An Evening With Jeff Mangum
I wonder what Jeff Mangum thinks when, on February 4th, 2013, he plays an intimate acoustic show full of songs he wrote in the mid 90’s to a crowd dominated by college kids who a) were probably in elementary school when his two most celebrated and critically acclaimed records were released, b) are likely spending money on Jeff Mangum for the first time at this show, since it’s a fair bet that the bulk of early twenty-somethings who are into his music got it through illegal downloads or second hand from friends[^1], and c) know every single word and vocal tic to all of his tracks, and are not at all shy about singing along with him from the start of his set at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, VA, to the very last measure of his encore. Perhaps, Mangum’s upset. Though he never stopped recording music, even after disbanding Neutral Milk Hotel at the height of the project’s success in 1998, the same year he released the now legendary _In The Aeroplane Over The Sea_, his side projects never garnered the same attention or praise as NMH. As a result, Mangum drifted further and further from the public eye, and 21st century music culture roared on without him. His reclusiveness, coupled with his unique literary brand of folk-rock poetry, solidified him as one of the most mysterious talents of his generation. But then, a funny thing happened on the way to indie music obscurity: widespread music piracy. The proliferation of Mangum’s albums through illegal downloading and music sharing websites, combined with his off-the-grid persona, helped build a myth around his identity that grew stronger and stronger until the 2010’s, when Mangum finally resurfaced with the rarity release, _Ferris Wheel On Fire_, and played a few select events with Elephant 6 bands[^2]. Then, in November, 2012, he announced a 2013 tour of the U.S., a full fifteen years after Neutral Milk Hotel’s last proper release.
So, I could understand if part of Mangum resents this tour just a little bit, since he’s going out on stage every night to play songs that he must, to some degree, feel like he’s grown out of, and beyond that he’s playing them to a whole lot of “kids” that never even officially _bought_ his records (though, to their credit, they did buy their tickets). But, then again, Mangum himself organized this tour[^3], and he’s even extended the dates with a west coast run in late April. So, maybe he’s not particularly upset, but certainly he must feel a bit confused about the whole thing. I know I felt confused in the minutes leading up to Mangum’s set at the Jefferson, both because I didn’t know what to expect from his live performance, and also because just eight hours before that moment I had no idea I’d get the chance to see his show that night. Tickets sold out months ago on the same day they were released, and since December I’d been relegated to that awful position where you ask friends if they have any extras and they text you back saying “sorry man, I’ll let you know if anyone drops out, but I doubt they will.” Luckily, the venue released a very small number of tickets the same afternoon of the show, and I was quick enough to snag one. All of this, suffice to say, is my way of pointing out that there was a fair amount of anticipation for this show in central Virginia, and I’d venture a guess that many areas around the country are or were just as excited for Mangum as us. But what exactly would his show be? Would he play only Neutral Milk Hotel songs or songs from other projects? His music, though certainly rooted in the simplest of acoustic chord-progressions, is anything but simple in its produced, studio form, so would he be supported by any other musicians? I don’t think I was alone in asking myself these questions. The crowd, after the opening band Tall Firs[^4], was mostly hushed and still, and also, as previously mentioned, quite young. In fact, as I bought beers for a friend and myself at the downstairs bar just before Mangum’s set, I asked the bartender why things seemed to be going so slow for him at this sold out show. He shrugged, “Young people, man. These kids can’t drink, they actually want to _listen_ to the music, you know what I mean?” I knew exactly what he meant, and as soon as I got back to my spot against the far stage-left wall of the house, the lights dimmed and out strode Mangum to his seat at center stage beside four gleaming acoustic guitars.
Jeff Mangum is a skinny guy, heavily bearded, with long, scraggly black hair. He has piercing little eyes that very rarely seemed to make straight contact with anyone in the crowd, though when they did, they did so with great warmth and conviction. Most of the time though, when his eyes weren’t closed and he wasn’t looking at his guitar or at the ground, his gaze floated above the crowd and fixed on some consistent, nebulous point just below the balcony. When he first sat down, he picked up one of the four guitars and strummed it a few times to check the tuning. Then, he said “thank you” to the audience, and launched into a breathtaking rendition of “Holland, 1945,” which somehow sounded even more full and bombastic when stripped to its acoustic core than it ever did with all its overdriven percussion and fuzzed-out horns on the record. I think Mangum’s decision to begin the set with one of his most energetic, pulsating tracks, was by design; as he shouted that iconic first line, _The only girl I’ve ever loved was born with roses in her eyes_, the whole venue seemed to take a deep breath and prepare themselves for a privileged ride through Neutral Milk Hotel’s distinguished musical archives. From the moment he first sang, Mangum commanded the audience’s attention like few performers I’ve ever seen. He played a crowd-pleasing twelve-song set[^5]: seven tracks from _In The Aeroplane..._, three of the most popular tracks from his first release, _On Avery Island_, and two tracks from his rarity collection released this past year. Most of the time, his voice sounded exactly like it does on those records, and often he vocalized horn-lines and other non-existent instrumental melodies overtop his precise and fervent acoustic strumming. At one point early in the set—I think it was during “Song Against Sex”—he broke a string on one of his acoustics. Someone rushed to his side from off-stage and took the guitar from him, and Mangum, in the midst of singing, grabbed one of the other four guitars at his side without looking, and then kept strumming along, hardly missing a beat. The crowd roared its approval.
In fact, the crowd sang along with Mangum almost every step of the way, mimicking as best they could his unique cadence and delivery, and though at times listening to such an ad-hoc chorus grew tiresome, it also served as a healthy reminder of just how irreplaceable and special Mangum’s voice truly is. His vaguely celtic, melodic whine that sometimes teeters into nasally, grunge-pop territory—it’s at once arresting and emotionally unstable. He consistently elevates the simplest acoustic chord-progressions into poignant pieces of folk-pop through the sheer versatility of those vocals. I think that conflict between straightforward folk structure and an inimitable voice is a huge part of Neutral Milk Hotel’s mass appeal; the fact that every song can be _played_ by anyone with an intermediate acoustic understanding of open chords and barchords, while at the same time no other soul on the planet could ever _sing_ like Mangum, creates this dizzying contradiction that fascinates and intrigues music fans to no end. And beyond that, there’s Mangum’s poetic, cryptic, and hyper-literate lyrics that add a narrative, deeply personal component to his music. Every track on Neutral Milk Hotel’s two proper LPs feel as though they’re cut from the same human cloth. They deal with a variety of emotions, time periods, and psychological issues, and yet Mangum somehow manages to boil each track down to its most elemental properties, so both albums feel like simple, sad statements that we know are poignant, but can’t quite figure out why. I feel as though much time could be devoted to dissecting all the allusions and literary devices Mangum employs in his songs, but his lyrical and thematic obsessions are so varied—sex, virginity, families, trailer parks, snow covered gardens, roses, World War II, naked bodies, divorce, alcohol, dreams, love, beauty, babies, bee stings, sleep, memory, angels and halos, holy rattlesnakes, milk, the month of April, tongues, medicine, stadiums, time machines, emptiness, windows, blisters, wings, semen, rings around the sun, photographs, dead dogs, pianos filled with flames, escape, cigarettes, sunday shoes, aeroplanes over the sea, communists, two-headed boys, circus wheels, flesh licking ladies and fat fleshy fingers, drugs, muscles, Naomi’s dress, silver speakers, radio wires, accordions, pulleys, cracked bells, hospitals, walks in the park, blankets, rain, late-night television, how God is a place you will wait for the rest of your life, eyelids, being buried alive, synthetic flying machines, spines, swimming, Christmas trees, religion, engines, ghosts, dark brothers, gutters and floors, Jesus Christ, death, riding roller coasters into the ocean— that maybe it’s best to leave that dissection for another day.
The lyrics, the song structures, Mangum’s distinctive voice—it all adds up to some deeply troubled and lonesome music. Neutral Milk Hotel records have always been best digested alone, with headphones, in a dark bedroom, where one can connect safely with the mind of a confident, yet tortured songwriter. I worried that this one-on-one aspect of Mangum’s music wouldn’t translate to his live performance, but it did. His set was direct, intimate, honest, without any theatrics or much chatting with the crowd. There were your usual audience goofballs, the one’s who took advantage of the silences between songs to shout something like “I love you Jeff!” or “Can I give you a hug!?” or “Can you sign my copy of _On Avery Island_?” to which Mangum, in the midst of tuning one of his acoustics, simply said, “Yeah,” which was an answer complete enough to keep everyone engaged and excited, but also terse enough to convey that Mangum is not the type to socialize with his fans all night. The young crowd, surprisingly, seemed to respect his stoic, professional demeanor, and one other aspect of the show that separated it from most modern concerts was the insistence, through both the constant reminders from Jefferson Theater employees, and from flyers on almost every venue wall, that there be “No pictures, no videos, no audio-recordings, and no phone-photography whatsoever.” To my generation, this request is pretty much unheard of; every show is littered with fans who seem more preoccupied with capturing every second of the performer’s set on their phone cameras than they are with actually listening to the music and trying to form a connection to it. Now, I’m sure some people snuck a pic or a small video in somewhere, but for the most part, as far as I could tell, people stayed away from their smart phones and paid attention to Mangum the same way a fan in 1998 might have. Too often, concertgoers obsess over capturing, consuming, and hoarding the moments of a show for themselves so they can endlessly “re-experience” it in lower quality for eternity. But, at Mangum’s show, those thoughts never seemed to cross anyone’s mind. The bartender was right, these fans actually did want to _listen_ to the performance. When Mangum came out for a one song encore and played the heart-stirring, generation defining track, “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea,” a number of audience members held their lighters up in the air, a slightly cliched, yet still oddly sweet and respectful gesture that nowadays is often replaced with the “hold your glowing phone above you head and sway it back and forth” move. While such a gesture might fly for many modern bands, holding a phone up in the air during a Mangum encore seems not only anachronistic, but also borderline sacrilegious. I mean, look at him up there. He’s just so vulnerable, by himself, singing his heart out. It just seems wrong to take any pictures or videos or project any of today’s modern amenities onto his carefully constructed, time-stamped musical universe. Thank goodness the crowd silently understood all of this, or maybe they were just too swept away and awestruck by the appropriateness of his brief encore to do anything except sing along.
After he finished, Mangum said "thank you." Then, he stood up and looked across the crowd one more time, smiling, before disappearing offstage. He didn’t appear the least bit upset or confused as I had originally thought he might before the show started. He just seemed genuinely thankful. I think Jeff Mangum could care less how his fans heard his music, or why or when they’ve come to see him perform. Jeff Mangum just wants to play his songs, thank his loyal listeners, and then dive back into the creative hole he seems to forever hide himself in, waiting for the bursts of inspiration that have helped him write some of the most iconic, literary folk songs ever in independent music. Even if it takes another fifteen years to see him again, I’ll be sure to buy my ticket early, and have my lighter handy. [^1]: Friends who, more than likely, downloaded his records illegally themselves, since in the early part of the 21st century they were available on every free music-sharing website. Of course, I may be wrong about how a lot of listeners like myself first encountered Neutral Milk Hotel records, but, before Mangum's show, I did do a quick (and granted, skewed) poll of the friends around me, asking them if they bought the first NMH record they "owned." Not one person said yes, myself included. Though, to be fair, I've since atoned for my sins and bought both NMH records on vinyl. Would I have bought those LPs or paid money to see Mangum live had I not downloaded his discography as a teenager? Maybe, but probably not. What a strange, dizzying cycle of change the way we consume music has become. [^2]: Neutral Milk Hotel was one of the original three projects of the Athens, Georgia based Elephant 6 Recording Company, along with The Apples In Stereo and Olivia Tremor Control. Mangum's collaborated several times over the years with both bands. [^3]: In late 2011, Mangum also self-released a comprehensive vinyl boxset, which contains both _On Avery Island_ and _In The Aeroplane Over The Sea_, as well as the _Everything Is_ EP, 7"'s, rarities, and posters. Promoting this release, I surmise, is another reason Mangum has stepped back into the spotlight with a nationwide tour. Here's a link and artwork for the boxset: http://walkingwallofwords.com/releases.html.  [^4]: Seeing Mangum after the journeymen electro-folk band Tall Firs was instructive in that it helped me understand just how much myth, celebrity, and the swell of expectation can control how an audience reacts to live music. Tall Firs were pleasant enough; good music to have a beer to and maybe socialize with strangers or old friends in your immediate vicinity. I'd bet that given the right situation they could put on a moving show. But, perhaps by design, on this night they were not at all engaging on a storytelling, or track by track level. They eased through a set of songs that sounded mostly the same, telling a few self-deprecating anecdotes about ex-girlfriends along the way. More than anything their set built tension and a strange sense of expectation, and maybe even dread, into my head. I wondered what I'd gotten myself into. Would Mangum lope through his set like these guys, whisking our ears through his musical canon at a leisurely pace? Or would he have the presence and energy I expected? It was during Tall Firs' opening set that I first realized I had incredibly high expectations for Mangum. Thank goodness he blew them out of the water. [^5]: For those interested, his setlist: 1) Holland, 1945, 2) Two Headed Boy, Pt. 2, 3) Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone, 4) Song Against Sex, 5) Oh Comely, 6) King Of Carrot Flowers Pt. 1, 7) King of Carrot Flowers Pt.s 2 & 3, 8) Engine, 9) Oh Sister, 10) Naomi, 11) Two-Headed Boy, 12) Ghost. Encore: In The Aeroplane Over the Sea. There's always one song you wish they played that they didn't. For me, it was "Someone Is Waiting": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZHJBLCYAc4.
