that village voice interview with ben goldberg is pretty funny. it really is ridiculous how people treat jeff mangum like he's a messiah. hey, i love NMH too, but he's just a dude. of course, a dude who has exceptional songwriting abilities and talents, but a dude nonetheless. i saw NMH many times in the '90s and got to talk to mangum a few times, and he was always very cool, if slightly aloof. from people i know that are close to him (the olivia tremor control and elf power folks), they all say he's just extremely private and really dislikes playing the music industry game. can't blame him.
this gigography page is great. these were the shows i saw:
8/1/96, knitting factory w/ supreme dicks, air traffic controllers (i had just bought "on avery island", also wanted to see ATC, which was gerard cosloy of matador's noise band)
4/27/97, middle east upstairs w/ olivia tremor control, alva (the day after the first terrastock, first time i saw OTC)
3/8/98, middle east upstairs w/ elf power, the music tapes (BEST NMH show i saw)
7/24/98, middle east downstairs w/ papas fritas, of montreal, marshmallow coast
to answer the question of what size were the venues NMH played, it was mostly 150-200 cap places (like the velvet lounge, black cat backstage, iota, etc). only on the last tour, after "aeroplane" had been out for a few months and was gaining steam, did they graduate to 500-cap rooms, and that was only in nyc/dc/boston from what i could tell. england might have been different, as i'm not familiar with the size of the venues listed. also, none of the shows i saw were even close to sold out except the last one. NMH were on the verge of blowing up and then mangum pulled the plug on playing live.
mangum did tour with the circulatory system in 2001, but as part of the band. i caught the ottobar and hole in the wall (richmond) shows, which were awesome.
