Customer Reviews

Live at Jittery Joe's

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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."

Jeff Mangum has a way with words that I have never encountered before. At first listen, his songs sound unassuming and happy, but slipped into their charming melodies are heartaching stories of unresolved love and pain (many loosely based on the Diary of Anne Frank). His voice is untrained and vulnerable and utterly captivating with its unusual turns. His lyrics are obscure and strange, becoming more accessible and beautiful with further listening.

Recorded in 1997, Jitter Joe's provides an intimate conglomeration of "On Avery Island" and early versions of songs from "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea", plus a wistful cover of Phil Spector's "I Love How You Love Me". "Two Headed Boy Pt. Two" stands out in particular, with alternate lyrics from the album, along with "Naomi" and "Oh Comely". Where the previous versions of these songs are accompanied by trumpets and electronics, Jeff Mangum plays alone on this album, and offers a simple but poignant look at the man who is the genius behind Neutral Milk Hotel. There is much interaction with the audience between tracks, and interesting explanations for some of the songs are given. The entire show is included on the CD as a Quicktime video. An absolutely incredible album.

Stunning document of Neutral Milk Hotel's Jeff Mangum performing a small show in an Athens, Georgia coffehouse in the time between the release of "on avery island" and the recording of his landmark "in the aeroplane over the sea." Early versions of the material for that album are played for the first time in public, to what sounds like a handfull of friends who engage Jeff throughout the performance with conversation and requests. The simple stereo field recording of Jeff's voice and acoustic guitar is perfectly suited to the material, and a genuine sense of intimacy comes across. One after another the songs are jaw dropping, culminating with the unveiling of "oh comely" in a possessed version even more affecting than one found on "ITAOTS." The entire show is also included as a Quicktime movie, and gives a subdued, backlit glimpse of Jeff losing himself in the performance, seated while the room seems to glow over his shoulder and a child plays at his feet. Remarkable.

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.

Jeff Mangum is the frontman of the acid-weird indie-rock group known as Neutral Milk Hotel. "Live at Jittery Joe's," a recording made at a Georgia coffeehouse between Neutral Milk Hotel's two albums, is a casual, offbeat little live recording. It's not astounding, but it's pleasant.

In it, Mangum takes requests and plays various songs from both albums -- a faster version of "A Baby For Pree," the enjoyably weird "Engine," a cover of Phil Spector's "I Love How You Love Me," and versions of ""Where You'll Find Me Now" and "Two-Headed Boy Part 2" that alter the original lyrics ("In my dreams you're alive/And you're crying..."). A few of Mangum's songs stumble: "I Will Bury You in Time" is weak by comparison, and songs like "Gardenhead" suffer musically from a lack of fuzz guitar.

Mangum tends to create strange, tangled, vivid songs, and they don't lose their punch because he's playing acoustic music in a coffeehouse. "Live" feels very casual and relaxed, as if he's really enjoying what he's doing. "Live"'s sound quality suffers somewhat, since it is basically a bootleg. It could use some tighter editing and some cleaning up. (Will no one take the baby out of the coffeehouse?)

It's also nice to hear some alternate versions of already existing songs ("Baby For Pree"), as well as unreleased material ("Engine"). Not to mention some spur-of-the-moment changes -- mashing together a song about Jesus to a Neutral Milk Hotel song, for example. It's weird, but it works.

But the brilliant guy behind Neutral Milk Hotel is in fine form here. Mangum's flawed voice is solidly poignant, very strong and emotional. His acoustic guitar playing doesn't have the texture of his band's electronic/fuzz sound, so expect something more folkie than indie. His guitar playing is strong and pleasantly quirky.

Despite subpar sound quality and some songs that don't work, Jeff Mangum's "Live At Jittery Joe's" is intimately odd. A curiosity for fans of Neutral Milk Hotel.

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.

This is music, true and pure and beautifully simple. Jeff Mangum is the most under-appreciated musician of our times, and this live solo performance is nothing short of amazing. This is the way his songs are meant to be heard, completely absent of production and alteration. Standout tracks include two unreleased songs ("Bury You in Time" and "Engine"), Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone, an extended version of A Baby For Pree, and a hauntingly moving rendition of "Oh Comely". If you're reading this review, you're obviously curious/interested, so take my advice and buy this cd. It demands a spot in your cd collection.

I was introduced to Neutral Milk Hotel by my boyfriend. He had made me a copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. I would listen to it numerous times in a week, sitting there taking in Jeff Mangum's beautifully written and executed words and the instruments that surrounded it and accented it so beautifully.
When I heard the live recording I was quite impressed with the way just Jeff and his guitar makes the music even more personal than I had once thought before. The atmosphere seems to be that of just a man and his guitar playing for a few friends, taking a few of their requests and being very down to earth about things the whole time. He seems completely laid back.
I have always loved Jeff Mangums voice. To hear it basically standing alone besides an acoustic guitar is something truely wonderful to hear in my opinion. If you are a fan of Neutral Milk Hotel then I think you'd love this cd. I wouldn't reccomend it necessarily for someone who wasn't already into the band but even if this was the first thing I heard by Jeff Mangum I still would have loved it.
He does an extremely touching cover of "I love How You Love Me" that will always stir up so many emotions and me. His songwriting and voice effect me in ways that most bands or musicians cannot. He is truely an amazing talent, while remaining quite humble about the fact.

Well I ordered this CD from Amazon and sent them the dough yesterday, but while I was vacationing in Texas I saw it in a store and I weakened and bought it there. It's truly everything I thought it would be. I own Avery Island, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea and a bootleg of NMH playing live and have been waiting for a new release from Jeff or the band as a whole for some time now. While hearing the band do the songs live is special, hearing Jeff the songwriter play them by himself in front of friends and family is truly something. Because it is only Jeff playing, the focus tends to drift towards his voice. For my part, I can say that I greatly enjoy listening to it. I find it to be one of the most emotional and moving instruments in all of music. I also think that Jeff is one of the best songwriters to come along in the last ten years and it is truly ashame that he seems to have gotten away from the pursuit of musical endeavors with the exception of drumming for Circulatory System and recording Bulgarian tunes. For fans of Neutral Milk Hotel this CD is a must. If you have often wondered what made Avery Island and Aeroplane so remarkable, this CD reveals the heart and soul behind those songs (and showcases an excellent unreleased original as well as an impressive cover). NMH was always high art, but do not be misled by ignorant comments. It was never pretentious and neither is Jeff. In fact, the between song banter actually surprised me (pleasantly) with how down-to-earth Jeff and those surrounding him are. Jeff's lyrics though, tap deep into the subconscious and are symbolic, covering many subjects such as death, love, loneliness, lost innocence and childhood. But often, several of these themes are present in the same song because of the stream of consciousness style he writes in. Not only that, but the songs taken (well not really taken since In The Aeroplane Over The Sea did not exist yet at the date of this performance) from Aeroplane have details of the life of Anne Frank and her family weaving in and out of the aforementioned themes in the lyrics. Not that every story behind every lyric is really so important. If you are listening, you will hear what Jeff is saying, whether you understand the words or not.

Jeff Mangum is the epitome of genius. End of story.

I'm not exaggerating when I say Neutral Milk Hotel is the single most amazing, talented and dynamic band I have EVER heard.

I'm not one to burst into tears when listening to music, in fact, I never did, that is until I discovered NMH. Mangums voice, lyrics and guitar work WILL give you chills and WILL move you to tears.

This album, along with everything else he has done is a must own. Cherish this album and this band.