Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea Read Free Page A

straightaway and try to show him up by writing something better. Of course, I never have been able to best him, but it has spawned many of what I consider my best songs.”
    As for that mysterious Elephant 6 logo? Julian Koster once called it “a family crest for a group of friends.” Laura Carter identifies it as being “more like a visual identification” than a formal record label. To this day, people write to Laura in her capacity as the owner of Orange Twin Records asking if she’ll consider releasing their music on Elephant 6. There’s only one problem: “It’s not a
real label!
” Starting in1993, Robert Schneider and Hilarie Sidney ran an Elephant 6 record label in Denver, releasing early works by Apples in Stereo, Olivia Tremor Control, Marbles, Minders, Music Tapes, Beulah, Secret Square and Von Hemmling, mainly on vinyl. But by 1999, the project was put on indefinite hold. To Laura, E6 represents inspiration for other groups of musicians to form similar support systems in their own towns, to start their own record labels or whatever they need to bring their own dreams to fruition. Trying to join Elephant 6 at this late date is like trying to take a short cut to something anyone can have if they want it badly enough.
    One important Ruston hot spot was the Monroe House, so named not because its residents were from nearby Monroe, but for its location at 411 South Monroe Street—just across from the Fun-O-Mat, a combination bar, nightclub and laundromat. The five-bedroom house had once housed a fraternity, but the University severed its relationship with the chapter, and the frat boys gradually dispersed. Scott Spillane, who lived there, recalls it as an inexpensive crash pad where someone would always be passed out on the couch and the mornings were filled with the sound of guitar solos and drum practice.
    Ross Beach lived in the Monroe House in the summer of 1993, when the housemates threw five all-night parties, each drawing about 150 people (not counting the inevitable visit from the Ruston police). Olivia Tremor Control—then comprised of Will, Bill and Jeff, drumming with metal coat hangers, presumably because he couldn’t afford drumsticks—was the unofficial house band, sharing informal bills with a variety of Ruston and Monroe groups. Ross remembers that Jeff “usually played a solo acoustic set duringwhich the entire loud raucous party would become a hush, with people sitting down on the floor to take in his performance. Anytime he took the stage, it was immediately compelling.” Jeff almost lived in the Monroe House, but moved out after just one night in fall 1993 because the signal from KLPI was bleeding into his Fostex X-26 four-track, making it impossible to record there.
    Local bands could play at Monroe House parties, but the residents also had a deal with the Fun-O-Mat (later called the Dry Dock, after the owners took the washers out), so when bigger bands stopped off in Ruston they could get their friends’ bands on the bill as the opening act. And bigger bands
did
stop off in Ruston, which was uniquely placed halfway between Memphis and New Orleans on the north/south circuit, and between Jackson and Dallas on the east/west. Scott says, “For bands that were touring, it was a good place to set up for the night. They might not get a lot of money, but they would play at our house, or at Fun-O-Mat. The radio station would do promos for the shows. We had Sebadoh, Beat Happening, Pork, Viva Knievel [Kathleen Hanna’s first band]. We’d catch all these bands that were touring all over the place, and of course we would set up the opening bands—whoever was available, which turned out to be the Gerbils!”
    There were other Ruston dwellings where creativity flowered. Will Hart lived at the Bond Street House, where many early Elephant 6 recordings were made, and Bill Doss had an apartment on Sparta Street. Then there was the Trenton Street House, a one-bedroom where as many as six people