Movie Review: The Elephant 6 Recording Co.

4 stars out of 5

Regional music scenes are a weird and special thing that perhaps don’t exist anymore. But they usually blossomed around a club or recording studio or like-minded musicians. If a scene was really good and really lucky, the music could seep through to the wider public and then someday end up as a box set and, just maybe, a documentary. Athens, Georgia has been fortunate enough to spawn two such scenes: the late 70s/early 80s birth of The B-52s, Pylon, R.E.M., etc. (chronicled in the cool 1986 doc Athens, GA: Inside/Out), and then the psych-pop wonder of the 90s Elephant 6 collective. Though E6 never reached the commercial heights of their Athens predecessors, the music and ethos made a lasting impression on the fanbase. If you knew, you knew.

I was certainly a target demographic for the Elephant 6 bands. As an early-90s college and college-radio graduate, I continued to seek out the left-of-center pop music I had grown to love. By the mid-90s the Apples in Stereo had become one of my favorite groups. In the handful of years that followed, Elf Power and Neutral Milk Hotel joined the ranks of my faves. (My friend Nancy gave me her copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, unsure what all the hubbub was about. Jeez, I loved it — and a lot more than ISIS did.) Now indoctrinated, I’d pick up anything E6-associated (Olivia Tremor Control, The Sunshine Fix, Beulah, Of Montreal, etc.). As an obsessive liner note reader, I’d see the overlapping names on releases — especially big Apple Robert Schneider, seemingly involved in every record — and also wondered why he was in Denver while the others were in Athens.

This documentary sorts out the stories via fun first-person interviews plus a lot of great archival footage. We learn the history of E6 friendships, bands, and the scene, get a little into the nuts-and-bolts of their 4-track recordings, and see the development from merely wanting to do something special to actually making it happen. We also witness Elephant 6 crossing over into the lower rungs of popular culture, via Rolling Stone, the Powerpuff Girls, The Colbert Report, etc.

For a little while, the doc threatens to become just a patting-ourselves-on-the-back celebration (which they are certainly deserving of). But, as it has a way of doing, life gets in the way. So we see the impact of mental health issues, interpersonal squabbles, and even death, while the scene slowly outgrew itself. (Drug use is often referred to, though we never hear any tales of addiction. I also might’ve expected to learn about Hilarie Sidney leaving the Apples in Stereo — she is one of the interviewees — but that isn’t covered.)

Robert Schneider comes across very well throughout — the mad musical genius who never actually went mad. His enthusiasm, dedication, ultra-melodic sense, and leadership with a seeming lack of ego powered the Elephant 6 world as well as putting a positive, joyful stamp on this film. For a look back on Schneider and pals’ wild, gentle, innocent days — or if you just dig catchy songs — check out this doc.