Photo Credit: Will Westbrook

In OH MY GAW THE INTERNET IS FREAKING news, Neutral Milk Hotel will reconvene to play a series of live shows later this year. This is cool. The good news for Athens? Two of those shows will happen at the 40 Watt Club, on Tuesday, Oct. 22 and Wednesday, Oct. 23.

Elf Power will open the former show, and Half Japanese will share the latter bill (that's pretty cool in and of itself). Both shows will benefit Children of the Blue Sky.

The bad news for Athens? There are only three other shows currently announced, and two of them are overseas (the other one's in Asheville). Of course, Neutral Milk Hotel ringleader Jeff Mangum has been more active than usual over the past year, having played the 40 Watt solo last February.

But the prospect of full-band NMH shows is another thing altogether, and that means that basically the entire country will be trying to get tickets to the 40 Watt shows when they go on sale this Friday, May 3 at 10 a.m.

Good luck!