soon after, in athens, georgia with the intent of pushing psychedelic folk/rock music into the forefront they founded the very important independent label elephant 6 recording company.  shortly after that while in denver, robert and chris founded the apples.  slightly later, they recruited jim and hilarie, finally releasing their first elephant 6 release in 1993.

the elephant 6 soon signed neutral milk hotel, elf power, of montreal and the olivia tremor.  in 2002, after many hugely influential years of nurturing indie greats, the label called it a day.

however, on october 27, 2008 the founding members of the elephant 6, including robert, jeff mangum (neutral milk hotel), and 15 other musicians from 10 different bands played for three hours at chicago's bottom lounge.

currently, robert (lead vocals, guitars, lyrics, song writing) along with long time members john hill (rhythm guitar) and eric allen (bass), and new comers bill doss (keyboards), john dufilho (drums) and john ferguson (keyboards) make up the band now called the apples in stereo.  the “in stereo" is usually either in lower-case or in parenthesis.

in an interview robert said, "it's very clear-cut, actually: we're the apples, the music's in stereo. it's not actually the band name – it's a step back from it, a band name once removed. we're the apples, in stereo. kind of like a tv show, 'in stereo!'”

in december 2006, hugely boosting the band’s visibility, robert appeared on the colbert report to kick off the infamous "shred down" contest between stephen colbert/peter frampton and chris funk of the decemberists.

on april 20, 2010, the band released their seventh album travellers in space & time on elijah wood's (yes, that elijah wood) label.  robert described the album as a futuristic pop record, as a highly-evolved sound with robots and humans singing together and emanating from an alien spaceship.

click here to listen to travellers in space & time via the band's website.  click here for their rhapsody page.  click here for a march 15, 2007 sxsw 2010 gigs recorded by kexp.  click here for a september 19, 2010 live concert from all songs considered recorded by npr.  click here for the now famous october 2008 elephant 6 orchestra concert recorded by npr.  click here for their twitter page.  don't forget, the album cover image always links to sample songs and the band's image to their website.

check here to see if the apples in stereo have any gigs scheduled near you.

as always, please buy this album from your local independent music store by people who know and love music and not from retailers like wal-mart (soulless, globally-homogenizing, community-killers) or i-tunes (albums should be listened to as an entire composition with album cover and liner notes in hand).  incidentally, these two companies sell more music than any other retailer in the united states.  that my friend, bites.

the apples in stereo are delish.

if you agree, please spread the word (about the band and this site).

jason

don't worry if you missed the local natives profile from last week: here it is.

yep roc records


joshua kessler