Magical Elf Power at Coffeehouse

The night after the Goats (see cover story), another kind of animal will be stomping its way to the Duke Coffeehouse Saturday night. The now-senior member among all former Elephant 6 bands still recording music, Elf Power is ready to unveil new material from an upcoming, as-of-yet untitled album, kicking off its fall tour in front of the Duke masses.

For the hundredth time, please don't let the screwy monikers and conjured images inside your head of smurf hair stylists or flying farm animals beguile you into thinking that this is just some jack-a-napes band that don't know their beeswax. After all, the Athens, Ga.-based Elephant 6 collective was a holy grail of sorts for indie music enthusiasts in the late 90s.

And while days when all the rock kids were losing it over Neutral Milk Hotel may be long gone, Elf Power still stands as a stalwart in the Athens scene, upholding the values of pop, experimentation, home-recording and overall psychedelic integrity. Lead singer and songwriter Andrew Rieger talked to recess about Jeffrey Dahmer's dad, malicious cheeseballs and his "evil gypsy music."

recess: What made you decide to play at the Coffeehouse, and what can we expect at the show?

Andrew Rieger: We've just spent the summer recording our newest album, which will be released in March or April of next year. So we'll be playing a lot of the new songs as well as songs from all of our old records. We play colleges a lot on our tours, and it's always fun. Plus, Brian Crews, who books the shows at the Coffeehouse is an old crony of ours from Athens. We've played Chapel Hill/Raleigh many times over the years and always have a good time, except for the time we were eating dinner at the sports bar next to Local 506 and I bit into a piping hot fried jalapeno cheeseball, and the molten hot cheese spewed all over my face, searing my flesh, leaving a scar that painfully lingered for months.

I've heard that Chapel Hill was a sort of mini-Athens. Do you get that feeling when you visit?

The fact that Athens and Chapel Hill are both college towns with lots of good bands in them probably has something to do with the similarities.

Favorite Chapel Hill band?

No, this album isn't really directly influenced by ethnic folk music in particular, but the combination of 12 string acoustic guitars, accordion and violin is very conducive to making evil gypsy music.

As I understand you were an English major in University of Georgia. What are you currently reading, if anything?

I've been reading a lot of biographies lately. I just read Jeffrey Dahmer's father's autobiography, A Father's Story by Lionel Dahmer, which is great because it doesn't really delve into the gruesome details of the murders. It's more about Jeffrey growing up and examines issues in his early social development and upbringing that may have lead to his later psychopathic behaviors.

Do you have groupies and what are they like?

We have had some strange groupies from time to time. Once when we played in Los Angeles, these kids came to the show tripping on LSD, and their ringleader told me that he had entered another dimension on a previous acid trip, where Elf Power appeared and went on many fantastic adventures with him. He wanted me to confirm his experience, and I think it ruined his day when I couldn 't recall the otherworldly adventure.

The Elephant 6 front has been quiet for a few years now. Any worthy updates to share about what's been going on?

All of the original Elephant 6 folk are still making music and releasing records, it's just sometimes under different names, so I could understand how it might be confusing to some observers.

And now the one we've all been dying to hear about- Do you know the secret identity of the 8-track gorilla (famous Athens, Ga., concert-going, cover singer)?

I do know the 8-track gorilla, but I've been sworn to secrecy and therefore, cannot reveal his/her identity. It could be me, but I ain't saying.