Man Man feels that you have sinned, but Man Man has a remedy. Photos by contributor .
pounds and beats its way from city to city with a driving force that feels experimental and unexplainable. But what Man Man handed out last night at to its followers and fellow men was a precisely-timed, perfectly-executed, non-stop wall of disruptive, feral music that seems to have come straight from the guts that hold their torment.
The band is supporting its latest album and Anti- Records debut, “Rabbit Habits.” The title insinuates the animals’ strange and grotesque habits, including the eating of young, and is only a hint of what the the five-man act from Philadelphia is selling.
This is not just a rock show — more like a séance, or an offering of upheaval and melody (all of our doubts, loves, losses, mistakes) to the heavens. Even the members’ stage names help them channel their inner recess. Ryan Kattner, a.k.a. “Honus Honus” (the High-August-First-Voice) is the lead singer and head of the tribe, offering beauty-tips with white fitted clothing, ample mustache hair and an Aztec-war painted face chased by his backing men (and several members of the audience).
The music taps into the godfathers of dirty-carny dark-rock, like Frank Zappa while the vocals touch the bluesy guff and grout of Tom Waits. However, they are their own lions and inject ferocious levels of non-stop energy into everything they do. Itap like watching a TV special on the wild-eyed cavemen and seeing their first moments of discovering sound made with the rock and stick.
The sounds Man Man find are raw and severe, yet timed mathematically by drummer “Pow Pow,” positioned at the front of the stage, facing his lead singer opponent who paws at his own piano. This band pounds the loudest, their feet stomp the hardest and every moment feels organic — each mate moving on stage at all times with no breaks between the songs.
The members continuously exchange instruments including guitars, a selection of brass, the rapid ringing keys of pianos, a toy accordion and xylophone, all mixed with the quakes and quacks of pots, pans, whistles, sticks, kazoos and other percussion for the boys to play, pull or punch.
Itap like a one-man-band, times five.
Everyone is singing. The deep “Fe Fi Fo Fums” and high “La La Las” continuously back up the lead vocalist’s ranting vernacular. Every moment seemed to get better, each one becoming more and more greased with thick mayhem, complimented with ironically tear-jerking lyrics like, “Oh my god. what happened to all those days?”
Part of the performance was like watching an off-Broadway carnival: there were subtle gimmicks, tricks, pranks and unlimited costume props. At one point, everyone on stage backed off their instruments and pretended to drink beers and hold fake conversations while drummer Pow Pow hammered out an epic solo performance. The song “Big Trouble” is a testament to the band’s profound ability to create chaos with obedient timing, while “Gold Teeth” is one of their more sexually deep-throated assets, with lyrics like “She’s so sadistic when she’s sobering up.”
Just before the band came back for an encore, the room went wild with chanting and kicking. It was as if the band was waiting for a fire to start before coming back on. Finally, four more songs were handed out, including the night-ending “Van Helsing Boombox,” notable for its promising/heart-wrenching lyrics, “I want to sleep for weeks like a dog at her feet, even though I know it won’t work out in the long run… those arms I once knew hold me like ghosts.” When all was sung and done, the lights rose and Honus fed his fingers to a bowl of what implied holy water and peppered the audience with it, as if to bless and cleanse them of the sins they just witnessed.
Reverb contributor also writes for Colorado Music Buzz.
is a regular contributor to Reverb.
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