Neutral Milk Hotel Wants You to Save a Carousel

The music of Neutral Milk Hotel might not be readily associated with good times at a carnival (unless, of course, it's a painfully, transportingly beautiful carnival that sets up for a few Summers and then totally disappears leaving you totally wrecked and hanging on every subsequent bit of evidence that one day the carnival might just return, maybe, possibly, hopefully, please God let it be soon). Still, Julian Koster and Jeff Mangum, on behalf of their bandmates, are asking fans to act on behalf of the Paragon Carousel, a much-beloved Mass. landmark in dire need of restoration.

"The Paragon Carousel is a beautiful machine that has been my dear neighbor for many moons," Koster wrote in a statement recently released by the band's label, Merge. "Unfortunately, we live in a world where the great whirling contraptions of mechanical music and light are not as profitable to operate as other things, and carousels are worth much more taken apart and sold in pieces to museums, where one must pay to look at them behind glass, rather than having them simply existing in the world that we now all share."

The 81-year-old "contraption" is one of 25 Mass. landmarks in the running for a $100,000 grant to be awarded by American Express and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to the winner of a month-long online contest. Until May 17, you can vote once a day in support of the Paragon Carousel to ensure, as Koster says, that it remains "a part of the magic of long seaside summer afternoons for many years to come." (Admittedly, we're not sure what the connection is between the band, so closely associated with Athens, Ga., and Hull, Mass., home of the carousel. But it sounds like a nice place.)

Of course, you're welcome to vote for any of the other 24 landmarks, too; surely there are some folks out there who love Lowell's Boat Shop or the José Mateo Ballet Theatre just as much. However, we'd like to note that it's unlikely that any of those people are members of well-respected '90s indie bands with legions of fans who would give an arm and a leg, possibly a kidney and most definitely a collective $100,000 to see said band reunite for a benefit concert in support of some merry-go-round they've never heard of.

I mean, just saying.

Related links:
News: Jeff Mangum appears onstage with E6 friends, press flips
News: ATL/NYC artists offer present to NMH's Aeroplane
Paragon Carousel | Friends of the Carousel

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