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Mega Man
Philly's Man Man tours Massachusetts, plus Seemless and more
BY CARLY CARIOLI
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Philadelphia’s Man Man are a six-piece ensemble with the frenetic pacing of a three-ring circus — the clunky, clattering ballads on their debut, The Man in the Blue Turban with a Face (Ace Fu), sound like tattered refugees sprung loose from a New York junkyard, a New Orleans saloon, and Tom Waits’s garage. But beneath the strictly enforced incoherence of their yard-sale orchestration (trash-picked brass, toy pianos, vintage organ, xylophones, and, on disc at least, a kindergarten class for a chorus), there’s a sentimental soulfulness to songs like "Werewolf (On the Hood of Yer Heartbreak)" that suggests some weird, lost Motown hits raised by yeti in the wilderness. Given to bizarro live shows, Man Man are on a tour that hits Flywheel (413-527-9800) in Easthampton on Friday, the Midway Café (617-524-9038) in Jamaica Plain on Saturday, and Bar (203-495-8924) in New Haven on Sunday — this last a bill with former Make Up/Scene Creamers frontman Ian Svenonius’s latest outfit, Weird War. The boogie-thrash outfit Seemless already have ties to two of the biggest underground metal bands in America: singer Jesse David Leach fronted Killswitch Engage before they got their Grammy nod, and drummer Derek Kerswill used to play in Shadows Fall. But the band are on their way to becoming Massachusetts’s next breakout, with Equal Vision re-releasing their Seemless debut album. They’re celebrating this Saturday night with a show at the Lucky Dog (508-363-1888) in Worcester, bringing along JetFuel (singer from Sam Black Church doing detuned death-metal calisthenics with help from gonzo Waltham/Damone guitar hero Dave Pino), Beyond the Embrace (a New Bedford triple-guitar sextet who out-chugga ’80s Bay Area speed metal), and Septic Youth Command (Only Living Witness/Miltown/Milligram singer Jonah Jenkins’s latest death-punk holocaust). The show was originally scheduled for the Paradise here in Boston, with Shadows Fall singer Brian Fair’s side project Transient on the bill. But Fair ended up guest-hosting the episode of MTV’s Headbangers Ball that’ll air while Seemless are on stage — and among the videos he’ll be introducing is the world premiere of (you guessed it) Seemless’s "Lay My Burden Down." Elsewhere, Early November and A Thorn for Every Heart do by-the-book emo at Axis (617-262-2437) in Boston tonight (January 27) and at the Living Room (401-521-5200) in Providence on Saturday. And Gwar do gore metal by the book — albeit one they wrote: bodily fluids, styrofoam costumes, and prosthetic phalluses included — at Lupo’s at the Strand (401-331-5876) in Providence on Saturday, and at Avalon (617-262-2424) in Boston on Monday.
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