An Optical Atlas intro to Elephant 6
A talk with Elephant 6 blogger (and Of Montreal's webmaster) Jeff Kuykendall
Jason Thrasher
E6 band Elf Power hits the High Noon on Friday.
The ever-growing Elephant 6 collective of bands is usually associated with Athens, Ga., but it's got at least one superfan holding down a distant Madison outpost. Jeff Kuykendall first became a fan of Neutral Milk Hotel, The Apples In Stereo, and Olivia Tremor Control while he was still in grad school in Seattle, and today he runs the Elephant 6 fanzine-blog Optical Atlas, also holding down duties running Of Montreal's official website. Whatever Elephant 6 is, it's a vague and sometimes misused reference point, especially for those of us who have only heard the phrase in recent years through, say Of Montreal's recent popularity. With long-running E6 band Elf Power returning to town on Friday (with Vic Chesnutt), Decider met up with Kuykendall to see if he could provide some helpful perspective and info for the curious.
A few essentials
Jeff Kuykendall: Anyone who's interested in exploring what Elephant 6 is, there are probably like three albums that they could start with. One is obviously In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, which is probably the breakout Elephant 6 album. Olivia Tremor Control, they have two great albums, and it's one of those endless-debate arguments as to which one to get, their first one or their second one. And so I would say probably Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk At Cubist Castle, which is their first one, this sprawling psychedelic concept album, very Beatles-y. And then something by The Apples In Stereo, probably Fun Trick Noisemaker, which was their first one. I think those three albums, even if people just sample them online, probably give you more of a sense of what Elephant 6 is than anything else. Everything else kind of spreads out around that. But that's one of those endless-debate questions, over where to get started.
Jeff Kuykendall: Anyone who's interested in exploring what Elephant 6 is, there are probably like three albums that they could start with. One is obviously In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel, which is probably the breakout Elephant 6 album. Olivia Tremor Control, they have two great albums, and it's one of those endless-debate arguments as to which one to get, their first one or their second one. And so I would say probably Music From The Unrealized Film Script, Dusk At Cubist Castle, which is their first one, this sprawling psychedelic concept album, very Beatles-y. And then something by The Apples In Stereo, probably Fun Trick Noisemaker, which was their first one. I think those three albums, even if people just sample them online, probably give you more of a sense of what Elephant 6 is than anything else. Everything else kind of spreads out around that. But that's one of those endless-debate questions, over where to get started.
On Julian Koster's singing-saw Christmas Carols tour last year
JK: I think they did two houses [in Madison] that night. I think a lot of people canceled because it was Thanksgiving. We just had a small group of people, one of whom I knew, and then three people came in who I had never met before. That's one of the neat things about Elephant 6, is that you're constantly meeting people in weird ways that you never would've met before. So these three people come into the house, and my wife is there, and Julian and his friends show up and they've got a singing saw called Badger, and I think a harmonium that he was playing. And then after a while he was gone. I wanted to interview him and he's like, "Well, normally we just kind of disappear off into the night and it's kind of a magical thing." I'm like, "OK, let's see how it goes." So then he just disappeared off into the night.
JK: I think they did two houses [in Madison] that night. I think a lot of people canceled because it was Thanksgiving. We just had a small group of people, one of whom I knew, and then three people came in who I had never met before. That's one of the neat things about Elephant 6, is that you're constantly meeting people in weird ways that you never would've met before. So these three people come into the house, and my wife is there, and Julian and his friends show up and they've got a singing saw called Badger, and I think a harmonium that he was playing. And then after a while he was gone. I wanted to interview him and he's like, "Well, normally we just kind of disappear off into the night and it's kind of a magical thing." I'm like, "OK, let's see how it goes." So then he just disappeared off into the night.
Back in 2002, he'd sent me a t-shirt in the mail that he had hand-drawn in a café in New York or something. He was just sitting there describing this woman who was sitting across from him, and he was writing this short story about her, just imagining all these things about her. He wasn't doing this just for me, he was doing this for anyone who anyone who'd ordered his album through the mail that he was releasing on CD-R. So I'd never worn it before, and I wore it when he came. I was afraid of washing it because it would be ruined. He didn't write it in any kind of permanent marker or anything. He sat there and just read the whole thing off my chest while I was standing there and we were all gathered around. It was this really weird tense moment and he just read the entire thing and could barely read his handwriting and he made it through. The amazing thing is I've yet to meet a person involved in the collective who isn't extremely nice. I've yet to meet a horrible person who's self-absorbed or anything. They're all very welcoming and friendly.
"Elephant 6": Not the best shorthand
JK: This is just my own personal theory, [but] I think one of the things that caused the collapse of Elephant 6—it's in a rebirth stage right now—was because a lot of the critics would say, in their music reviews, "OK, this is an Elephant 6 band," like that meant something. Like that way you knew what they sounded like. But The Music Tapes are gonna sound a lot different from Of Montreal, and Of Montreal isn't gonna sound anything like The Minders, and The Minders don't sound anything like Gerbils. There's a huge range, from really sugary pop-music type stuff like Dressy Bessy does to really hardcore experimental music like you get with some of Olivia Tremor Control or Black Swan Network. There's a Circulatory System CD-R where he just buried a microphone underground, so that he could listen to worms or whatever was underground. [Laughs.] Personally, I hear nothing. So, there's like a huge range and there's not a particular musical style. I think what the spirit was, was imagination and do-it-yourself. If you have a talent, to use it and to make music no matter what it sounds like. And they were just encouraging each other. So I think that's more the definition of what Elephant 6 is, it's a bunch of friends who encouraged each other to push things as far as they could and to make stuff.
JK: This is just my own personal theory, [but] I think one of the things that caused the collapse of Elephant 6—it's in a rebirth stage right now—was because a lot of the critics would say, in their music reviews, "OK, this is an Elephant 6 band," like that meant something. Like that way you knew what they sounded like. But The Music Tapes are gonna sound a lot different from Of Montreal, and Of Montreal isn't gonna sound anything like The Minders, and The Minders don't sound anything like Gerbils. There's a huge range, from really sugary pop-music type stuff like Dressy Bessy does to really hardcore experimental music like you get with some of Olivia Tremor Control or Black Swan Network. There's a Circulatory System CD-R where he just buried a microphone underground, so that he could listen to worms or whatever was underground. [Laughs.] Personally, I hear nothing. So, there's like a huge range and there's not a particular musical style. I think what the spirit was, was imagination and do-it-yourself. If you have a talent, to use it and to make music no matter what it sounds like. And they were just encouraging each other. So I think that's more the definition of what Elephant 6 is, it's a bunch of friends who encouraged each other to push things as far as they could and to make stuff.
Occasional loneliness
JK: The horrible thing is, when bands will come up because they think that since I'm up here, there's a huge fan base of Elephant 6 people. And, you know, hardly anyone shows up and then I always feel awful. When [Folklore and Summer Hymns played at the King Club in 2007], there was like, no one. So I was relieved when [Folklore] played at High Noon [last year], that at least some people showed up, because the first time it was just dead. I remember at one point, somebody was there, this very bizarre person who was dancing right up front, he offered a joint to the lead singer of Summer Hymns, Zach Gresham, and it was kind of depressing. Nobody cared, there was nothing going on. I've only been to Athens once, which was kind of my pilgrimage, but it seems more and more that bands are coming up here to come and see Madison. After Elf Power comes this week—and of course Vic Chesnutt's with Elf Power—The Visitations are coming to town, which is a really good overlooked band fronted by Davey Wrathgaber, who used to be in a band called Fable Factory, which is considered an Elephant 6 band. The Ladybug Transistor's coming in March.
JK: The horrible thing is, when bands will come up because they think that since I'm up here, there's a huge fan base of Elephant 6 people. And, you know, hardly anyone shows up and then I always feel awful. When [Folklore and Summer Hymns played at the King Club in 2007], there was like, no one. So I was relieved when [Folklore] played at High Noon [last year], that at least some people showed up, because the first time it was just dead. I remember at one point, somebody was there, this very bizarre person who was dancing right up front, he offered a joint to the lead singer of Summer Hymns, Zach Gresham, and it was kind of depressing. Nobody cared, there was nothing going on. I've only been to Athens once, which was kind of my pilgrimage, but it seems more and more that bands are coming up here to come and see Madison. After Elf Power comes this week—and of course Vic Chesnutt's with Elf Power—The Visitations are coming to town, which is a really good overlooked band fronted by Davey Wrathgaber, who used to be in a band called Fable Factory, which is considered an Elephant 6 band. The Ladybug Transistor's coming in March.
