THE FIRST TIME I listened to Mannequin Men, I regretted taking this assignment.The Chicago-based band is on that someone like myself (read: jaded) will dismiss as another angular-sounding rock group with a sassy, snarling singer. The hooks all sounded the same, the production was familiarly noisy and singer Kevin Richard’s sneer reminded me of too much of Brainiac or The Jesus Lizard. With repeated listens and some research, though, something unexpected happened: the band grew on me.
From the fabled, chaotic live shows in Chicago with bands like New Bomb Turks to Kevin Richard, the band’s lead singer and guitarist, and fellow Mannequin Man Ethan D’Ercole’s subbing in for former Contortions leader and New York No Wave pioneer James Chance’s live shows, the band began to seem much more interesting and complex than I’d originally thought.
The duo’s encounters with Chance were shocking to say the least. “One time, he ripped a fart as loud as you could think while we were recording and he didn’t bat an eyelash,” Richard says. “He also sometimes answers questions with his saxophone instead of words.”
That being said, the band isn’t emulating the eccentricities of Chance’s recordings or trying to fix what isn’t broken in music. Richard doesn’t think there is any reason to try and be weird on purpose. “Nowadays, you need to use, like, surgical instruments as a musician to reinvent the wheel or be different,” he says. “I don’t think being basic is a bad thing.”
Skipping the pretentious wordplay, inane time signature changes and overall aureate nature of modern rock bands trying to be different, Mannequin Men does just this by sticking with what works on its newest record, as well as adding some sardonic humor to the mix without appearing sloppy.
The record, Lose Your Illusion,Too, is just another example of the Men not taking itself too seriously. It’s a straightforward yet memorable collection of tracks that sounds somewhere near a mixture of Minneapolis’ favorite sons The Replacements and Hüsker Dü, with a touch of the poppiness of The Clean or Toy Love. Right down to the naming the record, an obvious play on the Guns ‘N’ Roses series of albums from almost two decades ago, the band just did what was natural. “It just came to me,” Richard says. “I wasn’t thinking too much.”
The band doesn’t always agree with comparisons to Minneapolis’ most popular group,The Replacements, though Richard is certainly flattered. “It’s a total compliment, but you don’t wanna be too closely aligned with another band,” Richard explains. “People saw them as Midwestern fuckups who got drunk and played.That’s why I love them, but I don’t want that to be our image.”
Comparisons aside, Mannequin Men’s record is a collection of dense, reverb-laden, late-night rockers with wry humor peppered throughout the lyrics, like in the echo-y call and response of the track “WTF LOL” or the sort-of weed anthem “Massage.”The latter is actually a perfect representation of the band as a whole, as it shows its sardonic side, poking fun at a friend. “It is and isn’t about weed,” Richard says. “A friend of ours always gets way too stoned and as a result, is never relaxed. It’s kind of ironic because she is a massage therapist and weed, which is supposed to relax her, has the opposite effect on her.”
“WTF LOL,” is a song that came from a side project that a few of the band members play in, but it was assimilated into Mannequin Men because, well, it just seemed like a Mannequin Men song.
“It’s kind of a joke song,” Kevin says. “But people actually talk like this. My mom says ‘k bye’ to me in person! She shouldn’t be doing that!”
Just as Kevin has qualms with something his mother does, she certainly has a bit of a problem with the cover of Lose Your Illusion,Too.
Depicting four naked men and women holding up pictures of the band members’ faces over their own, the cover is sure to keep the album out of some record stores.
“It’s kind of an intense photo,” said Kevin. “My mom is not too stoked.”
I suppose it’s just one more Internet acronym to add to the Mannequin Men dictionary: NSFW.
> Mannequin Men
July 17, Southpaw, 125 5th Ave. (at Sterling Pl.), Brooklyn, 718-230-0236; 8, $10.
