Titus writes:
I
take it that many of you have heard of “The King of the Surf Guitar”
a.k.a. Dick Dale.....well, this week I am concentrating on a band that
was heavily influenced by D.D.and they are called Man or Astro Man?
They
particularly like science fiction themes, and it is often said, weird
musical devices like theremins & tesla coils. They started off
playing plain surf rock in 1993, but with sci-fi sound bites, and their
latter work has included the use of synthesisers, plus Apple printers
(yes really). They have generally included sound bites from science
fiction films & TV shows..... but how did these people come up with
their collective name? Well, apparently there was an advertising
poster in the U.S. for the Japanese film ‘The Human Vapor’, which
included the line “Is he man or Astro Man?”. All very weird.
Equally
weird are their names they chose to use in the band. Brian Causey
became ‘Star Crunch’, Brian Teasley was ‘Birdstuff’, whilst Robert del
Bueno assumed the name ‘Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard’. Joining them
later on was vocalist Samantha Erin Paulsen who is known as ‘Avona
Nova’ and now plays 2nd guitar. I thought that one of the band’s past
members Dave Strength had the best a.k.a. though – he was ‘Grand Master
Useless’ !! Man or Astro Man? had a belief that they were extra
terrestrials transported to Earth to play surf music. Inevitably the
group had many leavings and replacements, but the original line up of
‘Star Crunch’, ‘Birdstuff’ and ‘Coco’ had reunions starting in 2010.
The
band released ten albums from their beginnings up to 2001, plus a
couple of E.P.’s and many singles, and some of these singles were
pressed in various vinyl colours. They recorded 5 Peel Sessions between
1993 & 2000, and JP was always mesmerised by their music. In
addition they performed loads of live gigs, and dressed in space age
jumpsuits. I suppose that all of this intensive work got the better of
them and they called it a day in 2001......until 2006 when themselves,
Scratch Acid & Big Black appeared for a day each at a 3 day
festival in Chicago, which was organised by Touch & Go Records to
mark the label’s 25th anniversary. Fast forward to 2013 and the band’s
album ‘Defcon 5...4...3...2...1’ was released as a digital download.
One
of the great album titles of our time IMO came out in 1995 as a
picture disc/CD on One Louder Records entitled ‘Live transmissions from
Uranus’, whilst in 2017, Man or Astro Man? released another live album
‘Live at Third Man Records’. They also had released 4 compilation
albums and the curiously named ‘Destroy all Astromen’ and ‘What remains
inside a Black Hole’ were particular favourites of their cult
following. The former was produced on red vinyl for a limited 200
pressings. One other record worthy of mention (as a tribute to the
great man?) was a 2 x 7 inch single called ‘Inside the head of John
Peel’.
So, that’s
Man or Astro Man? for you and I’m hoping Lex will play ‘Reverb 10,000’
from the ‘Destroy all Astromen’ album. Give it a listen – the music is
really great, and not half as strange as some of the stuff I’ve
referred to above!