Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock

Many books come out each year deconstructing rock music: The musicians, their albums, their songs, their showering habits, and their other habits. It’s here where we’ll take an excerpt of a book for you to check out before you make the purchase. As of now these will exclusively feature the venerable 33 1/3 series, which picks apart an album by a band or musician. In the future, we hope to include more rock books of all varieties.

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The Neutral Milk Hotel Aeroplane Takes Off

Up on stage, the players tapped into a trancelike—but hardly calm—state where the unexpected was the norm. Perfor­mances turned frighteningly physical, bodies and instruments flying, blood being drawn without anyone realizing they’d been hurt. Ben Crum says, “They are easily the best live band I ever saw. There was a powerful energy to their show that I really haven’t seen anywhere else. It was definitely dangerous. There often seemed to be a very real chance that someone, probably Julian, would get hurt. Jeff was always doing things like picking him up and throwing him into the drums.”

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