:: Track Listing

1. Feathers
2. Engwish Bwudd
3. Banana Ghost
4. Young Einstein on the Beach
5. Skin Tension
6. Black Mission Goggles
7. Hot Bat
8. Push the Eagle’s Stomach
9. Spider Cider
10. Van Helsing Boombox
11. Tunneling Through the Guy
12. Fishstick Gumbo
13. Ice Dogs

:: Record Review

Man Man

Six Demon Bag
(Ace Fu; 2006)

Rating: 69%
Combined Rating: 67%


Item. Man Man, at the palsied mercy of influences, canons esoteric and cliché alike, should not be angered when I characterize their music as “fueled by gimmickry.” I considered using “schtick” instead of “music,” but I assumed the fallout to not be worth the hardboiled slang.

…The first and last—no!—the alpha and the omega of coffin nails is the inevitable talk of “gimmickry” haloing the halo of unadulterated warmth crowning any seemingly original piece of music. Intrinsically, to be gimmicky is not to be a bad thing; wholly ingenious music should be given space to breathe and fumble. If a song (or book, or story, or picture, or movie, or album, etc., etc.) supersedes its modal originality to grasp at something more universally affecting or empathetic, then the gimmick is even less consequential, something of a means to an end. For example, Tom Waits has a gimmick of a voice, and then a gimmick in oompah madness, but the desolation and desperate moroseness that result call for a greater community of human sorrow than a gritty guttural could ever solicit on its own (although, asking which came first -- the oompah or the voice -- is similar to considering the chicken and the egg).

Menomena and the Books, avant-gimmickry wunderkinds, both release songs cultivated from the gimmicky bloodlust between man and machine, outfitting amalgamations that sound as relentlessly meticulous as they do organic. Nick Drake makes lonely car commercials; Frank Zappa never did drugs; David Thomas Broughton took one take; Fiery Furnaces tortured their Nana; Sufjan will be 50 before 50; Built to Spill is missing a chorus; Captain Beefheart and something about a tophat; Bono saves!

Gimmicks, it could be said, are the stuff of Legend.

Item. Gimmicks are the hardy niblets of chicken in the lifestew of visceral music experience. The ones that peek above the broth. The Man in a Blue Turban With a Face, Man Man’s gullet-lacerating debut, has extra garlic.

…Y’see, when you start Man Man’s first album, and Honus Honus wails into the gaping hole of “Against the Peruvian Monster” and the woozy drums sound so tinny slivered between the chorus of elementary school kids, this is a gimmick. The lyrics, uncanny and scary, demonstrate further: “…Wearing that gorilla suit, try to scare me but it won’t work…(but you tried). And I say, ‘COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’, COUNTIN’…indiscernible, filthy noises SAY WHAT?!’”

This is what a gimmick does, sometimes at the sacrifice of restraint, or subtlety, or purist integrity. The effect is instantaneous and visceral, a black hole of ethereal noise. This is instruments of this world barely able to contain themselves, then reaching for something new, the excitement all palpable. A gimmick is open for unabashed originality, warranting the kind of music cut for superlatives. So, maybe the whole won’t work out, but there’ll really be something to hear.

Six Demon Bag, Man Man’s sophomore album, marking the addition of new bandmates Les Mizzle, Sergei Sogay, and percussionist Pow Pow, is disappointing. I say this with the heaviest of hearts, because it saddens me that the gimmick’s the only thing left.

Item. “Six Demon Bag” could refer to an object in the World of Warcraft, but most likely, it’s the strange sack Egg Shen carries around in Big Trouble in Little China that’s much like Santa Claus’s present bag, full of goodies. Goodies that totally fucked up Lo Pan.

…Despite the pop cultural allusions bubbling from every corner, Bag’s influences become novelty; Tom Waits, Zappa, and Captain Beefheart have been around as fodder for a year or so now. To their credit, Man Man’s done what they should have done and taken it a step further. Only, they’re emulating the Strange, Cacophonous, and Carnivalesque to the point of sounding formulaic. The squealing falsetto of Turban’s “Man Who Make You Sick,” prettied by staccato strings, is now stretched uselessly over Demon Bag, through the annoying “Engwish Bwudd,” into the call-and-response of the less annoying “Banana Ghost,” and later during the unbelievably annoying “Push the Eagle’s Stomach.” The recording quality’s cleared up from Turban’s murk, but this only makes much of the vocals especially grating, never eased organically into the songs as before. Even the garbage can cabaret of the debut’s “10 lb Moustache” is now gothic zydeco in said “Banana Ghost” or cymbal-splattered “Black Mission Goggles;” rollicking but not, well, capacious.

It is difficult to criticize Man Man’s new release as too “full,” because the lauded Turban is pretty damn packed with sound. The difference, here, is in how these new songs are hard to warm up to, their calculated innards showing through their silk teddy when brought close to the fireside. Granted, Bag’s erotically charged, a sexiness about the only thing that’s subtle going on, but any flow to the breadth of tracks is just stilted and dreary. The brief and ultimate “Hot Bat” is the archetype for Man Man’s folly. In a minute and a half, the lyricless ditty farts from rum anthem and bone snapping drums to ugly chaos. Shit’s unnecessary, obligatory even. And that gallops into “Eagle’s Stomach,” which features the same percussion and a fucking horrendous noise straight from the horse’s (Honus’) mouth. Seriously, shut up.

In Six Demon Bag, Man Man’s forgotten that after the scorched image of a gimmick has left, after the children’s chorus quiets, what’s still around can end up feeling pretty hollow. Turban, not to beat a dead Honus, made up for the withdrawal with space, admitting to the inevitable dead air after an explosion, and allowing their melodies to move freely, awkwardly at first, through the rest of the song. It’s like…like for the new batch of music they stopped trusting their instincts and packed the picnic basket with more salami on rye because Rolling Stone told them they made good salami sandwiches.

Item. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not opposed to a jalopy of musical arrangements ripping down some neighbor’s linoleum. Man in a Blue Turban wasn’t exactly pleasant.

…Six Demon Bag will be called strange and crazy and original and maybe even intense. The accordions and organs and Brian Deckish percussion, chimes and lupine voices will be noted.

These are all just limbs massaging the dubious sin of gimmickry. Sure, “Feathers” will catch your attention, it sure will, a fine waltz on piano accompanying Honus Honus and others as they travel up and down a carnie’s musical scale. The song is kept back from tiring, but then “Engwish Bwudd” murders the mood. The transition is jarring, and the calamity of disparate notes erupting in the second track ends up a forced addendum to “Feather’s” effortless calm. This happens a bunch of times: “Banana Ghost”->hellacious “Young Einstein on the Beach”; even within a song, inside the tumultuous, scathing “Push the Eagle’s Stomach,” which is intent on ruining the pace and accessibility of the songs around it by just playing to the indelible Man Man Legend. They will shock! They will wake up your parents! They will sound like nothing in 2006!

Item. Trying too hard to be Man Man, Man Man now offer only a paltry helping of actual excitement.

…There’s something to say about “Van Helsing Boombox” being the best thing here. Fading in—moving nicely from the charged “Spider Cider”—the song unwinds like the soundtrack to the dénouement of a John Hughes movie. It’s a charming oasis in Bag’s battered land, the sign of great songwriters toning down their persona to worship a fantastic melody. Shows they’ve got the chops, and this album undoubtedly breathes with talent, but too much else gets in the way of potentially stirring pop. They’ve caught your attention, and maybe that was good enough for 2004 Man Man, but now Man Man’s gotten in the way of 2006 Man Man, and nothing feels smooth anymore.

Item. I don’t mean to be so pessimistic.

…The lyrics are great, worth gritting through shouts and whistles to figure out. Six Demon Bag’s a romp, short but sprawling, careful but passionate. This really is Man Man here. But what have they become? How’d they get here? What is missing? Oh, critics, our teleology has us doomed.

Item. Q: Why did the Gimmick cross the road? A: To provide a safe, yet colorful, ending. Dom Sinacola :: 16 February 2006 |