TICKETS $25

Doors 6:30 p.m.; Performance 7 p.m.; Film 8:15 p.m.

Closed Captions available for the film with Dolby® CaptiView devices. Click here to learn more about accessibility at the Tomorrow Theater.

THE EXPERIENCE

In collaboration with XRAY.FM, we’re thrilled to host a screening of The Elephant 6 Recording Co. documentary. The Elephant 6 music screen grew out of small southern towns (Ruston, LA. and Athens, GA) and fostered bands including Neutral Milk Hotel, The Olivia Tremor Control, and The Apples In Stereo. Lance Bangs, producer of the film, will introduce the screening. Prior to the screening, Martyn Leaper of The Minders and Ross Beach will perform music from the film.

ON SCREEN: The Elephant 6 Recording Co.

2022. Directed by C.B. Stockfleth. Runtime: 93 minutes. Not Rated.

The Elephant 6 Recording Co. shares the unique inside story of the collective creative evolution behind the sounds of 1990s psychedelic rock bands The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, and The Apples in Stereo — the founding groups behind the Elephant 6 collective, as well as a host of other artists — with inspirational resonance for today’s music makers, and music lovers everywhere.

Around 1985, a group of Ruston, Louisiana area high schoolers began experimenting with whatever random instruments and gear they could lay their hands on. Moving to other small college towns including Denver, Colorado and Athens, Georgia, their musical coming of age coincided with the new consumer availability of old-school 4- and 8-track recording technology and cassette tapes. Sharing like-minded sensibilities, influenced by past sounds and psychedelia, and with little to distract them, their efforts to create whole new musical worlds became the bands The Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel, The Apples In Stereo and many more. While the collective grew to a natural breaking point, its founding members overcame obstacles and remained closely bonded, reuniting for tours and still collaborating today.

The Elephant 6 Recording Co. provides insight into this revolutionary era of popular independent music in America, the defiant DIY spirit in music making, and champions the integrity of an authentic quest for artistic expressiveness over the more mainstream image of being a “successful” musician in our fame-obsessed times.

ON STAGE: Ross Beach & Martyn Leaper of The Minders

Lance Bangs
Lance Bangs is an artist, filmmaker and showrunner. He has created videos for Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Neutral Milk Hotel, Green Day, The Shins, Belle & Sebastian, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, R.E.M., Death Cab For Cutie, The Black Keys, Odd Future, Joe Strummer and George Harrison. Lance has also been heavily involved in the filming and production of the Jackass television series and its subsequent movies, and has directed documentaries about the bands Pavement and Slint. His work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in NY, The Georgia Museum, and Kunst-Werke in Berlin. As a resident of Athens, GA in the 1990s, he made films and videos documenting the Elephant 6 scene.

Ross Beach
Ross Beach is a songwriter, DJ, tech pro, and a co-founder and former president of the non-profit group PDX Pop Now! He hails from Louisiana where he was a DJ for KLPI-Ruston and where he played in numerous bands, including an early lineup of Neutral Milk Hotel. Hear him preview local concerts and spin strange, beautiful music on his XRAY show, Alive With Pleasure, Fridays from 2-3 p.m.

Martyn Leaper of The Minders
The Minders are an Indie-Psych-Pop band based in Portland, Oregon. Formed in Denver, Colorado in 1996, the band is closely associated with The Elephant Six Collective.