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MAGGIE FOST
W ith the hope of breaking down what
he considers arbitrary barriers between
listener, performer and the music itself,
The Music Tapes' Julian Koster is in the
midst of a national caroling tour, taking his
songs door to door nationwide rather than
playing traditional shows in a rock club.
"To me, loving records and loving making
records has always occurred in your own life,
in your own room, in the context of your own
things," says the multi-instrumentalist, who
gained a lot of attention as a player in Neutral
Milk Hotel and alongside his Elephant 6 friends
through most of the late '90s. "I just always
thought it would be so wonderful if there
could just be a knock at the door and this
little elf from the records I love could come
visit me and come carol for me in the world
that my love for the music lives in, rather
than having to go into a bar somewhere, into
this completely foreign reality where my love
doesn't live. It feels like it belongs more to
the imaginary places that music comes from
and from which people's love of music lives in
that strange sort of human tradition. I really
like caroling a lot; I really like mumming a lot.
Nobody lives in a rock club. Even the employ
ees who spend their days and nights in a rock
club, the moments where they can listen to a
record and get lost in it probably exist mostly
outside of that rock club."
Koster put out the call for invitations—he's
only bringing his music to places where he's
been invited, and only between the carol
ing hours of 6 and 9 p.m.—last month via
his website OrbitingHumanCircus.org, and he
says he's been steadily receiving invitations
every day, via email and the old-fashioned
manner of actual mail. "The response has
been wonderful; it's been amazing. Every day
there's been more. It's been so warm," he
says. "There's just an extraordinary warmth
coming from people, and they're all strangers!
[Caroling] has been a dream of mine. Part of it
came in a dream, and in the dream it wasn't a
specific holiday or time of year."
The idea is, that once invited, he'll arrive
in a town, show up at the first house on his
list, knock on the door, sing a few of his Music
Tapes songs as well as perform a few holiday
songs with his singing saw, hand out some
presents and then move on to the next place
on his list. "I think a lot of people are plan
ning to have small holiday parties, at which
point there'll be a knock on the door, and I
think that's really nice because many of the
gatherings will include people who are strang
ers to them," he says. Invitees could indicate
whether they'd open their houses—or apart
ments, or offices, or wherever they're inviting
Koster to come carol—to strangers showing
up, and those locations would be given prefer
ence if Koster received too many invitations in
one town.
"I think it'll be all kinds of places, but
they're not going to be shows," he stresses,
"and I think because this sort of thing hasn't
really existed before, some people can't quite
wrap their brains around it, and they're think
ing, okay, so where's the show going to be,
but it's, no, no," he says, and giggles and
giggles, "there's not going to be a show any
where! It's your house! But not a show."
Koster, who now lives off the coast of
Maine but has spent most of the past six
months here in Athens, recently returned to
Athens from the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise
tour, which took the group of like-minded
local musicians around the country performing
songs revue-style, drawing on all their vari
ous bands: Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor
Control, Elf Power, The Gerbils and others.
"Thetrin itself was this funny abstract
dream that itself came true, and we just leapt
into the unknown with that because none of
us knew what it would be like. I didn't know
what we would be presenting, I didn't know
what that would feel like, and I didn't know
who would come or what they would feel. I
just had no idea. And to have that unfold with
a tremendous warmth and excitement was...
well, I guess that's what you do when you
abandon yourself to the unknown and follow
something that feels nice from the inside; it
just happens. It's almost like asking someone
you have a crush on to go out. You just do it,
and find out!"
Koster says that the Holiday Surprise Tour
brought in more money than anyone involved
had expected, and that's making it easier for
him to afford the gas money for this caroling
trip. He left on Nov. 11 and went from Georgia
through Tennessee to Texas, and around this
time he should be somewhere midwestern
like Kansas or Wisconsin before dipping into
Canada next week and hitting up the entire
state of New York before landing in Maine,
where he has a big holiday party planned at
his seaside house. After that, possibly back to
Athens for some more music-making. This fall
saw the release of the album Music Tapes for
Clouds and Tornadoes, and an album of holiday
songs called The Singing Saw at Christmastime
was released last month. Koster says that a
return to Athens may be likely, and that a
reprise of the Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour
out to the West Coast is likely for early next
year, but at this point not even Koster knows
for sure where he'll end up—he's waiting for a
dream to let him know.
Chris Hassiotis
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