Reprinted from FSview
February 2001
by Mike Green, Staff Writer

Athens, Georgia has become quite a nice town. In the 80s it had Fred Schneider, Michael Stipe and Herschel Walker. Now the town's pop culture contributor bragging rights are increasing ten-fold, with such bands as Of Montreal, Marshmallow Coast and The Great Lakes nationally lauded for music well done. This weekend, all ears and open-minds of the capitol city will get to taste some of the finer things in life.

Symbiotic and balanced, fit and symmetrical, always interchanging and bandmate swapping, Of Montreal and Marshmallow Coast will momentarily halt their non-Canadian gay parades in our thousand stoplight town on Saturday night. All of the best singles and songles will be played, the crowd will rejoice with glee, and somewhere a few babies will be born.

Musical puppeteer, band nucleus and multi-faceted pupil of sound wizardry Kevin Barnes is the good Malkovich and one of the minds behind these member incestuous, Athens-based bands.

Almost all members - Kevin, Dottie, Andy, Derek and Jamey - play in both other bands. Marshmallow Coast and The Great Lakes contain the same people, only with each of them picking up a different instrument.

Of Montreal released their first album, Cherry Peel, in 1997, and since have been releasing albums at an impressive frequency. They followed the Cherry Peel record soon after with The Bird who Ate the Rabbit's Flower. Then there was The Gay Parade and Horse & Elephant Eatery (No Elephants Allowed), with album cover artwork drawn by The Bee With Wheels, one of the most reputable artists in the South.

This month they also released some early four-track recordings, and in April are set to release their anticipated new album, Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies, on the Athens based Kindercore Records (home to The Olivia Tremor Control and Essex Green).

Of Montreal's souind is difficult to pin down because it is something that has never really been done before, a genre eluding style fitting somewhere under the vast pop umbrella. If the Beatles Sgt. Pepper's album and Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea record were to fornicate and have some kind of strange, illegitimate, happy elfin child, it would probably sing and dance like Of Montreal.

Along with Of Montreal and Marshmallow Coast this Saturday at the Club Downunder will be the Tokyo based band Elekibass. They are possessed by a similar musical demon as the bands they are playing with, and this show will be the first time they will ever have played in the United States.

Of Montreal, Marshmallow Coast, and Elekibass take the stage at FSU's Club Downunder Saturday, Feb. 3rd. The doors open at 9 p.m. and the show starts at 10. Admission is free with a valid FSU ID, with people who wished they went to FSU shelling out $3 to see the night of musical enlightenment.