The circus is coming to town
To discuss the Philadelphia band Man Man, let's get all the tired comparisons out of the way immediately. There's Tom Waits, Captain Beefheart, Frank Zappa, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins -- mind you, they're all viable comparisons and certainly influences. Then there are a few phony references that Man Man's singer, Ryan Kattner (a.k.a. Honus Honus), likes to invent, such as '80s pop, Iggy Pop, and Soda Popinski (which is either a college funk band in New Orleans or a sleazy cartoon character about a Russian alcoholic; you decide).
Kattner laughs when asked about those so-called influences. ''I just wanted to put that out there to see who would take it," he says. ''We don't really sound like any of those people. I was just rolling with the pop idea."
With band members sporting handlebar moustaches and adopting stage names such as Blanco Flesh Taco and Tiberius Lyn, it would seem Man Man is having wild fun at our expense, gently ribbing us for believing anything that seems overtly hip.
But there are kernels of sincerity here, from Kattner's assertion that he's not trying to imitate Tom Waits (''The truth is, I scream my vocals; that's just how I sing. I love Waits, but if I were going to mimic someone, I'd mimic someone who makes a lot of money") to the band's kitchen-sink approach to its quality music. Clarinet notes snake around twinkling marimbas, synthetic beats, humming Farfisa organs, vaudevillian percussion, and the occasional (but only occasional) guitar solo.
Most of the songs on the band's debut, ''The Man in a Blue Turban With a Face," could be the soundtrack to a creepy circus sideshow where the Bearded Lady marries her paramour, the Sword Swallower. Kattner's songwriting prowess is off-kilter enough to turn a love song that starts with a pack of yelping dogs into an ode to resilience (''You stung me bad/ What can I do?/ But leave the stinger in/ So I won't forget you").
The album opens with ''Against the Peruvian Monster," and by the time a chorus of preschool kiddies chimes in with a round of spastic ''la, la, la," you have a pretty good idea of Man Man's artistic vision.
''What we do in the studio is really organic," says Kattner. ''We definitely know what we don't want from a song, and it's not like we say, 'OK, right here we'll have this Pink Floyd moment.' It's kind of spontaneous."
He says the band's caustic live show is even more bizarre than the album: ''It looks like a junkyard sale when we get everything set up."
Upcoming dates with indie-rock's ''it" band, the Arcade Fire, suggest Man Man is finally getting some due exposure, but band members have kept their day jobs working in Philly bars and in visual arts. Kattner says they have loftier goals, though.
''We want Thurston Moore [of Sonic Youth] to dig us; we want people to hear our album; and then we want to play New York City fashion shows."
He's kidding, right? Again, you decide.
James Reed writes about up-and-coming performers. He can be reached at jreed@globe.com.
