Elephant 6 Collective plots Holiday Surprise tour for—February and March?
Josh Modell
A rare sighting of Elephant 6 member Jeff Mangum in Chicago, 2008.
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The members of amorphous Athens, Ga. collective Elephant 6 have their heads perpetually in the clouds—so you can forgive them for spacing on the fact that, you know, the “holidays” typically refer to celebrations that take place in December. But the warped psych sounds of Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and others don’t conform to your societal boundaries, man. If the Elephant 6ers want to celebrate the holidays of February and March, they’re going to do so—probably with a smattering of Beach Boys harmonies, barely stable horn lines, and melodica. As such, several members of the collective—including OTC masterminds Will Cullen Hart and Bill Doss, Music Tapes leader/master of the musical saw Julian Koster, and E6 Zelig Laura Carter—will take to the road beginning Feb. 24 (Mexican Flag Day!) to swap instruments, dig through one another’s back catalogues, and take part in Koster’s games of crowd interaction. The run includes a Mar. 14 (almost St. Patrick's Day!) stop at the Varsity Theater. The previous edition of the Holiday Surprise Tour also boasted a few appropriately unexpected visits from Neutral Milk Hotel founder Jeff Mangum—and with Mangum’s out-of-the-blue performance in New York City last week, anticipation is obviously high for further glimpses of the reclusive singer-songwriter somewhere in this batch of tour dates. Not that Mangum or any of his musical friends would have something like that planned out. [Pitchfork]
