Do you follow twitter? If you follow some of the bigger music sites, like Pitchfork and Stereogum and whatnot, you probably saw your timeline fill up with play by play that Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Magnum was playing an impromptu set in New York the other night during an organized protest on Wall Street. I’m not going to get into the politics, but if you want to know more about Occupy Wall Street, click here.
If you somehow don’t know, or are too young to know, about Neutral Milk Hotel, they are an indie rock band from the 90’s that, at the time, did not receive much critical acclaim before disbanding in 1999 due to a reported nervous breakdown from the reclusive frontman Magnum. It has long been rumored that the band would record and tour again, but nothing really happened on that front… until last year. Magnum has popped up at several impromptu shows in the last year (and made a stop at the recent ATP festival), and has us all wondering if they will finally be another album and tour (Ryman, Hello Ryman? Do you hear me?). The impromptu Occupy New York show was at New York’s Zuccotti Park (near the World Trade Center site) where Magnum set up to play a few songs for protestors.
I have given up on trying to embed this video (it usually takes me two days of banging my head into a desk looking at code to remember I suck at html), so head here to watch it. I have also posted a player with songs from the 1998 release, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.
[gigya src="http://grooveshark.com/widget.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="250" height="250" flashvars="hostname=cowbell.grooveshark.com&playlistID=61186817&bbg=000000&bth=000000&pfg=000000&lfg=000000&bt=ffffff&pbg=ffffff&pfgh=ffffff&si=ffffff&lbg=ffffff&lfgh=ffffff&sb=ffffff&bfg=666666&pbgh=666666&lbgh=666666&sbh=666666&p=0" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="window"]
