Willie Simpson

Tag: Elephant 6

Beulah, Gene Autry, Emma Blowgun's Last Stand, Ballad of the Lonely Agronaut

Beulah was formed in a mail room in San Fransisco when Miles Kurosky and Bill Swan decided they both liked the same music, well mostly. This is the kind of story yours truly can get behind due to own desire to hatch great ideas when I worked in a mail room. Robert Schneider of the…

September 23, 2011
Of Montreal, Disconnect the Dots, Lysergic Bliss (live), Art Snob Solutions (live)

R.E.M. broke up yesterday, but worry not, because Athens, Georgia rocks on with their other native sons, Of Montreal. Of Montreal, famously not “of Montreal,” hail from R.E.M.’s hometown too. Kevin Barnes, the group’s extroverted introvert genius front man, is peculiar guy. When he broke into music, his talent wasn’t entirely assembled. His early home…

September 22, 2011
Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, King of Carrot Flowers Parts 1-3

Jeff Mangum’s “Neutral Milk Hotel” was the third founding wing in the Elephant 6 Collective. If the Apples in Stereo represented the happy side of the Beatles, and Olivia Tremor Control were the, ahh, trippier side of the Beatles, then Neutral Milk Hotel was Elephant 6’s approximation of Blonde on Blonde’s Bob Dylan. Mangum’s breakthrough…

September 21, 2011
The Apples in Stereo, I Told You Once

When I was 17 years old, I first heard Her Wallpaper Reverie, a sort of mini Apples in Stereo LP, and I was blown away. It was the first time I’d ever heard anyone from the Elephant 6 Collective, and they were making the exact sort of music I was missing in the world. In…

September 19, 2011