Virtuoso instrumentalist of the bowed banjo, singing saw, wandering genie and various other bizarre instruments in the psychedelic southern gothic group Neutral Milk Hotel as well as his own musical group The Music Tapes both of which are principal members of the Elephant 6 Recording Company musical collective. In the early nineties, before he hooked up with the E6 bunch and started releasing music under The Music Tapes, he was in another band called Chocolate USA.
Julian is seemingly one of the most prolific and captivating members of the Elephant 6 group, having played on what must be dozens of albums put out by bands either "in" the collective or loosely associated with them, such as The Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and Fablefactory. He has a very childlike, distinctive voice, and the music he creates is otherworldly in it's bizarre beauty and sonic textures, using found sounds, basketball percussion, and vacuum cleaners to create musical stories about superheroes and tornados.
Julian can often be seen posting on the Friends of Music Tapes message board from the public terminals of the Athens, GA library, where he lives along with the majority of the Elephant 6 collective.