Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Read Online Free PDF

with an acoustic guitar, but it was being issued on a real record label, and Merge (the Chapel Hill indie owned by members of Superchunk) had the expectation that Jeff would promote it with tours and interviews. Neutral Milk Hotel already sounded like a band name. Why not use
On Avery Island
’s release as an excuse to finally collaborate with his friends?
    There had been talk about Jeff, who everyone says is a fine drummer, backing Julian Koster up on some recordings, but Julian found that he was tired of interacting with the record industry and focused on solo Music Tapes recordings. Nevertheless, he and Jeff sometimes sent tapes and letters back and forth, working out ideas. Eventually, Julian joined the Neutral Milk Hotel project. They started talkingabout going out on the road. Obviously, Jeff should be the frontman; who could be the drummer?
    That was the question in the air when Julian got a letter from a young kid he’d met in Albuquerque a few years earlier. Jeremy Barnes was only in high school when their bands played together, but, Julian explains, “He was one of the most amazing drummers I’d ever seen. Jeremy had written me this really wonderful letter, basically saying he was being led into a far different life than I think Jeremy Barnes was supposed to live. He was going to school, and I think there were expectations for him. And there was a lot bursting out of him that needed to be realized. I think he was sensing that his destiny lay elsewhere. Somehow, Jeff and I got on a train and went to Chicago to see Jeremy!”
    Jeremy recalls the circumstances as being quite convoluted, with Julian coming all the way from New York to arrange the first meeting between Jeremy and Jeff, who was coming from Denver. Jeff and Julian were so poor that their train tickets exhausted their resources. When they got to Chicago, they scrounged up a little more cash to rent a studio for an hour. The “audition” consisted of the trio playing “Gardenhead,” after which Jeff and Julian went outside and talked. Jeremy was intrigued by Jeff’s songs, and while somewhat intimidated, he had a good feeling about things. For Julian, it was immediately obvious that Jeremy was the missing piece of the band puzzle, but they weren’t sure how the band would manifest itself. So it was a little later that they formally asked Jeremy to drop out of DePaul University, move to New York and join Neutral Milk Hotel.
    New York can be a tough place for young artists, but Julian had two great spaces at his disposal. First there wasthe tiny, rent-controlled apartment on Christopher Street between Bleecker and West 4th, which he shared with his friend Robbie Cucchiaro and a menagerie of stray animals, crisscrossing tape loops and visiting musicians. And then there was a fairy wonderland on the border of Nassau and Queens, 986 North 7th Street, better known as Grandma’s House.
    Julian’s maternal grandmother Marie St. Angelo Caso is a warm, loving presence in his life, and her home is the place he always comes back to. A bright, eccentric woman who raised her two daughters alone after her husband died young, she never questioned her grandson for wanting to be a musician. Julian says, “she always accepted me and my friends in a really fundamental, functional way, because during the great Depression, she saw that people who put money in the stock market lost everything. But she remembers distinctly the men would come play accordions in the courtyards between the houses, and people would throw coins down to them. She remembered her whole life, that those people were always able to go and make people happy and eat!”
    A favorite story illustrating Marie’s unconventional attitude involves a parent–teacher conference called when Julian’s aunt was in elementary school. The guidance counselor asked what Marie felt would be an appropriate career path for her little girl. She thought about it for a little while and said, “Well, she likes