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I know music is a young person's thing. I know that to truly appreciate it, you have to be teenaged to early twenties, unencumbered by a serious job, unsaddled with spouses, pets or dependents. Still, even the hippest clubs kids eventually join the other side, and to them, and anyone else contemplating a life of maturity, let me tell you this: there is nothing cooler than driving around in your car with some kind of weird music coming out of the stereo and having your kid say "Hey, mom, could you turn it up?"
Which brings us to Man...or Astroman?, a band that spans the generations. Aging record fanatics get killer Dick Dale-style surf guitar. The Cartoon Network generation gets "Jetsons Theme" and oddball references to attacking dragon men. College kids get a live show that makes everyone feel like they're on better drugs. End of story -- everybody's happy with Man...or Astroman?
The question mark, I should mention, does not mean I'm uncertain about this. It's part of the band name. It just one eccentricity -- we'll get to some of the others later -- but it has the interesting effect of ensuring that any sentence ending with Man...or Astroman? comes out interrogative. "You are Man...or Astroman?" becomes a philosophical question. "I like Man...or Astroman?" slips into uncertainty. "The best 1990s surf-revival oddity is Man...or Astroman?" evolves from a definitive statement into a question.
You could spend a lot of time thinking about it, or you could try the slightly less painful "Put Your Finger in the Socket (Maximum Voltage Version)" approach instead. On this, the second track and philosophical linchpin for Intravenous Television Continuum, we learn that "The television screen is the retina of the mind's eye. Therefore the television screen is part of the physical structure of the brain. Therefore, whatever appears on the television screen emerges as raw experience for those who watch it. Therefore, television is reality, and reality is less than television." Uh-huh. Remember this was 1995, before Survivorand Fear Factor started blurring the boundaries.
The really fun tracks come when the television screen emerges as raw experience for Man or Astroman?, as on "Jetsons Theme," "Munsters Theme" and "Everyone's Favorite Martian". "Jetsons Theme", which clocks in just under a minute and a half, landing it in last track position on a whole series of car tapes, blends those cool just-turning-sour guitar notes with pounding drums and the unmistakable tune of "Meet George Jetson..." If you are over 30, you are instantly transported to foot pajamas and Fruit Loops memories, only with much better tunes. If you are seven, you sing along and play air guitar until your car seat tips over.
Then it's on to "Invasion of the Dragonmen," which opens with what has to be a clip from some Roger Corman movie. You know, the kind where the spacemen appear to be wearing cardboard suits covered with aluminum foil and the monsters have visible seams running across their scaly bellies. "Invasion by creatures from space confirmed..." and then come the dragon men, pounding their instruments furiously.
"Out of Limits" doesn't merely namecheck The Outer Limits; it brings together the plucked five-note theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the ragged doo-doo-doo-doo from Twilight Zone, both stretching out with a heart-tugging guitar solo. It's like the best kind of late-night movie -- too cheesy to be really scary, too scary to be really embarrassed about watching.
I have never seen Man...or Astroman? (again, the question mark is driving me crazy) live, but all reports are that they are completely insane. Any band whose members are called Birdstuff, Star Crunch, Coco and Captain Zeno can be expected to be a touch theatrical (Star Crunch and Captain Zeno have since moved on -- a point we mention here only to avoid a deluge of e-mail on the matter). They wear costumes. There are space props. They tear the joint down. Are they musicians? Are they performance artists? Are they Man...or Astroman? It's too deep for me.
Still if you're looking for a record that works for kids who are just learning to read their own Batman comics, and that also doesn't drive the driver batty, check out Intravenous Television Continuum.
-- Jennifer Kelly
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