For the first time in more than a decade, indie-rock icon Jeff Mangum took the stage solo last Thursday night on May 6th. At a benefit show at New York’s Le Poisson Rouge, the frontman of the lo-fi indie-folk group Neutral Milk Hotel performed a short but sweet 25-minute, five-song set, focusing on songs from Neutral Milk’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, the hugely influential 1998 album that’s gone on to inspire everyone from Grizzly Bear to the Decemberists to Arcade Fire.
Mangum — who came out of Athens, Georgia’s Elephant 6 collective, which also cultivated bands like Olivia Tremor Control and the Apples in Stereo in the late Nineties — has largely shunned the public over the years, but he was encouraged to perform last night to help raise money for punk musician Chris Knox, a friend of Mangum’s who has recently suffered a series of strokes. Yo La Tengo, the Clean, Portastatic and TV On the Radio’s Kyp Malone — along with comedians Sharon Van Etten and John Mulaney — rounded out the event’s eclectic bill.
Source Rollingstone