Neutral Milk Hotel Set First Live Dates Since 1999
Neutral Milk Hotel are reuniting for their first live shows since 1999, with a handful of dates announced and a note that promises “more to come.” So far, they are set to play two shows at Athens, Georgia’s 40 Watt Club on October 22nd and 23rd, as well as a gig on the 25th at Asheville, North Carolina’s Thomas Wolfe Auditorium. On November 28th and December 1st, they’ll play the Hostess Club Festival in Taipei, Taiwan and Tokyo, Japan, respectively. (The band’s note regarding this appears above a slightly longer, way more bizarre one that begins: “and of water course womb rume is a wandering the welkin woman…” and keeps going from there.)
Elusive Jeff Mangum Performs to Rapt Crowd at ATP
Group founder Jeff Mangum has played a handful of solo shows over the past few years, including festival appearances and a performance at Occupy Wall Street, while Neutral Milk Hotel remained on a hiatus started after they finished touring behind their landmark 1998 LP, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. This touring lineup will feature Mangum, Scott Spillane, Julian Koster and Jeremy Barnes, the group that began playing together after the 1996 release of On Avery Island.
Tickets for Neutral Milk Hotel’s two 40 Watt Club gigs go on sale on May 3rd at 10 a.m. EST; no word yet on when tickets for the Asheville show will be on sale. A portion of proceeds from the shows will go to benefit Children of the Blue Sky and others in need.