LOONY TUNES: Check out “Banana Ghost” —Man Man’s accidental art-rock rewriting of “Hooked on a Feeling.”
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The back door of a Philly loony bin accidentally gets left open and a therapy group of hairy, tattooed idiot savants in hospital-issued wife-beaters escape. They’re unhinged and ADD twitchy, but just coherent enough to remember each other’s nonsensical names: Hocus Hocus, Pow Pow, Blanco, Sergei Sogay, Les Mizzle. They break into a dusty musical-instrument shop owned by a vacationing organist and stay up nights making manic, silly, deranged sonic expulsions of pianos, trumpets, strings, and rattletrap percussion that (unbeknownst to them) takes inspiration from two Captains: Beefheart and Caveman. They write an accidental art-rock version of “Hooked on a Feeling” (“Banana Ghost”), throw tons of tantrums (“Young Einstein on the Beach”), and pay tribute to Jack and the Beanstalk, a copy of which Sogay smuggled out of the patient ward in his pants (“Engwish Bwudd”). Miss Pussycat drops by looking for new maracas; they kidnap Quintron’s partner, force her to yell back-up vocals, and then taunt her by whispering, “You should always run with a loaded gun in your mouth” (“Spider Cider”). The white coats follow the din and come to her rescue, dragging Hocus out while he pleads devilishly, “Please don’t go and abandon me” (“Ice Dogs”). Or so that’s the kind of crackpot fiction inferred by Six Demon Bag.MAN MAN + ROOMMATE | June 2 | P.A.’s Lounge, 345 Somerville Ave, Somerville | 617.776.1557
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Man Man: http://www.wearemanman.com/
