whew.

when i did my late-night/early-morning show on wpgu last fall, i took what liberties i thought my seniority allowed and shaped a show that i, as a radio fan, would have made a point to tune into at three o'clock on a saturday night. it was good, clean, drunk and stoned fun, inspired by the night itself, dreading the morning to come.

the 3:00 hour was devoted to live music, dubbed "the show after the show," where i did my best to track down live versions of songs by bands who were in town that weekend, or in chicago, or maybe an artist we played every day, who happened to have made an in-studio stop at kexp or woxy that week. sometimes i'd find enough of one or two artists to fill the hour, like an opening and closing act at a real live show; sometimes it was a whole mix of live tracks.

but the thrill, for me, was in the weekly hunt, and never knowing what i might find. i'm a stickler for quality, so some crowded-room, spot-mic recording where you can't hear the band over the talk of the crowd, wouldn't do. if i couldn't find a decent mp3 file and had to record the set myself, from a streaming broadcast, i'd do it. if the frontman banters too much, or takes too long tuning his guitar, i'd pop the file into an editor and snip it out. it could be a week-long, passionate affair, or sometimes a hot and sweaty romp thrown together on the fly.

and it was a great opportunity to plug a band and their tour, or if you find a really great interview online, it was a chance to let the band plug themselves and their own tour. and you know as well as i do, the kind of magic that happens in a live venue vs a studio session. which you can't fully translate without being there, i know, but it was the idea that we all missed out on a great show, whether it's a bonnaroo bootleg that just surfaced online, the headlights performance at a college town in indana, or the couple of songs silversun pickups played when they stopped by the station earlier that day -- and we're all gathered here to enjoy it now. it was all in the spirit of RADIO -- where else can you do something like this?

and of course, the response was mixed, if anyone even bothered to listen. but it was my ride, and if you didn't want to come along, hey, you're the one missing out, man.

to bring the story full circle, kwaya na kisser, my blogging purveyor of rare and hard-to-find (he put up some hotel room recordings of lou reed and nico about a month ago), posted a live set by jeff mangum, the man behind neutral milk hotel. [aside: heindl gave me their second album, in the aeroplane over the sea, a little over two years ago, but it wasn't really until mark broke it out over beers in the library at the IDF that it really did a number on me. i could one day be quoted as saying that all on its own, it crawled into my heart and planted seeds, that bloomed into love for everything and everyone. there's something hauntingly magical in this.]

i actually did a live music hour ft. jeff mangum in my last couple months at wpgu. it was a song-for-song replay of his 2001 coffeehouse set, live at jittery joe's, tracked down (and purchased) on emusic. i was in the middle of falling in love with in the aeroplane, and the hour was as much for me as it was for anyone else. jittery joe's has since become a favorite catch, kept in my car for cozy company on lonely drives.

this last hour, though, sitting here in my living room, might have been even more special than that hour in the studio, months ago. i haven't checked this site in about a week, and since then, kwaya's apparently limiting live sets to a three-day lifespan on his mp3 server, to conserve bandwidth. he posted this show four days ago, so i'm lucky to have found it on his day of rest. it's my giddiness, still, that's fueling this entire post.

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me, i have no bandwidth issues, since, much like the old days, listenership is scarce. so without further ado, via kwaya na kisser, jeff mangum in the world of wild beards:



Thank God for Wikipedia, we no longer have to pretend we know more than it tells us. Here's the wiki info on this gig:

"The relative success of the album (In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) in addition to the pressures of being suddenly thrust into the spotlight took its toll on (Jeff) Mangum, who disbanded Neutral Milk Hotel in 1998 after a tour in support of their latest album. Jeff has kept out of the public eye since then (although not without intrusive fans speculating on his whereabouts), rarely if ever playing acoustic sets and concentrating more on his recorded sound and music collages.

On April 2, 2001, Mangum and friends Laura Carter and Chris Knox played a gig-Mangum's first in two years-at the King's Arms in Auckland, New Zealand. The band was billed as "World of Wild Beards Incorporated", a throwaway pseudonym which Mangum varied to 'Walking Wall of Beards Incorporated' whilst addressing the audience between songs."

See poster if you're still confused. Fantastic live recording, very clear even in its lossy state. Jeff jokes about everything from his nervous breakdown to pubic hair.

two-headed boy
i love how you love me
song against sex
king of carrot flowers pt. 1
king of carrot flowers pts. 2 & 3
everything is
gardenhead/leave me alone
ghost
oh comely
engine
in the aeroplane over the sea
banter/world of wild beards explained
mother (john lennon cover)

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in other news, i trekked downtown today to sign my brother and i up to volunteer at south by southwest. we'll be on the podcasting crew mon-thurs, and working as ushers at one of the film festival screenings on fri.

and the bears are going to the superbowl! i'm not a huge sports fan, but even i know that's a big deal. so, cool. good sunday.