw John Fernandes stepping out of the 40 Watt completely dazed, visibly on some kind of drug. Most of the show that night had songs stretching out into psychedelic jam territory and he was shredding the entire time, with some gorgeous echo effects on his violin.

Anyways he bummed a cigarette from my friend and told us "This band is getting experimental!" and I LOL'd because the first time I ever read about his music it was an article on OTC asking people to send in tapes of their dreams because they were going to write songs based on each account or something.

john is high a lot. supernice dude, i've only seen him angry twice, both time over things related to otc. hopefull/supposedly they'll get that radio station started up on the orange twin compound since that bill passed. those were genuinely fun days and i'm glad it's still a part of the athens landscape or whatever though dark meat passed me by entirely. i'll listen to olivias once in a blue moon, haven't listened to nmh since the last time someone did it at karaoke, god knows the last time i heard a gerbils track, never was enthusiastic about of montreal, heard an elf power song on fmu the other day from a dream in sound, 'will my feet still carry me home' or whatever, first time i'd heard it in ten years i'd guess, a little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never look back.

I always wanted to hear the Frosted Ambassador LP. The OTC song "frosted ambassador" is so nice; I could go for a whole LP of groovy cocktail vibraphone stuff like that.

Gotta say the fact of Of Montreal blowing up really took me by surprise.

I booked The Music Tapes' "Lullaby" tour for a show in Atlanta next Thurs 13th at the mansion on Ponce (next to the Shriner's Temple, across from Krispy Kreme) btw.

The Frosted Ambassador lp is pretty nice. We had it at KCOU (where I once sang along to "Jumping Fences" while it was being performed live on the air). Haven't listened to it since college radio days.

was there ever an E6 tracks poll? or a c90/POX thread?

or say if I like the following, then gimme an RIYL:

nmh - naomi
otc - love athena
otc - define a transparent dream
ais - innerspace

I'd love to see one

Anyone read Adam Clair's book about E6 yet? I've been thinking about picking it up.

https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/adam-clair/endless-endless/9780306923944/