Man Man

There are few bands as grotesquely madcap as Philadelphia's Man Man. On record, the experimental five-piece band dabbles in jittery jazz dirges and boorish honky-tonk romps. But the band's boisterous live shows have helped the group gain notoriety among aficionados of freak-out blues in the vein of Captain Beefheart or Tom Waits. Donning garish war paint, Cheech Marin mustaches and matching white, escaped-mental-patient outfits, Man Man's multi-instrumentalists are hardly ever static onstage. Over the course of a single song, guitars may be replaced by amplified kazoos, or sousaphones swapped out for xylophones, chaos that's contained by the brusque call-and-response commands of the group's lead carnival barker, Honus Honus. Anti- Records released the band's third album, Rabbit Habits, last year.