January 7th – Madeline: The Slow Bang.
January 9th – The Apples in Stereo: New Magnetic Wonder is released on Yep Roc/Simian Records, bearing the Elephant 6 Recording Company logo (the first release to do so since The Gerbils’ The Battle of Electricity in 2001). For certain tracks on the album, Robert Schneider developed a “Non-Pythagorean Musical Scale” based upon logarithms, a merging of Robert’s two passions: music and mathematics. However, the majority of the album showcases his mastery of the perfect pop song. The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review:
‘There are a lot of reasons why it took so much time,’ says bassist Eric Allen… First, two band members left the group and moved to Kentucky shortly after the release of 2002’s Velocity [of Sound]. Then, there were financial considerations when the band started composing songs for New Magnetic Wonder, which was recorded in five cities over 12 months. With that sort of history, it would be no surprise if the album was a schizophrenic mess. But New Magnetic Wonder is a cohesive, coherent work filled with bright and snappy melodies. A spiritual descendant of albums such as the Beatles‘ Yellow Submarine and Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything, it embraces studio wizardry as a tool to enhance the music. ‘Velocity,’ Allen says, was ‘a stripped-down’ record while New Magnetic Wonder is more layered and polished. ‘It’s drawing on the music that we love,’ he says. “And, in a lot of cases, the music we draw from is some of the first music we ever heard, what actually got us into music. One of the first records I used listen to was Sgt. Pepper’s when I was 10 years old, my dad’s copy. It left an impression.’ There are concerns, of course, about that five-year hiatus. The music industry has changed radically in five years — downloading music and the use of iPods are much more prevalent — and it is easily to be forgotten in industry that has is increasingly crowded. ‘I understand, because it’s hard for me to even imagine that it’s been five years, because we’re always doing stuff, we’re always talking, we’re always working on music,’ Allen says. ‘When you’re living your life, you don’t realize how long something takes. You look up and go “Wow, I’ve been at this job for five years,” or whatever it is. But in some ways, it’s not bad because no one has to have any preconceived notions about us. I don’t even care if they’ve heard of us at all. If we’re a new band, that’s fine.’
January 19-23rd – A Hawk and a Hacksaw join of Montreal’s most recent tour.
January 23rd – of Montreal: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?/Icons, Abstract Thee. The LA Times:
…As with the last few of Montreal albums, Barnes generated the bulk of its raging disco-psychedelia solo on laptop and synthesizers. Part of the Elephant Six collective of artists who have been updating 1960s-style ‘baroque pop’ for the era of the sampler, Barnes embraced dance music and computers simultaneously, but he kept of Montreal’s aura post-punk — makeshift and tending toward extremes. It’s this mix of little quirks and big beats that makes Hissing Fauna so much fun. But it’s the way Barnes pushes himself, both to tell the truth and to try new things, that lends these songs a heavier, more compelling edge than most contemporary baroque-pop. The intensity tops out on ‘The Past Is a Grotesque Animal,’ an 11-minute yowl based around guitarist Bryan Helium’s coiling riffs. Like some feral child of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Sister Ray’ and Brian Eno’s ‘Needle in the Camel’s Eye,’ the song induces an altered state that’s not a good trip at all. Barnes, always an effusive vocalist, moans and yelps his way through the song’s rambling lyric as if it’s a forced confession. Unfurling verses recall his first encounter with the woman who would win him, his failure to stay won, their battles and his remorse; letting it all out, he grits his teeth and follows the simple melody line like a fluorescent path in the dark. ‘We’re always connected by underground wires,’ he snarls, maybe letting her go, maybe not. ‘And none of our secrets are physical now.’ In Barnes’ songs, perception and reality are like tectonic plates in an earthquake; they should meet but keep breaking apart. This manifests in frenetically happy music paired with lyrics about hitting rock bottom… He’s said that Sly Stone inspired Hissing Fauna, and you can hear that great outsider’s apocalyptic party jams in Barnes’ tightly wound rhythms; plenty of other mutating geniuses have left their mark on him, including Prince, Eno and Jeff Lynne of ELO. Rising above his sources by diving into his own mental wreck, Barnes pioneers a new style for these dislocated times: confessional pastiche.
January 23rd – Viking Moses releases an EP of Neutral Milk Hotel covers on Fire Records.
January 26th – James from Fire Records updates The Carrot-Flower Kingdom (neutralmilkhotel.org) on the state of the perpetually delayed deluxe reissue of On Avery Island: “Just to let you know that the NMH re-issue will happen and although we have now scheduled it twice it has unfortunately had to be delayed… I spoke to Jeff last week and he said he’s going thru ‘a mountain of tapes’ for the bonus disc.”
February 6th – The Apples in Stereo remix Yoko Ono’s “Nobody Sees Me Like You Do” for Yes, I’m a Witch.
February 13th – Robert Schneider tells the AV Club:
[XTC’s Andy Partridge and I] never actually finished recording anything together. At the time, it was frustrating, but the experience with Andy was incredible. He’s one of the most creative, affable, clever, funny, youthful people I’ve ever met. We would basically write songs over the phone together once or twice a week, and we got together one time in Swindon, where he lives in England, to start recording in his studio. But here’s something that was irritating and possibly illuminating about the whole situation: I was supposed to be at his house at 11:00 a.m., but I got lost in traffic, and I didn’t wind up getting there till 2:00 p.m. We had an amazing day—we stayed up till 3 a.m., just playing records and guitar, having a great time. We were really hitting it off, and I left feeling exhilarated. The next day, my manager told me, ‘Andy called me and said, “Robert was late.”’ That’s all he said about this beautiful day we had. I understand that’s very frustrating to Andy. He’s very organized. I hope this doesn’t sound bitter, because I’m not bitter. It could have just been Andy’s manager trying to protect him from this irresponsible punk kid. Anyway, when we were in England touring on Velocity Of Sound, I was going to go to Andy’s on my own time and record with him for a week. But his manager said, ‘There’ll be no more work on this project until you get the demos done.’ He kept insisting on me doing demos, but in general, I’m philosophically opposed to doing them. My whole point was, ‘I’m going to be in England. Let’s do the demos together.’ I’m sure Andy was a little miffed, and his manager blew it out of proportion. From my end, we’re still on good terms, but from Andy’s end, we’re probably not. [Laughs.] But we did write 30 songs together that were pretty strong. He’s the most amazing guy in the world.
February – Lorkakar: Bell Notations.
February 13th – At a performance at the Art Bar in Las Vegas, Kevin Barnes performs multiple songs completely nude (well, except for a red sash). Behind the band adult films, straight and gay, are projected on a screen. In an interview with Nerve.com, Kevin explains:
I’d been thinking about it for a couple shows, but I’d heard that if I did it in a venue that wasn’t twenty-one-and-over, I might have to sign up as a sex offender in every city we travel to. It just turned out that, around that time, we were going to do a twenty-one-and-over show in Las Vegas. And what better place to go naked than Vegas? The stars were aligned. So we made it a kind of sex show… It wasn’t just like, ‘Now I’m gonna take off my clothes.’ I warned everyone in my band. They weren’t sure I was gonna do it, though. I guess it’s still a bit taboo, but there’s some history of people doing similar things… It’s just like the ultimate exhibition as far as performance goes. You’re always putting yourself in a vulnerable position as a performer… But I’m totally relaxed about nudity. It’s probably easier for me, because I feel so comfortable with my body. I think it’s insane how uptight people are about nudity. Your clothes are your armor, I guess, on many levels. But I’m probably secretly a nudist at heart. I’m gonna be one of those horrible old men on a beach, running around naked. I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t nervous. For some people, I guess it could be dreadful. But I get into this persona that has no inhibitions.
February 14th – The Apples in Stereo appear on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
February 20th – The 63 Crayons: Spoils for Survivors.
March – Robert Schneider joins of Montreal onstage to perform The Apples in Stereo’s “Seems So.”
March 18th – Finest Worksongs: Athens Bands Play the Music of R.E.M., featuring three tracks from The Observatory’s set on 9/12/06.
April 12th – of Montreal appears on Late Night with Conan O’Brien.
April 13th – Another update on the On Avery Island deluxe reissue from Fire Records (per stormx on the Townhall): “Because of the (constant) delays and difficulties in making this re-issue as good as it needs to be the band have decided to wait until next year to give it the time it needs. The record is still available in the US but because it’s long since been deleted in Europe Fire is going to re-package it with the ‘Everything Is’ single as a bonus disc inside new packaging. It will be a limited edition run of 5,000 copies to fill the gap [until] the bonus material surfaces.”
April 14th – Karaoke night at Studio B in Brooklyn featuring of Montreal as a backing band. Michael Showalter hosts, Paul Rudd and David Wain are among the karaoke singers.
April 26th – San Fadyl, beatific drummer for The Ladybug Transistor, dies at his home in Zurich, Switzerland. The band writes:
San was hospitalized just a few weeks ago with serious asthma problems, something he’s battled for a long time. After being treated and released he was home for a week but suffered a severe attack that was related to his condition. It’s hard to put into words just how much we will miss San after 10 years of music and friendship. He was a genuinely beautiful person that touched everyone who met him with his warmth, kindness, generosity and humor. His wide smile is something people often remember first. We know there are lots of you out there who love him and will miss him as much as we do already. Our thoughts are with San’s family, his wife Brigit and their new baby Liam.
May 5th – A trailer for the long-rumored Major Organ and the Adding Machine film is screened at the 40 Watt.
May 25th – Robert Schneider provides the score for an episode of the Disney Channel’s Shorty McShorts entitled “Flip-Flopped.”
May 29th – Still Flyin’: Za Cloud EJ.
June 5th – The Ladybug Transistor: Can’t Wait Another Day. Belfast Telegraph: “The Brooklyn band could have held their own with the brilliance of Lloyd Cole and the Commotions, The Wedding Present and Go- Betweens – three of the finest pop collectives given to us by that patchiest of eras. As it turns out, despite five previous albums, the Ladybugs have barely blipped pop’s success radar – and a decade on from their inception remain, inexplicably, the genre’s classic underachievers. Hopefully that is about to change. If there is any justice, Can’t Wait Another Day, their latest album, will be a massive hit. From start to finish, this is a superb collection of songs. Band founder and singer-songwriter Gary Olson is a clever lyricist – in the mould of Lloyd Cole or Edwyn Collins. His restrained baritone vocal chords lie somewhere between Cole and Wedding Present front-man David Gedge. As for the music, the Ladybugs are purist 80s indie – unfailingly catchy lush pop – and they share a similar subject matter of trouble-torn love songs, melancholy and desolation. The album is tinged with sadness though – drummer San Fadyl died earlier this year due to complications from severe asthma – but Can’t Wait Another Day is far from gloomy. And in the beautifully upbeat gem that is ‘I’m Not Mad Enough’, they have produced one of the best tracks I’ve heard all year. The remaining tunes throw up everything from the warm and luxuriant to the emotionally tangled and reflective.”
June 5th – A Hawk and a Hacksaw and the Hun Hangar Ensemble CD+DVD.
June 20-24th – M Coast, Casper & the Cookies, Zach Gresham (Summer Hymns), Dark Meat, and Madeline perform at Athfest.
July 2nd – For immediate release:
ATHENS, Ga., July 2, 2007–Kindercore, the influential underground boutique record label has been reborn as an independent media label–its new roster expanded to include bands, comic book artists, analysts, premier t-shirt designers, and humorists from Athens, GA and beyond. The Athens based information and entertainment syndicate will unleash its first release since 2003 in August with the comic book and music anthology The Trouble Revolution, quickly followed by releases from pop outfit King of Prussia and electro rockers Ruby Isle. The effort is being orchestrated by Dan Geller (I Am the World Trade Center, USSR, Ruby Isle) and Ryan Lewis (The Four Corners, The Agenda), who founded the company in 1996 to document the fertile Athens indie music scene and together put out over 70 releases in seven years. Before entering into a financial partnership that would eventually bring about the temporary death of Kindercore, the label released records from rising indie stars like of Montreal, Masters of the Hemisphere, Maserati, The Essex Green, The Sunshine Fix, Dressy Bessy and Kings of Convenience, and in 2000, was named the year’s ‘Indie Label to Watch’ by Spin Magazine. Kindercore grew beyond everyone’s expectations until 2003 when the label was thought to have been killed by a bad business deal. The label went into a dormant state in the New York State Supreme Court system for years until a judgment was finally received, once again granting Lewis and Geller control over the name, catalog and their once human bodies. Much changed in the 3 years that Kindercore was dormant, leading the founders to reevaluate the way they want to run the reemerging company. ‘At a time when major labels are becoming increasingly irrelevant and the once strong network of traditional record stores is in disarray, we really want to connect directly with our audience, giving fans the most complete and satisfying experience possible for the lowest viable price,’ said Lewis. Geller, who splits time between Kindercore and his job as a Biofuels research engineer and Lewis have made additional adjustments to the Kindercore plan that take into account global issues beyond the entertainment world. ‘We will be making every effort to raise awareness about important climate and energy issues while doing everything we can to ensure that the company makes as small a negative impact on the planet as possible. We will also be using environmentally friendly processes whenever they are available,’ explains Geller. To this end Kindercore is shifting focus from manufacturing CDs – a process which is not easy on the environment – to digital distribution through a strategic partnership with IODA, the Independent Online Distribution Alliance. As part of this arrangement, the entire Kindercore catalog is now available from iTunes, Emusic and other digital download services. The company’s new expanded focus continues Geller and Lewis’ original goal of bringing together talented people and presenting them to a discerning audience, thereby creating a community of like minded artists and fans that redefines the relationship between the two. Serving as the hub of this new Kindercore universe is Kindercore.com, an expansive webspace featuring music, comics, film projects, forums, writing, clothing and more as it continues to grow and evolve with Geller and Lewis, the artists and the audience. ‘Our priority is to help progressive artists – be they musicians, illustrators, animators, film makers, fashion designers or writers – to create and deliver their inventions directly to the people, providing a place for people to come together and dig on art, music, science, fashion, politics and life in general,’ said Lewis.
July 15th – of Montreal play the Pitchfork Music Festival under adverse circumstances. Kevin Barnes explains to Pitchfork, “This whole show was a bit of flying by the seat of our pants because we didn’t have much time to rehearse and our bass player quit–well, he quit/got fired–a couple days before the show, and so we had to figure out what we were going to do without a bass player. And so the guy who had been doing guitar tech for us stepped in on a couple different songs and Nina, my wife, who used to play bass with us, played on a song, and then we used some bass on the backing tracks. And then our CD player–the thing we use to play the backing tracks for us–wasn’t programmed correctly so it kept skipping to the next song.” Matt Dawson responds indirectly via the E6 Townhall: ‘I was ‘fired’ for the offence of quitting….Davey [Pierce] is a wonderful guy and a gifted musician and if he wants and gets the gig I am happy for him.”
July 26th – Julian Koster launches a website for The Music Tapes, orbitinghumancircus.org. A positive sign, considering the band hadn’t released an official album since 1999.
August 7-11th – Athens Popfest features Casper & the Cookies backing Daniel Johnston, plus Circulatory System, Thee American Revolution, Marbles, Pipes You See, Pipes You Don’t, M Coast, The Instruments, The New Sound of Numbers, Dark Meat, Ideal Free Distribution, and many more. The “Major Organ and the Adding Machine” trailer is screened prior to the Circulatory System performance, on what is informally dubbed “Elephant 6 night.” Thee American Revolution’s performance is, well, revelatory. Robert Schneider fronts the psych-rock band with brother-in-law Craig Morris (IFD); Bill Doss joins them, and the band’s ”mentor” William Shears (rumored to be a significant contributor to the 60’s psych scene himself) sits onstage, silent and cryptic, watching the performance.
August 16th – Rebecca Cole announces she has joined the band Hungry Holler. It will later be elaborated that she has left The Minders.
August 18th – Mystery surrounds the appearance online of two videos accredited to Nesey Gallons, and which appear to involve Julian Koster. Ultimately Nesey posts in the Townhall, “The little films were shot last spring at Julian’s house in the Calendar Islands. We could only film things indoors or out of windows as the white beard blazes up in direct sunlight, this therefore is the only reason you do not see the sea but we are surrounded by all of it. For those who speculate or believe that Nesey Gallons & Julian are all the same things, they’re not, we have simply been friends for a long lungy time now, and Julian was naturally quite pleased to contribute to a love song about the Aurora Borealis.”
August 28th – Kingsauce: Cancelled.
September 3rd – The Unfairground, the new album from 60’s psych maestro Kevin Ayers, features contributions from The Ladybug Transistor (Gary Olson, Jeff Baron, and San Fadyl), Julian Koster, and Heather McIntosh, among others. Gary Olson, interviewed in The Austinist: “Two summers ago we were contacted by Kevin Ayers’ manager about working with him on a record. He came out to New York to meet us, and it went well. He returned not too long after that, and we started rehearsing and recording for almost two months… I did a lot of the production on the album for the US sessions, and then they took it to London to finish it up…Kevin was a huge influence on me, so just having him walk through the front door was a dream.”
September 9th – 89.3FM WGSU, SUNY-Geneseo’s student radio station, begins broadcasting “The Elephant 6 Show,” hosted by Becky Lovell and David Kent. Each episode is an hour of Elephant 6 music, with a theme song by Andy Gonzales (Marshmallow Coast) and promo bumpers provided by Kevin Barnes and B.P. Helium (of Montreal), Julian Koster (The Music Tapes), Ben Crum (Great Lakes), Paige Dearman (Midget and Hairs), Kirk Pleasant (Calvin, Don’t Jump!), and Rich Chodes (Kingsauce). On October 1st Optical Atlas begins making the programs available for download.
September 18th – Ham1: The Captain’s Table.
September 20th – Chris Parfitt of Vince Mole and His Calcium Orchestra, and one of the original members of The Apples in Stereo, is reunited with the Apples onstage at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ for a performance of “Tidal Wave.”
The High Water Marks – Song for Emigrants
September 25th – The High Water Marks: Polar. PopMatters: “Sounding off the top like a mix of XTC and Dinosaur Jr., The High Water Marks earn high marks for the title track as it flows like a power pop b-side from The New Pornographers. The song could be mistaken for two glorious tunes mixed into one but it still works. The same flavor is oozing out of the delectable ‘Poison Remedy’ which almost coaxes you to get up and dance. ‘The Leaves’ leaves a bit more to be desired with the shimmering, sunny California pop being the foundation of this ditty. The record also has a healthy amount of girl group pop in the vein of The Blake Babies as is the case during ‘Song For Emigrants’ and the tender ‘Finding Clovers.’ The airy pop feeling also lingers on ‘Early Fall’ with its Matthew Sweet sweetness. Other highlights by The High Water Marks is the simple and elegant ‘Galaxy Galaxy Galaxy’ but they definitely let their rock chops show on the edgier ‘Dutch Tape’ that sounds like Sloan with Patrick Pentland fronting the group.”
November 13th – Japancakes release Loveless, covering the entire album by My Bloody Valentine.
November 16th – Partially to respond to the Outback Steakhouse fallout, Kevin Barnes writes the essay “Selling Out Isn’t Possible” for Stereogum. “Selling out, in an artistic sense, is to change one’s creative output to fit in with the commercial world. To create phony and insincere art in the hopes of becoming commercially successful. I’ve never done this and I can’t imagine I ever will. I spent seven years not even existing at all in the mainstream world. Now I am being supported and endorsed by it. I know this won’t last forever. No one’s going to want to use one of my songs in a commercial five years from now, so I’ve got to take the money while I can… As sad as it may seem, one of the few ways most indie bands can make any money whatsoever is by selling a song to a commercial. Very very few bands make enough money from album sales or tour revenue to enable themselves to quit their day job.”
November 19th – of Montreal appears in a commercial for T-Mobile.
November 26th – M Coast announces an amicable split. Andy Gonzales states he will begin recording solo again, this time as Andy from Denver; Derek Almstead and Emily Growden will record as Faster Circuits.
The Observatory – Christmas Time (is Christmas Time)
November 28th – Kindercore releases X-Mas 3: The War on Christmas, featuring The Observatory (with Bill Doss and Pete Erchick), Folklore, The 63 Crayons, and many others. The CD (bundled with a Kindercore zine of Christmas-themed comic strips) is a limited pressing, in accordance with the label’s new emphasis on digital releases.
December – Bruce Springsteen praises The Apples in Stereo in SPIN Magazine.
December 7th – Supercluster: Special 5 EP; A Hawk and a Hacksaw perform at All Tomorrow’s Parties in Minehead.
December – Circulatory System performs at the Athens Next to Last Fest.
December 27th – Rolling Stone includes both The Apples in Stereo’s New Magnetic Wonder and of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? in their “Top 50 Albums of the Year.”
