Man or Astro-Man? (MOAM) with opening act The Jacuzzi Boys
at The Turf Club in St Paul
MN on 6-14-2013.
This was the first time I had seen MOAM in concert, although,
I have been a fan since the late 90s. I took my best friend to see this
concert. I had bought the tickets as soon as they had become available for
purchase on line. I bought them at the same time as I got the tickets for the
Bleached concert that I wrote about back in the end of April.
I learned from my last experience at The Turf Club not to
show up until about 8:30-9:00 P.M. I met my friend at the club entrance and we
went in. They tore the ticket and stamped the inside of my right wrist. We saw
the merch table right away to our left. We also went down stairs to check that
out. I did not even know that there was anything down there. It amounted to a
smaller bar with a small DJ style stage that wasn’t being used tonight because
of the concert. We went back up stairs and got in line for the merch booth. I
bought a T-shirt and a download card that was only being sold at the concerts.
I thought about buying a tour poster but changed my mind. Slumberland Records
has sent me so many with my purchases through them that I did not really feel
hurt that I didn’t get one at the concert. Maybe Chunklet will send me one with
the record that I ordered. We then went out to my car to drop off those two
items.
As we were coming back we heard The Jacuzzi Boys start their
set. We plugged in out ear plugs and went in to listen. On our way in we stopped
to look at the two pinball machines that they had on the wall. One was based on
the new Transformers movies and the other was The Creature from The Black
Lagoon. I had played the Transformers game before. It was a fun game but not
super exciting. The Creature from The Black Lagoon looked like a lot of fun
though. I did not have any change on me though so we did not play. We moved a
bit closer to the stage after looking at the games. We ended up standing in front
of the sound board after progressively moving forward.
The Jacuzzi Boys reminded me of early 70s garage punk groups
like The Stooges or The Velvet Underground. There was also a touch of California punk in there
as well. They seemed to make heavy use of metaphors relating to drug use and
sex. There is nothing wrong with this since it has always been sex drugs and ‘rock
and roll’. I liked the music that they played and I am thinking about buying an
album. I had not heard them before so I found it hard to spend the extra money
on the spot. I also don’t know yet what the albums and singles are that they
have in their catalog. I will have to do that research still if I am going to
buy any music from them.
They finished at about 10:30 and both bands members helped
to tear down The Jacuzzi Boys set and set up for Man or Astro-Man? set. It was
strange to see members of Man or Astro-Man? not in costume during this set up
time. I had only ever seen the group dressed in their “space” attire in video
clips and in the DVD called Time Bomb.
MOAM took the stage at 11:00 and played a whopping nineteen
tracks in one hour! They took the stage with their costumes on this time. Avona
Nova with a space like V dress, Coco with his
orange bocy suit, Bird Stuff in orange pants with a grey shirt and Starcrunch
with grey pants an orange shirt and a jean jacket. The opening track was really
just an intro that moved into the all electronic track Defcon 4 from the new
album. The group started actually playing with the song Antimatter Man. This
was also a song from the new album. I first heard this song from the first of
the three singles released before the album. I knew this song very well as I
had been listening to it since its release back in the fall of 2012. The next
song, Put Your Finger In The Socket, is an older song that was originally released
on Project Infinity in 95. Starcrunch started having problems with his guitar
on this track and couldn’t hear much in his monitor on stage either. The song
was cut off because of these problems. The group decided to do some
introductions and comedy ensued a bit there after. They then went into the
track Planet Collision. This was the first of their songs that started with a
sound clip.
Back in the 90s, Coco The Electronic Monkey Wizard had a key
board that had a guitar strap on it. He would use it to queue up the sound
bites. Now he has his bass guitar modified to include a touch screen of some of
kind (posibly an iPad or the like) to control the samples that the group uses.
The bass looks like a Danelectro Longhorn.
They move directly into 9 Volt from there. This is another
track from the mid 90s. This one has vocals with it as well. I miss the
electronic sounds that are on the original recording but there just aren’t
enough people in the band to make every little sound happen. They had planned
to do the talking at this point to introduce the band and tell a few jokes but
since they had some issues earlier and took that time to do some talking then
they basicly went right into the next song. The next song is called Evil Plans
of Planet Spectra. This is also from Experiment Zero in the mid 90s. This track
doesn’t have any lyrics. It is just a fast surf track that sounds cool.
The next track, Inside The Atom, Is my favorite track that
they have ever recorded. There is a part in the middle where Starcrunch uses an
effect where it gives a delayed echo after he cuts off the guitar sound that I
love. I would love to know what pedal he uses and how he uses it to make the
sound but I understand if he doesn’t want to give up trade secrets.
I stopped my recording at this point to save. Because of
this I missed out on part of the talk about bending space and time to have been
able to listen to a song that would have been “old hat” to me now in the past.
It was a funny little joke really. They went into the new song Codebreaker 78
after that little joke. It is a cool track that I had heard before because the
download of the new album had been out for about a month prior to this concert.
They went into Sferic Waves right after Codebreaker 78. It was cool to see Coco use the touch screen device in his bass to start off
the sound bite for the song.
At this point Avona Nova was being introduced to take over
on bass so that Coco could play the Theremin.
They also talked about the next concert and how to get there. They wanted to
know if Tommy Bartlets Robot World still existed. It was kind of funny in an
odd way. They then went on to talk about guitars. I believe that at this point
Starcrunch was still having problems with his guitar and he switched it for a
different Mosrite guitar. It ended up being that he needed a new guitar cable.
The next song that they played was Man Made of CO2. Coco started the sound clip again with his bass before
switching over to his Theremin. The Theremin was not used in this track but he
was getting it set up. This track comes from 1000X EP from 1997. The next track
uses the Theremin. This song is called Principles Unknown. I was disappointed that
he did not start the instrument on fire like I have seen him do in the past but
he did use the crowd to play the instrument toward the end of the song. It was a
lot of fun watching him play this instrument. It was to bad that he only used
it for one song though.
There was a little bit more talking while Coco
put the Theremin away and got his bass back out. It was silly talk about dinosaur
poop that meant nothing as it was all hypothetical. Coco
then started the sound clip for U-Uranus. This is another song that has lyrics.
I always liked the line, “Uranus is a planet and it begins with U (you).” It is
a very short song. With no break in between, Coco
started the lead in sound clip for Rocketship XL-3. This one is a real fast
surf rock track that makes you feel like you’re on that rocket ship speeding as
fast as it will take you to space. Such a fun track!
The next song played was Defcon 5. This is another new song
that was released initially on the first 7” in the series of three that were
put out before the new album was released. They had the graphic that was on the
7” sleeves spinning on the video screens behind the drummer. It looked really
cool. I like the use of the harmonics in this song quite a bit really. The next
track was called Television Fission and comes from Experiment Zero too. This is
a song that the group has been playing live for a long time. It is a great song
too.
Coco started off the next
track, Transmission From Venus, with the sound clip. I would love to know what
movie that this clip comes from. Starcrunch shreds this one up pretty good. It
really sounds amazing that someone could play this well and with such style. It
is just too bad that the songs are so short. But then again you get more songs
that way too. The next track they played was Maximum Radiation Level. This one
also has a cool old sound clip to start it off. It is also a track from
Experiment Zero. There were a lot of great tracks from this album and that is
why they are getting played so much.
The second to last track played was Destination Venus. This
track reminds me of a track that Yuck wrote called Holing Out. That song
reminds me of Dinosaur Jr. song called Feel The Pain. The Dinosaur Jr. song
sounds nothing like Destination Venus though. But all three songs are very good
songs and I am happy to have them in my collection. Destination Venus does have
lyrics but it is very hard to understand them. That is OK though because his
vocals always seem to add so much to the songs. The last song is called Special
Agent Conrad Uno. This one is a spy type song in the style of James Bond or The
Man From U.N.C.L.E. It is a cool song that fits the style very well. They let
the song hang at the end with a lot of noise from the guitars as they walked
off the stage at the end.
This was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. I
wish that I could have gone to see them back in the 90s. I thing it would have
been better to have seen them in their hey day of touring and recording music.
On the other hand they have so many songs under their belt now that it is more
of a show than it would have been back then.
Set List:
Intro/Defcon 4
Antimatter Man
Put Your Finger In The Socket
Planet Collision
9 Volt
Evil Plans of Planet Spectra
Inside The Atom
Codebreaker 78
Sferic Waves
Man Made of CO2
Principles Unknown
U-Uranus
Rocketship XL-3
Defcon 5
Television Fission
Transmission From Venus
Maximum Radiation Level
Destination Venus
Special Agent Conrad Uno
If you want to read the CityPages review you can check it out here.
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