It’s been a full month since my last post, and while not much has happened in that span, I feel the need to mention the current state of affairs.
About an hour ago, I let my boss know that my last day of work here will be December 18. I then have about a month to get myself together, because I will be leaving for Athens on January 22. The plan is to drive to DC, spend a few days there, drive to North Carolina and spend the night in either Greensboro or Raleigh, and then get to Athens. It’ll break up the driving into three- or four-hour spurts, as opposed to one twelve-hour trek.
When I get to Athens, I will be living in a two-bedroom apartment whose sublease I will be receiving today via fax. It’s walking distance from downtown and obscenely cheap for the amenities (free parking, free cable and internet, free 24-hour gym). I might not even have a roommate (the other room will either be filled by the realty company or left empty for the duration), though I haven’t yet decided if that’s a good or a bad thing. On the whole, though, I don’t know if I could have asked for a better setup.
I also have a couple leads on literary agents, though they’re still just leads at this point, so I’ll elaborate on that later. At any rate, I probably won’t have another full month without a post again, and at some point (by the time I get to Athens at the absolute latest), I’ll be on a daily posting regimen.
Every little bit of progress feels good. The bits I’ve made this week have all been little, and they’re all off the record, but they feel good. Rewarding. Refreshing. Fulfilling.
On the record, I want to again thank the people who have helped me so far. Anyone who has promised to buy a copy of the book. Anyone who has spoken to me about anything Elephant Six (or even just passively let me pontificate about it). Anyone who has volunteered any sort of help, even if I never take them up on it. Thanks, y’all.
Mostly, I haven’t posted anything in about a week, but things are indeed happening. I hate being cryptic, but I hate being silent even more, especially when good things are going on. I haven’t lost any steam.
Separate from my review below, I’d like to discuss how Kim Cooper’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea informs my research process going forward.
As should be obvious, Cooper’s goal was different than what mine is: she sought to write a 100(-or-so)-page book about one album in particular (and provided context by talking about the Elephant Six stuff that led to it and came from it), while I want to write a book with whatever page length necessary to talk about all of that context she sort of glossed over (using that one particular album as a narrative touchstone). Simply, my scope is much broader than hers was.
Still, while I do think her book was more good than bad, it offers a lot of warning of what not to do.
Most salient is her interview process. In general, she didn’t talk to enough people, and she didn’t talk to people enough. Specifically, of the four biggest E6 players, she only spoke to one on the record (Robert Schneider), and she gave more play to Lance Bangs (whose relation to the topic could be described as peripheral at best) than pretty much anyone else. The glaring omission is Jeff Mangum himself, whose absence casts a funereal haze on the whole book.
As I’ve said before, I intend to interview a whole lot of people. This includes the periphery — people like Bangs, as well as fans, music critics, other musicians, music industry folks, et al — as well as E6 bigwigs. This means, in addition to probably dozens of other people: Robert Schneider, Bill Doss, Will Hart, and yes, Jeff Mangum.
Just as important as whom I interview is how I interview them. This is why I’m moving to Athens in the first place. In all likelihood, I could slap together a few phone interviews and put together a fairly compelling book, but to get to the depth I want, I will need to do a lot of interviews (and follow-up interviews), many of them in person. I will need to have a lot of background information going in. Most importantly, I will need trust. This takes time and work and a lot of other intangible little things I won’t even know about until they happen.
Slightly unrelated: I’ve also heard back about the inaccuracy claims, but for now that stuff is all off the record. Sorry.
I am investigating a bit deeper on the claims of inaccuracy levied against Kim Cooper’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by assorted E6ers, and I will share my findings when I get them, assuming anyone is willing to go on the record with his or her complaints.
For now, I’ll talk about the book as I read it. Keep in mind: this is through the lens of someone who wants to write an E6 book of his own.
Cooper’s book spends most of its 104 pages speeding through how the Elephant Six Recording Company and eventually Aeroplane came to be and how Neutral Milk Hotel dissolved. That is, but for a few pages reviewing the album song-by-song, it doesn’t waste a lot of time with speculation of intent or analysis of meaning.
This is a good thing. Of the precious little ink that has been spilled about matters E6-related, too large a portion has been idle criticism of the work. Though albums like Aeroplane may be a pinnacle of an individual’s public music career, it is in no way the gestalt of this person’s life. There’s more to it than just what is pressed to vinyl.
In this way, the book succeeds, offering insight into the early days in Ruston, Louisiana, the post-Aeroplane retreat from the public eye and much of what fell in between. I was already privy to much of the content, both from other reading I’ve done (like the fact that the “Holy shit!” at the end of “Oh Comely” is a reaction, possibly from Neutral Milk Hotel horn player Scott Spillane, to the fact that Jeff Mangum played the song all the way through in a take that was supposed to just be a test to get the recording levels set) and from conversations I’ve had (like the way the tours during the Elephant 6’s heyday rarely featured any kind of stasis, with a different band headlining each night and everyone helping out with each other’s sets), but there is still plenty of information in there I hadn’t known before. Through interviews with several people close to what was happening, Cooper shows how it evolved and what it felt like to be a part of the process.
Still, the book feels a bit shallow, rushing through decades of stories in what ultimately feels like a few magazine articles. Ultimately, given the contraints of such a short book, Cooper’s scope is too broad. By trying (admirably) to include so much context about the album’s creation, it never really digs deep enough to elicit any kind of sincere connection not already felt beforehand. While I know a little more about Mangum and NMH and a bunch of other people and places, I don’t really feel anything new. Even for a work of non-fiction, that should be a goal.
Of course, as someone as invested in these bands as I already am, that’s a fairly tall order, but this was certainly not a book meant for mainstream consumption. It was written by a fan, for fans. Given that it requires some kind of connection before reading, it’s not unfair to hope for more depth than Cooper offers.
My other primary criticism is the reverent, almost funereal tone of the book. Though published in 2005, only seven years after Aeroplane’s release, it discusses the album, the tours, the experience as though it were a relic from another century. Perhaps this is why emotional attachment is so hard to come by: rather than reading about a contemporary artist, one feels as though he is reading about Benjamin Franklin or Johannes Gutenberg, though this is almost undoubtedly in part because Mangum himself declined to be interviewed for the book.
While Cooper’s book is an interesting and engaging read, it is sadly too cursory to be any sort of canonical Elephant Six resource. Instead, it is another brick in a too-small wall of E6 insight. There is, fortunately for me, plenty left to build.
Issue 11 of Athens Blur magazine is now available, with my feature on the Fiery Furnaces proudly displayed across pages 30 and 31. The article itself is not especially relevant to this project (which is not to say I’m not proud of it), but the endeavor itself is another opportunity for me to expand my Athenian roots.
