Optical Atlas

The Flagpole Music Awards, honoring the best music of the year from Athens, GA, is now open for voting.  E6-related nominees this year include Circulatory System, The Music Tapes, Nana Grizol, Supercluster, James Husband, and Casper & the Cookies.  Head over here to vote–the deadline is May 28th, and winners are announced at the Flagpole Athens Music Awards Show on June 24th at the Morton Theatre.

Casper & the Cookies are hitting the road later this month for a tour that will take them from the South all the way to the West Coast and back.  All of these dates are with France’s psych quartet Aquaserge!

04/20 – Atlanta, GA – Drunken Unicorn
04/21 – Auburn, AL – The Independent
04/22 – New Orleans, LA – The Circle Bar
04/23 – Hot Springs, AR – Maxines
04/24 – Denton, TX – Rubber Gloves
04/26 – Scottsdale, AZ – The Rouge Bar
04/27 – Los Angeles, CA – Spaceland
04/29 – San Francisco, CA – The Rickshaw Stop
05/02 – Seattle, WA – The Comet Tavern
05/06 – Saint Paul, MN – The Turf Club
05/07 – Des Moines, IA – Vaudeville Mews
05/08 – Chicago, IL – Reggies Music Room
05/09 – Nashville, TN – The Basement

Pitchfork has announced that Jeff Mangum will perform a “very short acoustic set” at the Chris Knox benefit concert scheduled for May 6th at NYC’s Le Poisson Rouge. Also performing at the concert: Yo La Tengo, Kyp Malone, Portastic, The Clean, Claudia Gonson of Magnetic Fields, Sharon Van Etten, John Mulaney, Robert Scott, David Kilgour and Dimmer. Tickets go on sale at Kickstarter tomorrow, March 30. (This concert follows the release of Stroke, the benefit album for the Tall Dwarfs‘ Chris Knox, which also featured a track by Jeff Mangum.) This would mark the first live performance by the Neutral Milk Hotel frontman since the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise tour of two years back, for which he performed “Engine” at the encore of multiple shows. This is very, very exciting news – although the focus should remain on the only reason this is happening in the first place: raising money for Mr. Knox’s medical bills, a good cause indeed.

Since I’ve left a gap between posts here, a bit longer than intended, let me catch you up on some other Elephant 6 news:

The long-awaited deluxe edition of Circulatory System’s Signal Morning vinyl LP is finally being shipped to those who pre-ordered back in the summer of last year. It’s worth the wait (mine arrived on Saturday): the exclusive Sides 3 and 4 of the album contain alternate remixes, with a hand-painted sleeve. If you didn’t preorder, there will likely be a few more copies available for sale after all extant orders have shipped: more info is at Cloud Recordings.

Folklore, led by Elf Power’s Jimmy Hughes, is finishing up work on their third album, Home Church Road. If you’d like to see the album get released on vinyl, a Kickstarter fund was started by Jimmy, to which you can contribute. Tour dates are below.

Folklore on Tour

03.30.10 Philadelphia, PA @ World Cafe Live
04.02.10 State College, PA @ Chronic Town w/ The Spinto Band
04.03.10 – New York, NY @ The Cake Shop w/ Blood Warrior
04.15.10 – Geneseo, NY @ SUNY Geneseo (Knight Spot)

The AV Club Decider D.C. just interviewed Beulah’s Miles Kurosky on his (really quite wonderful) new solo album The Desert of Shallow Effects.

Seamonster, the band by Robbert Bobbert artist Todd Webb, has just released a 7″ called Two Birds on Royal Rhino Flying Records/Gold Robot Records/Martyrs of Pop. You can order it here. A video for “Oh Appalachia,” one of the six tracks on the EP, can be viewed here.

Casper & the Cookies also have a new video, for “Sharp!”, a track from last year’s Modern Silence. You can watch it here.

A few years back Fred Schneider of Athens legends The B-52’s launched The Superions with Noah Brodie and Dan Marshall. Following the release of digital singles in 2008 and in 2009, the band will be releasing their first EP on Happy Happy Birthday to Me Records on February 23rd in CD and 12″ formats. The Superions EP will feature the hit dance-inducing tracks “Totally Nude Island,” “Those Sexy Saucer Gals,” and “Who Threw That Ham at Me,” including remixes by Casper & the Cookies, Marshmallow Coast, The Lolligags, and Ursula 1000. Pre-order now at HHBTM’s website and you can elect to get the LP, CD, a keychain, button, autographed sleeve, and answering machine message (for those who still have answering machines), in various combinations – but hurry as the pre-order is only good until Monday at midnight. Here’s the video for “Who Threw That Ham at Me”:

Check out The Superions on MySpace for more videos and streaming music!

Bumblebear Records, the indie label run by Jimmy Hughes of Folklore and Elf Power, has made available for free download a Christmas compilation they put out in 2001 with Planting Seeds Records called Christmas Underground.  The comp features the Wee Turtles, Bugs Eat Books, The Boys Star Library, Ashley Park, Dipstick and Eggnog, Echo Orbiter, Christmas Ape, and many more.  You can grab the MP3s here (as well as a lot of other great free music).

Speaking of Christmas music, Casper & the Cookies have posted their holiday classic “Kiss Me Beneath the Christmas Tree” on their MySpace page once more.

Casper & the Cookies have just debuted the animated music video for “Little King,” from their latest album, Modern Silence. Count the cameos, insiders!

Casper & the Cookies have posted the third installment of their podcast series, and you can download it here.  Jason NeSmith has been dissecting the massive final track from their album Modern Silence, “I Am Gone,” which featured 35 different artists.  In this episode he sifts through the contributions from The Olivia Tremor Control, Bill Doss & Pete Erchick, Pipes You See, Pipes You Don’t, The Late BP Helium, Supercluster, The Lolligags, and more.  All the podcasts are located here.

Casper & the Cookies continue their Modern Silence tour in Madison, Wisconsin, tonight, at the Frequency starting at 10pm.  They’re playing with All Tiny Creatures, Carribean, Everything Now, and Free Moral Agents.  Here are the remaining dates on their tour:

08.13.09 Madison, WI @ The Frequency
08.14.09 Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen
08.15.09 Fort Wayne, IN @ Bill’s City Grill
08.29.09 Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge
09.10.09 Athens, GA @ Caledonia Lounge