| |
|
 |
 |
MEMBERS:
Matt
McGuire
HOMETOWN:
Detroit
CURRENT HOME:
Detroit
DATE OF EVOLUTION:
2000
WEBSITE:
beerforman.com
|
|
|
|
MAN
was formed when Matt
McGuire decided
to leave his hometown of Detroit
and his band mates in the terminally under-appreciated
and perennially drunk Forehead Stew for the Rocky
Mountains and a life on a snowboard. The Denver-Boulder
area must have seemed like the Promised Land to
him at the time. But, alas! Things are never quite
what they seem.
When he moved to Colorado, he discovered that
he missed making music. After several fistfights
and even more failed attempts at forming a band
with the locals, Matt
decided that the "ropeheads and puppy-draggers"
that surrounded him were not compatible with his
musical tastes and endeavors. Like any self-respecting
misanthropic
visionary, he proceeded to go it alone. So
he returned to Detroit.
Cursed with a lack of available friends, funds
and recording equipment, Matt
found that the easiest way to impose his musical
vision was to play the most important instruments
in a band himself—the rhythm instruments.
Since bands usually need a singer, the obvious
answer was to take on that responsibility, as
well. A band must be able to play shows, so he
devised a way to do all three things at once.
With his concept firmly in place, Matt
became MAN,
MAN
began to write songs, and —being an ex-expatriate
of sorts ("you try living in Hippieland after
you've lived in Detroit
your whole life," he says, annoyed)—the
result were the songs of "protest" that
have come to be loved by the many people that
have seen the MAN
band play live. At his early shows, the sight
of this man in a suit dragging a big guitar amp
and an even larger kick drum into a coffee shop
for an open-mic night was enough to send the tree-huggers
running for the safety of their mommy's wombs,
but a welcome sight for the disenfranchised, cynical
and adventuresome folk that dared to stick around.
Is MAN
a singer songwriter? Sure, why not, albeit with
some major differences, anger being only one of
them. MAN's
songs might sound like Bob Dylan, if Dylan had
ever heard the Swans and had run out of booze.
MAN's
songs might sound like Phil Ochs, if Ochs had
ever played punk rock and had run out of booze.
MAN's
songs sometimes sound like human techno, if techno-people
were to ever run out of booze. MAN's
songs sound like he's just run out of booze ("Beer
for Man"), and he's pissed off about it.
Like a drunk, Irish Lenny
Bruce armed with a bass, a large amplifier,
and an even larger kick drum, MAN's
"songs of protest" have enthralled audiences
all over the West and Mid-West, as a MAN
performance is a sight to behold indeed. Although
brutal
and in your face, MAN's
shows and songs are also brimming with self-effacing
humor. "You've got to have that, otherwise
you're just an asshole," he says. Matt
plays his strange form of anger-and-beer-fueled-one-man-punk-rock
with an intensity and self-deprecating humor not
seen since Dez-era Black
Flag, targeting everything and everyone from
lazy Hippies ("Hippie Down!"), evangelists
("Blue Law Sunday"), mindless mob mentality
("Fuck the Team!"), to genuine happiness
("I'm so Happy [I'm Singing in a Major Key]").
MAN
is for real; his words and music will convince
any non-believers of this. "Don't call it
a novelty, I've been this for years," he
paraphrases L.L. Cool J, "put that in your
pipe and smoke it!" Don't forget to pass
it on
the left. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
