I'm introducing to you... Man Man.
I first heard Man Man on an episode of season 3 of the television show Weeds. Three of their songs were used as part of that episode's soundtrack, and something about their sound instantly gripped me. If you've not heard them yet, just think: if Tom Waits got really into Modest Mouse and hired vikings for his back-up band. Actually, maybe it'd be more like if vikings got really into Modest Mouse and hired Tom Waits as the back-up band. Either way, it's effing crazy. Bike horns, pots and pans, xylophones, honky tonk piano... One thing is for sure - they have a style and a sound that is completely their own. Regarding that original sound, and where it holds its roots, the band's lead singer (who goes by the pseudonym Honus Honus) had this to say:
Although the band does admit to being inspired by the forefathers of avant-garde rock like Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa and Tom Waits, they clearly dwell in their own realm of musical creativity, claiming to be "the torchbearers of the unusual," carrying on the spirit of past imaginative musicians who were the first to really start getting weird."I'm just making the songs I know how to write. The one thing I want to clarify is that this is an organic project -- who we are, the kind of lives we lived before we met each other, and the lives we have together. [That's] what makes this band and this music what it is. I would say being broke is one of my biggest influences. That and being in and out of relationships. Those are bigger influences than listening to a [Captain] Beefheart record."
Man Man does not break between songs during their live shows, but they move around, revolving-door fashion, from one song to another, "commandeering and discarding any of number of the instruments lying at their feet as the mood strikes and the music dictates."
Here is my top pick for your first exposure to Man Man... live video = necessity
this video is brought to you by the unfortunately-named baeblemusic.com
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