(The following is part of my series of posts that I started writing in mid-2012 but didn’t publish until now, with some edits to bring it up to date.)
I first heard this band a few weeks ago [sometime in May 2012 – ed.] at the coffee place down the street from my house [where I no longer live – ed.] (I think the song was “Two-Headed Boy” [it was – ed.]). Since I could tell that the song would be stuck in my head for a while [more than a year so far – ed.], I asked the barista about it when I went to get a coffee refill. The conversation went roughly like this:
| Me: | “Who does this song?” |
| Barista: | “Neutral Milk Hotel.” |
| Me: | (slightly bemused) “I’m sorry?” |
| Barista: | “Neutral Milk Hotel.” |
| Me: | “……….one more time?” |
| Barista: | “Neutral. Milk. Hotel. Here’s your coffee.” |
I immediately went to Google because (a) I wanted to learn more about the band that created the song that was still boring its way into my skull, and (b) I wanted reassurance that I had not just received a coffee refill from a madman. Turns out the band was active in the late ’90s, during that period of acoustic post-grunge rock epitomized by bands like Neutral Milk Hotel.
