The first time I heard Man Man, I said to my boyfriend, “That’s the best Tom Waits song I’ve ever heard.” Turns out it was not Tom Waits at all, but a feisty band from Philadelphia that was difficult to google because, you know, Man Man. I realize that’s blasphemous on some level, but it’s what happened. Like pretty much everyone, I regard Tom Waits with great affection and reverence, but I’m rarely in the mood for a Tom Waits album. Man Man, however, was instant and infectious.
I’m pretty sure it was “Big Trouble” I mistook for Waits in 2008, off the album Rabbit Habits—which I promptly went out and bought and played until none of the songs made sense anymore. (I do this with every song I love. Play it over and over and over until it loses all meaning.)
Then I started seeing them live, every chance I could. The first time was FYF in 2010, a poorly run Los Angeles festival with a lot of great music, including Big Freedia and Dead Man’s Bones. I remember both of those performances more clearly than I remember Man Man that day, but I do remember the Man Man energy.
At most Man Man shows, you’ll find a boatload of people on stage, often color coordinated, making chaos with pots and pans, funeral horns, spoons, toys, even a melodica in addition to all the more traditional drums, guitars, keyboards.
Honus Honus, the lead singer, bellows and sweats, working the stage as he conducts the circus while an at-times stupefied audience waits impatiently for the next sound explosion. They don’t have to wait long. Man Man doesn’t let the in-between breathe. But underneath all the clanging, banging, and howling, the songs are really good, like “The Ballad of Butter Beans.”
