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SXSW preview: Man or Astro-Man?
For a rock ‘n’ roll fan of a certain age, interviewing Brian Teasley — also known more fancifully as ‘Birdstuff’ — is a little like interviewing the man who once played your favorite department store Santa Claus.
For years the drummer for the surf rock band Man or Astro-Man maintained in interviews that he — alongside fellow core members Brian ‘Starcrunch’ Causey and Robert ‘Coco the Electronic Monkey Wizard’ DelBueno — was an alien life form, stranded on Earth after a crash landing.
The band adhered staunchly to that back-story as other members — with similarly drive-in movie-evoking names like Dr. Deleto and Cap’n Zeno — came and went and Causey departed to spearhead a record label. As Teasley recalls, the band once made a journalist from U.K. music magazine Melody Maker interview some rubber puppets they bought at a truck stop, all in the name of verisimilitude. An actor might call that ‘method publicity.’
‘What appeals to you when you’re 19 doesn’t necessarily appeal to you when you’re 37,’ says Teasley, recalling the moment with a hearty laugh. ‘It’s important to remember that we were literally teenagers when we started the band.’
Teasley speaks openly about his human identity these days. For someone who grew up reading the aforementioned oddball interviews, it’s a little bizarre to peek behind the veil. Unsettling, even.
But then, the essence of Man or Astro-Man these days could be summed up in two words: older and wiser. When the members play the South by Southwest Music Festival — hot on the heels of a colorful Sunday night engagement at the Mohawk — it will be among their first reunion gigs after reforming earlier this year. The band — a longtime cult favorite with a moderately sized but highly dedicated audience — has plans to play a number of dates to raise money for friend and Louisville, Ky., musician Jason Noble, currently undergoing treatment at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
For Teasley, the reunion — aside from a one-off favor to record label Touch and Go in 2006, the first show to feature all three original members since 1998 — has given him an excuse to revisit his band’s legacy.
‘I think for every band there’s a flashpoint where they’re at their best, and when you’re going to do some sort of reunion thing, you have to go back and find out when that flashpoint is,’ says Teasley. ‘For most bands, it’s their first period. You hardly ever go back and say, ‘Oh man, the 17th Belly record, that’s the one to beat.’ But our high period was kind of the midway, about three or four records into our careers.’
Mid-way through Man or Astro-Man’s career found them one of the most prolific, hard-working rock bands of the 1990s. Formed in Auburn, Ala., in 1992, Man or Astro-Man started its life as an instrumental surf guitar throwback outfit, the spawn of three 19-year-olds who clearly spent substantial amounts of time poring over the beach-bum riffs of the Ventures and Dick Dale.
The band slowly garnered a cult following as it perfected a winking, self-effacing B-movie aesthetic intended as a counter to the hopelessly earnest alternative rock that dominated mainstream radio. They incorporated samples and sound bites from forgotten science fiction TV shows and movies into their music, played theatrical live shows featuring costumes, video projections and Tesla coils, and grew ever more adventurous on their albums, using synthesizers and, in one case, a computer printer.
‘We started this band when alternative as a marketing term broke, and you had all these bands like Live taking themselves way too seriously. We started out to take the (mickey) out of all of that,’ says Teasley. ‘So I never thought of our band as high art, but I never thought of any bands as high art. Ninety percent of bands out there are like, “Hey, here’s a new version of four white kids from the suburbs that’s a little different from the other versions!” ‘
But though Man or Astro-Man had a shtick, it was hardly a shtick band. Throughout the ’90s they maintained a work schedule that more closely resembled that of an emergency room doctor or a Manhattan investment banker than a group of musicians. They released eight albums in as many years alongside an impressive slate of singles and played as many as 280 dates a year. By 2001, the inevitable happened — they burned out.
‘Our motto back then was “Twice the effort for half the results,” ’ jokes Teasley. ‘To be honest, we just didn’t know better. I thought every band woke up at 10 a.m., did an interview, then played on college radio, then played an in-store, and then played two shows that night at a small club. And then overnight drove to the next town. I thought that’s what every band did. And come to find out it’s not.’
Perpetually unable to say ‘no’ — Man or Astro-Man gave interviews to every small press zine from coast to coast and even allowed under-21 fans to attend their soundchecks for free — the band eventually packed it in. Teasley went on to play drums for the Polyphonic Spree and St. Vincent.
But while Man or Astro-Man receded into the background, the band’s fan base remained, and grew larger and more fervent as the years ticked by. Requests for a reunion trickled in from time to time, but Teasley, a cynic who felt rock ‘n’ roll reunions were often tiresome affairs, resisted — ‘Like with girlfriends, once you part ways with bands there’s not a whole lot of reason to revisit it,’ he says.
When the opportunity to help a friend in need presented itself, Teasley began to change his tune — and it didn’t hurt that he could look at the indie rock landscape over the last few years and spy a few reunions that were far from embarrassments. Now he’s looking forward to picking up the drumsticks, and while Man or Astro-Man has no plans to record new material, his enthusiasm for the band’s extensive back catalog is almost palpable.
‘This is going to sound awful, and I don’t really mean it, but I was kind of glad Joe Strummer died before the Clash got back together. I always thought it was kind of crazy to say, ‘If you loved us young and energetic and inspired, you’ll love us old and tired and fat!” says Teasley. ‘But Jesus Lizard, Gang of Four, Pixies … they are arguably as great of bands reunited as they were in their heyday. We’ve worked really hard and tried to make sure it’s as good as it was and maybe even better, not to sound totally corny about it.’
12:30 a.m. Thursday at Club de Ville, 900 Red River St.
If you like Man or Astro-Man, check out:
1. Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds
2. The Novas
3. SambaDa
4. Best Coast
5. The Death Set
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Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: SXSW 2010
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By jonagin
March 16, 2010 11:56 PM | Link to this
i don’t think he was talking about a 17th Belly record, i think it was 17th BOWIE record…