I mean, I think, I did. But I was hoping to be, you know, more clear, more erudite on this fact: at times I felt like I was really watching something amazing and propulsive and happening. And at times I felt like I was being fooled. That the drama class and the school band got together and were having a big laugh at my expense. I dunno. Keep trying, I guess:
PERFORMING ARTS
Tuesday, April 17, 2007; Page C05
Man Man
Man Man's first victory at the Rock & Roll Hotel Sunday night was simply fitting all its gear onstage. The Philly quintet is sprawling like a junkyard. Its second triumph came in whipping a chunk of the crowd into a good approximation of a frenzy using the same landfill approach: beyond its lauded mix of Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, Man Man coughed up Eastern Bloc reels, chunks of free jazz and New Orleans strut, flecks of Carl Stalling and Danny Elfman, even a trickle of '70s boogie mavens War.
Clad in their trademark all-white getups, the Man Man men -- selected to open the Modest Mouse tour starting later this month -- attacked their songs like urban savages. Switching instruments and beating and banging (pots, pans, slide whistles, trumpet, sax, mini-bullhorn and a jangling duck were all employed), the quintet veered into dead stops that led to burly chants that dissolved into upper-register, la-la-la trilling. This is a band, after all, whose clearest vocal hook runs "When anything that's anything becomes nothing, that's everything."
Individual tunes -- springs-sprung shifters like "Banana Ghost" and "Engrish Bwudd"; the relatively straightforward "Van Helsing Boombox" -- did surface, but it eventually became clear that the surrounding frenzy was regimented: leader-pianist-singer Honus Honus kept close watch on his cohorts, signaling cues and making sure the nearly nonstop, hour-long set was of a piece. And that made deciding whether Man Man had really scored a victory tricky. Was that dull chest ache at set's end the effect of being rocked hard and swung fast or was it just a skillful art attack?
