Yeah, this is gonna be weird because their name does include a question mark, so trust me when I say I'm not supposed to sound confused every other sentence?
OH GOD I DID IT AGAIN
Ah, Man or Astroman? Where do I even begin? The furthest memory I can drudge up is sitting in my brother's room back in Illinois, staring at this marvelous, colorful album cover. CD's were pretty cool back then, way more advanced than the current, dinky cassette tape, so I guess there was a lot of charm in this album art being so huge. Well, my older sister had a bunch of shitty new-wave records at the time, so, uh, those don't count because those suck.
I liked everything about it. Robots either mining for gold, building a base to destroy Earth or simply working out, who knew? All that mattered was what lie beyond the front page and into the meat of the matter...the music.
Oh, and really, the name "Man or Astroman?" is just so inherently weird and cool you couldn't fuck this one up if you tried.
The music is great duh
Surf-rock with an outer space flair. Throw in a bunch of sci-fi movie samples and you've got a pretty good idea but you don't because there's so much more to Man Or Astroman?
They're better than all other surf bands. They've exceeded by somehow turning a pretty laid back, goofy genre into really kick-ass shit. Not trying to hate on the classics, jus' sayin' is all. Jus' sayin', bro.
I'm gushing, aren't I?
"Destroy all Astromen," specifically, is my favorite album. Actually, I like a few other albums more but this one was my first taste -- it's hard to forget the soft caress of your first lover's touch. This is the album that would hook me for, oh, twenty years, and would help me form my own playing style as a guitarist. I owe a lot to these stinkin' goofs.
They stopped playing years ago, so I pretty much threw in the towel when it came to ever seeing them live. I've accepted my forever bummed-out-ness. Once Youtube rolled on in, I finally had access to see what they even looked like. It only pissed me off more. And fascinated me. So many grainy clips from so many grainy shows. Who were these guys? The mystery remains and shall always remain I've missed my chance fuck!
So imagine my surprise when I found out that Man or Astroman? was once again playing shows and was coming to Phoenix, AZ, my back-fucking-yard. The joy! The excitement! I said to imagine my surprise, did you imagine it? There's a lot of it!
Everything was perfect and in harmony at the show. The Crescent Ballroom is quite posh for a venue, and since their house beer is "Luchador Lager" I've committed to the idea that I will one day move in and live under the stage. Plus, most of Man Or Astroman's? fans are so specifically Man Or Astroman? fans, so it was just a bunch of nerds in glasses and old dudes. It was pleasant.
I'll spare you the details (code: I'm lazy) but the show was killer. Sadly, a few original members have been replaced for the night's festivities (where the fuck were you, Coco?!) but all was negated once the guitars were humming and the drums were pounding. I dunno, man, it was pretty kewl.
Speaking of the drums, Birdstuff, who was very nice in hearing our excited claims of eternal fandom, was unstoppable. He played quick, fast and sparse. Small drum-kit but BIG sounds, it was incredible. He even broke a tom and instead of just, ya know, not using it, he took it off his kit and wore it over his head. Are you not entertained?
And then the show ended and he did this really crazy thing and stuff.
It's art! From outer space! They called it a night by stacking every instrument into a pile of throbbing, bizarre noise. I can only imagine the clean up, which makes it all the more impressive.
100% satisfied. Thanks, MOAM?
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