Mr. Brown turned me on to Man Man back circa 2006 with the release of Six Demon Bag. This was right before I moved from Chicago to L.A. I quickly became obsessed with the way the band dabbled in Tom Waits' boneyard percussion and Mr. Bungle's no-warning non-sequiturs, all while still saying melodious and, dare I say, downright tender at times. A definite Vaudvillain undertone permeates their sound, and once all that is fused together, well, you get something like the above track, taken from the aforementioned second full-length. If I wasn't convinced with Six Demon Bag, then 2008's Rabbit Habits did it, their sound further fermenting into something wholly original and 100% endearing to folks looking for something unlike anything else. Then, three years later, Life Fantastic came out, and it quickly became the soundtrack to my life and one of my all-time favorite albums.
Oddly, despite loving On Oni Pond, something had gone out of the band for me. Looking back on it now, this is entirely on me. I did that thing I sometimes do where I let the fact that Man Man had caught on as an Iconic Hipster "It Band" affect how I felt about them. I just kind of stopped paying attention and, amazingly enough, listening to even the albums I already cherished. Over the intervening years, I've kept up a bit - like the littlest bit one can - but my life completely changed and I forgot how much Man Man's music meant to me. Then, two days ago, after the announcement of the new album in June, I threw on Life Fantastic, and it all came flooding back to me. I just couldn't turn it off.
It makes me sad that I lost the piece of myself that identified so strongly with this band, but that piece has definitely come crashing back, as you'll no doubt notice from my playlists. So let's do a Man Man week and revel in some of the absolutely beautiful, insane, amazing music we've received from Honus Honus and crew to date while looking forward to what we have coming in just a few months' time.
