Jeff Magnum - Live at Jittery Joe's

Live at Jitter Joe's is a long-rumored recording of the Neutral Milk Hotel lead singer performing at an Athens, Georgia, coffee shop in early 1997. His set includes selections from On Avery Island and In the Aeroplane over the Sea (the latter of which would not appear for another year), a generous portion of B-sides and unreleased tracks, and a heartfelt cover of Phil Spector's "I Love How You Love Me." It's enthralling to hear these songs in such a casual, unadorned setting: one envies the small crowd in attendance. Mangum's clearly having fun, joking with the audience and asking for requests. It's particularly revealing when he refers to "Two-Headed Boy, Part II" as a song that "will probably never come out or anything," and spontaneously decides to merge a short hymn to Jesus with "Up and Over We Go"--a medley that would later turn up on record as "King of Carrot Flowers, Part II and III." Also included: a QuickTime video of the entire set shot by video director Lance Bangs. It's just Mangum in almost complete darkness, with a few colored lights hanging behind him and a small child cavorting in the background. The visuals are sweet yet mysterious--the perfect accompaniment to these brilliant songs. --Mike Appelstein Amazon.com

Pre-Aeroplane

This is a must have for any NMH fan. It's a live set that pre-dates the release of "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" by a good bit. The entire set if Jeff Mangum and an acoustic guitar. The sound isn't always great and a lot of background noise is present. As far as I'm concerned, this only helps create the atmosphere in which Mangum created his best stuff. At points it's almost painfully intimate. I'm sorry I never saw him when he was performing and this live album only fuels my disappointment because it really is great. May 5, 2008

Mangum's Voice is One of a Kind

I loved Aeroplane Over the Sea and some of Avery Island, but this album is just great. Just his voice, a guitar, and some background sounds. Great Phil Spector song. I wish there was more Neutral Milk Hotel out there. April 27, 2006

I would pay whatever it took to see Jeff Mangum perform.

If you told me Jeff Mangum would be playing again for a few friends at a coffee house in Athens, Georgia: I would leave before you finished telling me. I would pay just about whatever price it took to get there. I would ride forty hours on a bus. I would drive through two nights. I would take rides from truckers who listen to nothing but Neil Diamond.

And I would do it just to hear Jeff perform again.

You see, by the time I first tuned in, the Jeff-Mangum-Neutral-Milk-Hotel-Elephant-Six train had left the station. By then, all chances of seeing Jeff and NMH perform live had long since dried up. This is why "Live at Jittery Joe's" is such a gift.

"Live at Jittery Joe's" offers a glimpse of an artist on the brink. Jeff is about to paint his masterpiece. He will record "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" within the next year or so of this performance. The fascination of "Live at Jittery Joe's" is hearing that all the elements are there--waiting for Jeff (and NMH and Robert Schneider) to bring them together.

There is a haunting beauty and an emotional ache about "Live at Jittery Joe's." At no moment is it deeper than when Jeff sings Phil Spector's "I Love How You Love Me." We ache because we know the end of the story; NMH records "Aeroplane," tours, tours some more, and then Jeff falls of the map. Perhaps for good.

For me, the most poignant moments come in watching the Quicktime video of the evening (included with the CD). In some measure, Jeff's music is about childhood, innocence and the loss of that innocence. During the video, Jeff fades into the darkness and the camera follows a two-year-old girl, playing in the background. Her image matches and intensifies the effect of the music.

Realistically, this shouldn't be your introduction to Jeff's music. Buy "Aeroplane" first. Digest it some. Buy "On Avery Island." Then you will be ready for "Live at Jittery Joe's."
December 8, 2005

the song as poetry, and other reasons people are windbags

What's your idea of a song? Personally, I do want good musicianship; I don't want to hear a garage band who can't keep time try to play songs that were awful in the first place. But more importantly, I look for good lyrics. I think what makes good lyrics is whether they can stand on their own, basically as poetry. A song should be the extended form of poetry.

Having said that, I have read a few reviews, on Amazon and other places, where the writers criticize Mangum's lyrics because they don't get them, or because fan they have spoken to don't understand them, and thus, by logical reasoning, they must be completely nonsensical ravings of a "pretentious" artist. But does misunderstanding mean a song, or a poem, is not any good? I would guess that the majority of people do not understand The Wasteland, but still it is considered to be the 20th century's greatest English language poem. Who has labeled it in this manner? Scholars who have studied poetry a lot more than me.

If literature is not understood the first time it is read (heard), or even the second or third, and is thus labeled as garbage, we might not have The Wasteland, or Ulysses, or Gravity's Rainbow, or hundreds of other works that actually take time and brain power to understand. Although I understand that most popular music today is made for people who have developed incredibly short attention spans and have the incessant need for immediate payoff and understanding, it doesn't mean that all music has to be made this way, nor does it mean that if someone does not follow this formula it immediately forces the work into the category of uselessness or gibberish. So, if you hate Mangum's work because you don't understand it, I can understand that, as you've been accustomed to being treated as a nonthinking fool by so much music, but I still don't believe it to be valid reasoning.

And I've heard complaints of the recording quality. Well, this is a LIVE recording. It was not recorded in a studio. Live recordings are never as good as studio recordings (well...hardly ever). If you expect perfect sound quality from music and cannot stand anything less, don't get this cd. However, if you trade or dabble in live bootlegs, or even go to shows, it is an average, perhaps a little above average recording. Yes, you can hear the crowd, and yes there is a baby in the crowd. Big deal. That is what live means. April 1, 2005

great atmosphere

Personally, I think Jeff Mangum is great, but I will agree that his stuff is not for everyone. He writes beautiful songs and performs them like no one else could, but you have to be a certain kind of person to enjoy it. I guess it all depends on what you want out of your music, if you just want a good beat and something to sing along to...then maybe you should turn on TRL and catch today's countdown of the top ten most unartistic and uninspired songs around. However, if you like music that's artistic, sometimes challenging, always honest about the human condition, and don't mind it coming out of the mouth of scratchy throat poet who will never be a pop star, then you might find much to enjoy in Jeff Mangum/Neutral Milk Hotel.

Now about this album, it's many of the Neutral Milk Hotel songs we know and love, but played acoustic, in a small venue (a coffee house I would assume). The atmosphere of this album is fantastic, there's background noise: a kid crying, a handfull of people paying very close attention to what he's doing, and other people who don't seem to realize they are in the presence of indie music royalty. It's almost sad at times to imagine the people walking in and out of the coffee house while he's playing, like it's any other day, and not stopping to listen for a while. These are the people that are getting their coffee and go home and turn on TRL, but they're not important here anyway, the important thing is the music, and it works really well in this setting. Anyone who enjoyed the other neutral milk hotel albums will enjoy this one. Plus there's a video file you can watch on your computer that is basically a video of the whole show. It's a pretty low quality video, but it's a very nice bonus nonetheless. December 8, 2004

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