Man Man - The Man in a Blue Face With a Turban

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What's the ILM concensus on this? I listened to a track from it, "Moustache," and loved it. I'm a huge fan of the banging-on-a-pot/klezmer side of Waits, but is this album too reminiscent of that to be great? Pitchfork & Stylus loved it, but no one else seems to have covered it... What do you think?

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 05:41 (twenty years ago)

better than waits!

― Nick Sylvester, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 06:17 (twenty years ago)

hot damn. i'm sold.

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 06:38 (twenty years ago)

I saw them at CMJ in 2003...and they were my favorite act that week...i have a single..somewhere...which is also awesome.

its all got that tom waits, beefheart, electric mahem vibe going on.

i haven't recieved a copy of the lp, yet....best go send an email while my minds on it...

― b b, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:07 (twenty years ago)

university of the arts is starting to feel much like the oberlin of philadelphia. i went to school with these guys and feel that the waits / beefheart fanboy vibe is just too much of a bearded veneer for me to latch onto.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:25 (twenty years ago)

not only do i really like the album, they themselves are nice guys. perfectly obtuse. i've been struggling through the transcription of an interview with them that i've promised to popmatters. they like movies a lot. we dug into five easy pieces a bit to talk about the constraints of musicianship, and then we really dug stroszek for a while.

they're also great live. i'm wondering how arcade fire audiences are responding - of course, since stylus/pfork liked it, it may just be unstudied adoration. i hope not. i wish they could record again already; they have the material, not the money.

― blackmail.is.my.life (blackmail.is.my.life), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:28 (twenty years ago)

yeah, they're definately nice people. ryan, er, honus was a writing for film & television student at school.

― maria tessa sciarrino (theoreticalgirl), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 14:32 (twenty years ago)

i have a hard time listening to yungins pullin the grizzled thing out of a brand new pork pie and callin it good..the record is well recorded tho..beefheart tags can be th kiss of death so lets see if th mm's can fly a lil higher w all th kitchen sink stuff falling out of their pants leg futureward..they seem like nice people

― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

definately nice guys...

i got to talking with them outside the show i saw and they claimed their interests to be more brazilian and wierd jazz and such than either waits or beefheart. they may have been talking jazz, but i'd like to think the future will bring out newer and wierder directions.

i was afraid they'd disappear into air (shows were announced on their site, but never showed up in the club listings, etc), but it seems that stylus/fork wagon has been hitched. im curious to see how that goes.

they play a breed of music i have a hard time understanding anyone couldn't like. but thats probably wishful thinking.

― b b, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 15:30 (twenty years ago)

I like this album a lot.

It's actually "The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face", not " ...in a Blue Face with a Turban." Not that this makes any more sense.

Does anyone have any idea what, if anything, this refers to?

― Mila, Wednesday, 2 February 2005 19:33 (twenty years ago)

I think they've got some good tunes, but that album didn't sound nearly as dirty as I'd like something of their style to sound.

― Felonious Drunk (Felcher), Wednesday, 2 February 2005 19:39 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I hear more Plastic People/Pulnoc in some of the songs than Beefheart & Waits. I mean, the music's weird and the singer's got a growly voice, but there's a lot more going on. Anyway, I love this album.

― Fa Fa fa FA, Fa fa Fa fa FA Fa, Thursday, 3 February 2005 06:57 (twenty years ago)

Saw them open for the arcade fire the other night and was fucking blown away.

― megan m. (bang-clank equipment), Friday, 4 February 2005 22:00 (twenty years ago)

I'm going to start using the phrase "bearded veneer."

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 4 February 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

This does not sound like music I'd enjoy.

― miccio (miccio), Friday, 4 February 2005 22:20 (twenty years ago)

best track is "white rice, brown heart"!

― cutty (mcutt), Friday, 4 February 2005 22:48 (twenty years ago)

i'm definitely curious / borderline excited to hear the whole album, but there IS that 'goatee and black hat / Marc Ribot / downtown nyc / mute trumpet' vibe i usually run from, isn't there?

― Roger Fidelity (Roger Fidelity), Friday, 4 February 2005 23:57 (twenty years ago)

I like most Beefheart, and some Waits, mostly the instrumental bits, not his voice. Man Man have learned from these guys, but they don't seem like wannabees. They don't lean on the influences too hard.They don't remind me of Beefheart re sounding grizzled; they never strike noir poses like Waits. Not for long, anyway. Also,compared not only to those coot prodigies, but to other to their own contemporaries, Man Man convey something more youthful (exuberant, hopeful), than young (callow, merely chronological freshness). Not that there isn't sufficient oblique realness, re "nature red in tooth and claw." Kind of like soundtracks for fairy tales re-translated, un-bowdlerised, like in anothologies of Jack Zipes and Maria Tartar. Step into a Grimm, Slim Jim!

― don, Saturday, 5 February 2005 00:24 (twenty years ago)

i think this is shit

― shit, Saturday, 5 February 2005 03:32 (twenty years ago)

I award Don ten (10) points for using the word "Bowdlerize."

― poortheatre (poortheatre), Saturday, 5 February 2005 05:00 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

"Gold Teeth" is such a beautiful ballad.

― Moka, Sunday, 25 April 2010 21:31 (fifteen years ago)

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