Stillborn Again

What to do when you're stranded in Chicago for a week with Man Man

by Andrew Parks

photographs by Michael T. Regan

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Tuesday, 2/27, 4:11 a.m.

"The last time I did this, I lost the feeling in my legs," says Ryan Kattner, aka Honus Honus, the mustachioed lead vocalist in Philly band Man Man.

A 50-cent lighter spits a spade-shaped flame at a sugar-coated spoon, casting a soft neon green glow on a generously poured glass of absinthe. It looks like we're cooking crack over a vat of food coloring, but it tastes like liquefied licorice and sweet moonshine.

"That's actually kinda good," says multi-instrumentalist Billy Dufala (stage name: Chang Wang) as he downs another hefty glass of green fairy juice. Good but strange. While no one's had enough to make the room morph into Moulin Rouge, it takes only a few minutes before we all feel like cumulus clouds — floating somewhere between being stoned, drunk and (though I'm surrounded by dudes with three-week-old facial hair) aphrodisiac-addled.

The band and producer Griffin Rodriguez (who's worked with Need New Body, Mice Parade and, most recently, Beirut) have earned the escape. The droopy-eyed, emotionally drained crew has spent the last three weeks sifting through 20 prospective songs for what everyone hopes will be a breakthrough album.

If you've been following the Man Man story so far, you probably thought their last LP, Six Demon Bag, was their breakthrough. Pitchfork placed it at No. 20 in its year-end 2006 list, and it came in at 11 on City Paper's list, beating both the Decemberists and TV on the Radio. Somebody must have bought the fucking thing, right?

Right. About 7,733 somebodies at press time. Another 3,229 somebodies picked up Man Man's first album, 2004's The Man in a Blue Turban with a Face.

Tell that to Ace Fu Records, though. They've passed on renewing the band's contract despite their status as one of the label's stable artists. (Fellow Philly band An Albatross is another.)

Tell that to Kattner, too, because he's mustache-deep in debt at the moment — money that's been burned in hopes of scoring a significant record deal sometime soon. "I try not to think about that stuff because it hurts my head," explains Kattner. "While it's stupefying that we don't have anything substantial on the table yet, it's kind of funny. Look at a band like Test Icicles. They got signed to Domino and broke up after their first tour."

Judging by the genre-defying, increasingly manic music that has materialized before me during one sleepless week in the Windy City, Man Man won't be disbanding anytime soon. Frankly, they're just getting started.

Ryan Kattner aka: Honus Honus (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

"My eyes are more open now than they'll ever be!" screams Kattner, clearing his throat and preparing for one last crack at Man Man's first, and hopefully not last, multimovement epic, "Poor Jackie."

One pair of eyes that are sewn shut in comparison is percussionist Chris Powell's (Pow Pow). The music industry vet, in bands like Need New Body and Icy Demons (which was co-founded by Rodriguez), is asleep, having volunteered to handle most of the 12-hour, 760-mile drive back to Philadelphia tomorrow. (Well, today at this point.) He's missing out, too, because what follows is the most goose bump-inducing moment of this entire outing.

With a glint of delirium in his eyes — stemming from sleep deprivation and that imported absinthe — Rodriguez cues up the baroque ballroom waltz beginning of "Poor Jackie," about a female Jack the Ripper. For six Technicolor minutes, several different moods and sonic reference points flicker on by like a film reel reeking of dread, ghastly gaslights and death. And then, the sudden climatic coup: a head-circling blues riff, beyond-the-grave Beach Boys harmonies and horns that sound as if they should be streaming through stained glass windows.

Kattner takes the track and runs with it. "I'm wearing virginal white for you/ Don't you see/ So please come with those sharpened knives and murder me," he wails. "I'm wearing virginal white for you/ Don't you SEE/ And my EYES are more open now than they'll ever be so set me free/ Set me FREE."

He's covered in sweat and completely exhausted by the time the song fades out. The extra effort — singing at a late hour before a long day — is worth it, though. Because as soon as Rodriguez plays back the sushi-raw take, one thing becomes abundantly clear: This is the song that's going to get Man Man signed.

Being in a band and recording in a nice studio among vintage instruments and thousand-dollar microphones is some sort of privilege, right? Something to aspire to? Something to fight, fuck and backstab your best friend over?

It's not.

It's like The Shining. (The Jack Nicholson version.) Only there's no one there with an ax and maniacal "Here's Johnny!" grin to end it all when every sunrise feels like Groundhog Day or when that guy over there won't stop chewing like a goddamn cow.

I finally arrive at Chicago's O'Hare Airport on a frostbitten February night. No one's around when I buzz the front door of Shape Shoppe — a part-time performance space, recording studio and perpetually dusty apartment in Chicago's South Loop area, right around the corner from the celebrated jazz venue Velvet Lounge. No one but Kattner, who's got a bottle of beer and shot of whiskey waiting for me at the finish line of six flights — stairs I would never, ever want to carry equipment up. In a couple of days, I'll find myself helping the band do just that.

"Drink up," says Kattner, smiling as a squealing sax pounds a nearby studio door. "Welcome to Chicago. Your couch is over here."

This sinkhole of stained fabric and distressed seams will be my bed for the week. Hey, it's better than the floor. To get to it, I tiptoe over a snake pit of wires, effects pedals and mic cables.

Chris Shar aka: Sergei Sogay (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

A few days before I arrived at Shape Shoppe, Kattner text-messaged the following: "You're going to love how filthy the warehouse has become." (The band started tracking two weeks before I stopped by.) And he was right.

Aside from being dirtier than a high school shop class, there's a flock of geese squawking 5 feet away from my couch. Actually, it's a horn section squeezing out the jet stream parts of a song called "Hurly Burly."

All this honking will make sense later, of course — once it's been reduced in a cauldron of peculiar percussion patterns, baritone guitar melodies and vocals so off-key they actually sound real — but for now, I want to jam ice picks in my ears to block out the sound and end it all.

This is how a record really develops: The process is inherently boring and, at times, awful. Yes, some studio recordings are cut live to tape or Pro Tools with several instruments playing at once in a padded room. But in the case of Man Man — a shape-shifting quintet, not a standard guitar/bass/drums/vocals setup — the process is painstaking at best.

There's always something missing, from severely abused synth lines to strangled horn sections to the clickity-clack of silverware and steel. The endless procession of "Let's try it one more time" takes and slight soundboard tweaks is enough to leave anyone completely brain-dead.

Man, do my arms hurt. We woke up at 8 this morning to shuffle equipment out of Shape Shoppe and into a van, drive several hours to a college show in St. Louis, and finally unload all this shit into what looks like a school cafeteria without the tables. This is but a day in a life of a band without a tour manager or roadies. I can only imagine what a two-month tour is like.

A sample of the things we moved to the tune of the sun-baked solo album from Animal Collective's Panda Bear: a complete drum kit, numerous cases overstuffed with noisemakers and things to bang on, guitars, overnight bags, pillows, blankets, keyboard coffins, a milk crate for me to sit on, Christmas lights for ambience, and, finally, Kattner's massive, might-as-well-be-a-grand-piano synthesizer, which elicited the comment, "This is why I always ask myself why I haven't gone digital."

All of it — the loss of breath, the profuse sweating despite it being 20 degrees outside, the "I-swear-I-didn't-drop-that-synthesizer!" — was worth it. It always is, at least when it leads to a great show amid terrible sound and a sexless crowd. Which is exactly how tonight's Washington University gig went despite the degree of smashing, shrieking, leaping and convulsing that went into fan favorites like "Zebra," "English Bwudd" and "Push the Eagle's Stomach" and such still-developing new songs as "Spooky Jookie," "Top Drawer" and "Hurly Burly." (The only new jam that fell flat was a bizarre, live drum and bass interlude called "El Azteca." And that's only because the thing sounds inhuman on record.)

There's a so-horrible-it's-awesome frat row scene unfolding before us now. Not one to avoid their (hundred or so) adoring fans, Kattner, Dufala, fellow multi-instrumentalist Russell Higbee (aka Alejandro "Cougar" Bord) and Kattner's dad have decided to follow the flier handed to them by a few nervous college radio kids to an off-campus kegger.

In one corner: a stack of premium day-old bagels and a hookah pumping out sweet-smelling tobacco. (Apparently no one here felt like springing for pot; oh, wait, no, that's happening in the back room, where "the trees are at," according to one future Volkswagen driver.) In another: a giddy DJ spinning dated dance music on turntables and a laptop. Did I mention he's also controlling a friggin'fog machine?

"This brings me back," says Gary Kattner — think a slimmer, taller version of Ryan with a slight Texas drawl — as we raise plastic cups of nondescript beer. I smile and suck down foam but can't help feeling like Bluto in Animal House.

Russell Higbee aka: Alejandro "Cougar" Bord (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

After three rounds of incessant beeping, Dufala finally succumbs to his cell phone alarm ... and then goes back to sleep on a chair. I'm already up, though, awakened by the farmhouse scents of fresh biscuits and French Roast coffee. Lucky for the hung-over ones in the room, Kattner's father has gotten up early to prepare a light breakfast for us. (Well, the three of us who're actually awake, which is the usual early-to-rise trio of Kattner, Powell and myself.)

Gary Kattner is a retired Air Force vet and a mixed-media artist. Last night, in an effort to strike up casual conversation, I asked to see some of his work after the keg party. He led me downstairs, past boxes of videotapes, safari collector cards and other ephemera from Ryan's childhood, to a room full of abstract paintings wrapped in plastic bags. Not a few canvases, either — try hundreds, piled up like nameless gravestones.

Looks like Ryan isn't the only tortured-artist type in this family. He also isn't the only Tom Waits fan.

"When Ryan's younger brother Patrick was born, we were living in Germany," says Kattner, "so I asked some American friends to watch him while we were at the hospital. Turns out they had a visitor at their house that helped produce Rain Dogs. He gave me a cassette of it and we listened to it in the car when I picked Ryan up. If that wasn't an omen of what was to come, I don't know what is, especially since he was only 8 at the time."

They also listened to a lot of Pavement when Ryan was growing up. "[Stephen Malkmus] doesn't have the most melodic voice, either," adds the elder Kattner. I ask him if they always shared music, and he smiles. "Well it was around all the time. I know people who don't like music and I don't usually like them."

As a thank-you for encouraging his creative side growing up, Ryan and his brother gave their father a preloaded iPod for Christmas recently. Lately he's been getting into the Roots, the Thermals, CocoRosie and "some female rapper; I think her name is M.I.A."

Chris Powell aka: Pow Pow (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

At this point, it's clear that documenting every detail of the Shape Shoppe sessions would take up an entire alt-weekly issue. And, well, it would also read like 60 pages of grocery lists. The recording process really can be that tedious.

So here's 12 Hours in the Making of Man Man's Masterpiece, if you will. It begins at 10:37 a.m., when a mild struggle over T-shirt designs ensues alongside the bubble and hiss of brewed espresso.

Turns out Billy Dufala's brother Steven designs Man Man's record sleeves and a lot of their merch. Normally they're extremely happy with what he does, as it plays right into Man Man's loopy aesthetic, but Steven's latest shirt is starting to look a little too much like his last. (Inside-out organs? Check.) Which presents a bit of an awkward situation come compromise time since (a) Steven essentially played the same parts as Higbee in Man Man's original lineup and (b) Um, Steven is Billy's brother.

"Can I be devil's advocate here?" asks Kattner, who seems to be holding something back. "Do you think Steven maybe dialed it in on this one?"

"Maybe," says Dufala. "He definitely pulled one of those don't-tell-me-what-to-do things last night."

After a few minutes of civilized debate over the artistic merit of small intestines, some clearer ideas coalesce and what initially appeared like a crisis has since turned into a punch line. Everyone has a say in Man Man — for better or worse, but usually for the better. Which is what happens when you plop five art-school students (or could-be art-school students) in a room with sketchpad supplies and a Guitar Center-caliber collection of equipment. Right at this very moment, actually, everyone is pitching in on possible button designs, ranging from moustaches in the shape of spaceships (Powell) to an "alien jailbird" (Higbee).

"As long as there are no shirts with poop, vomit or bodily functions involved, I'm OK with it," concludes Kattner. "I'm not sure who would sell that sort of thing. Maybe Primus or Ween?"

A few hours later, a morning of more overdubs gives way to a food-and-beer run at Trader Joe's and a Midwest supermarket chain called Jewel. On the final receipt and currently clotting my area in the van: four boxes of Mrs. T's Pierogies (Dufala's one special request), two cases of Miller High Life, one case of Goose Island Honker's Ale, lots of faux meat (including bologna, turkey and chorizo), a stack of instant Indian food packets and complementary basmati rice bags, gallons of spring water, boxes of Peanut Butter Puffins cereal, and enough toilet paper to wipe the asses of a small army platoon.

Everyone pitches in to drag the goods up that perilous six flights of cold concrete stairs. The team effort allows for more actual studio work almost immediately, namely a splendid surf rock tune ("Harpoon Fever").

Since Kattner is rarely a taskmaster when it comes to molding songs, he's currently in a debate with Dufala over some of the vocals, which are beginning to sound a little too over-the-top.

"I look at it in the context of surfing," explains Dufala. "It's madness — it's crazy, it's nuts — but all of a sudden you catch the wave and you're cruising. Then simpler becomes better." A typically reserved Chris Shar (aka Sergei Sogay, yet another Man Man multi-instrumentalist) also says the song sounds jumbled and is losing its original feel.

All of this open dialogue reminds me of another exchange I heard earlier, which simply went like this:

KATTNER: "I don't know if that's overkill. I mean, it could be plucked strings or something.

DUFALA: "I don't agree with you."

KATTNER: "Well, we don't always have to agree, right?"

DUFALA: "I know."

Dufala followed this by genuinely asking Kattner if he was all right. Then the pair retreated to a nearby hallway to settle the situation quietly.

I pull Kattner aside later and ask him a little about the group's songwriting process, especially on this record. Every track seems to have its own vibe and TBD subgenre.

"When you've spent half a year touring in a van with someone, no one wants to be bossed around," he says. "That's something I'm still learning. We just really need to step things up with this record, you know? We're not a band that just says something like, 'Let's write a P-Funk song now.'"

Shar sums up Man Man's self-proclaimed "crew" mentality: "Man Man has always been democratic. That's part of the charm for me — all these vibes and backgrounds coming together. I always wanted to be in something different, and you can't get much more different than this."

Things you overhear when losing track of time and space at Shape Shoppe:

"That song went from sounding like Pearl Jam to The Who."

"Well, it's still better than flying through everything!"

"My whole world stops when Bio-dome comes on. Nothing else exists."

"You look worried that we don't know what we're doing. That's just our take on dance music."

"We started writing it as a mariachi part and it ended up like Supertramp.

"OK, so we were a little unprepared for how long it would take to do it."

"I love you. You're my mom."

Tap. Tap. Tap.

And so ends the sleep I should have gotten last night instead of drinking absinthe and staying up right through this morning's Burger King run, a horrendous array of greasy crap that induced an immediate coma.

"Hey man, do you have any of that weed on you?" asks Powell, still sounding as calm as a SoCal surfer.

"Why?"

"Because we just got pulled over."

So that Ohio trooper didn't find out about anyone's stash or write us a speeding ticket. (We were just above the limit, so the consensus in the car is that this was a routine quota-meeting stop.) He did, however, drain the color from my already pale face. The band didn't flinch. They're used to this kind of thing: like the officer in Oregon who screamed "Holy sch-nikes!" when he noticed how many people and pieces of gear were crammed into one van. And the waitress at a Denny's-like establishment who assumed the guys were volunteer firemen because they looked so tweaked out and hairy. Or the guy in Utah who went by the name Officer Funk, Greg Funk.

Anyway, what today's trooper did was give us an opportunity to pull into a service station that smells like someone crapped in the entranceway. Oh, and play one of those crane games no one ever wins. Well, no one except for just about every member of Man Man, especially Powell and Higbee. In fact, the former already has a karate bear in his clutches by the time I stroll out of a sticky restroom. Bitter at all the quarters I wasted over the years trying to get one of those fucking things — by Kattner's estimation, they've won at least half a dozen recently — I get back in the van and we speed away into what's quickly becoming a long, long night.

"See you in hell, Ohio!" screams Shar with a middle finger in the air and a sly smile. While everyone's laughing and bobbing along to the comic book rap of Madvillain, the sad truth of Man Man's Chicago sessions is also starting to sink in: They didn't finish.

Billy Dufala aka: Chang Wang (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Eternal sleep sounded like the only option for Ryan Kattner a few days ago, when he described the start of Man Man's spring tour as a disappointing series of under-attended dates, broken promises and sinus infections. That was before Modest Mouse hand-selected the band to support their monthlong spring tour. Truth be told, the news is a mixed blessing on several levels.

One: "Kids are already writing us saying, 'Great, now I have to pay 75 bucks to see an opening band.' And I'm like, 'Look, we're still a weird band. It's not like we're going to blow the fuck up anytime soon.' I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but I don't foresee things changing that much after these shows."

Two: Dufala has to turn down the career-making trek because of his ceramics project and some Rube Goldberg-like set design work (for the play machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, machines, premiering this June in Philly) he needs to start with his brother Steven as soon as the band gets home for a brief pre-Modest Mouse break.

Which means Man Man now needs a saxophonist and a keyboard player.

"It's too amazing of a situation to pass up, sadly," says Kattner. "He's bummed and, honestly, we're bummed, too. Billy's integrated himself fully into the band, so he isn't exactly replaceable."

"It sucks because everyone I know says I'm making a bad decision, but at the same time I'm a sculptor," adds Dufala. "This shit with my brother is my career, too. I can't bail on him. He wouldn't talk to me for years. I'm just glad these guys are so understanding and cool about it."

Which brings us to concern No. 3 surrounding this Modest Mouse business: Will all those "Float On" fans go for something unhinged, something frothing-at-the-mouth like Man Man?

"The tour is good in some ways for sure, but I am freaked out that it's gonna be a bunch of jocks watching with no artistic taste," says Powell, who came down with a serious sinus infection, bronchitis and tonsillitis soon after Man Man's spring tour started. "We have to keep a good perspective with what's happening instead of assuming we're shooting for the stars or something. This is like my 15th band and I've been touring for 10 years solid, you know? So there are some nights where I'm like, 'Fuck, man. Why am I here? I should be home.'"

Powell and Kattner won't be home for more than a week at a time until later this summer now, too. While they originally planned on finishing the next Man Man record in April or May, the Modest Mouse tour has forced the band to push their final sessions to June. And the more they wait, the more textures, instruments and vocals everyone wants to add or subtract.

"Everything was rushed in Chicago," says Dufala. "We played them a teeny bit in a practice space before and then we recorded them. Well, the magic happens when you play live and go out on a limb — when you figure out shit you didn't know before. What we've got now is an all right studio version of what we do, but we need to put more of that griminess on there, that gnarly stuff that makes out live show so special."

"It's listenable," says Kattner, "but nothing's mixed or done yet beyond a general idea. It's crazy because this is the big break we've needed for a long time and we can't hit it the way we need to — with Billy or any sort of comfort zone. But I guess that's how this band rolls: Nothing is easy."

(a_parks@citypaper.net)