Amidst the general and entirely justified excitement about the new song from Man Man, their current tour mates The Extraordinaires seem to have been criminally overlooked.

Given the kind of chaos in which Man Man seem to revel, it should come as no surprise that The Extraordinaires should also be just that little bit mental, albeit in less of a swampy way, more a sort of pantomime gone horribly awry. Songs about the deadly revenge of a cactus that likes to give high-fives were never going to be nice and sensible chart fodder, but that doesn’t mean that the kind of jaunty, skewed exuberance generated by this Philly four-piece is anything less than wonderful.

They list The Muppet Show in their influences, they play slightly silly circus folk music, they are a little bit inconsistent, but when they are good they are brilliantly, laugh-out-loud enjoyable to listen to. In fact, instead of conventional albums they seem to lean towards releasing musical productions, complete with accompanying illustrated books. Weird, perhaps, but it’s superb stuff.

Man Man – Top Drawer
The Extraordinaires – The Captain
The Extraordinaires – Hi Five the Cactus

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I honestly kid you not, yes they are sneaking back into fashion, I am pretty certain of it.  The evidence?  Well, the surprising number of relatively trendy people I have seen sporting them recently and, of course, the simple fact that they have been so hugely out of fashion for so long.

The Hold Steady’s Franz Nicolay has had one at various points, the bass player for Elvis Perkins had one last night, and I saw a big picture of some chap from Interpol with a great big bloody moustache on the first page of the NME the other day.  Now, this is hardly a tidal wave of  underground fashion swelling up into and overwhelming the mainstream, but bear in mind that this kind of alternative scene is often how these things start.  The Hold Steady and Elvis Perkins is one thing, but Interpol?  They’re cool, aren’t they?  Too cool for a ‘tache I would have assumed, unless of course…

The other thing is that once something has been that unfashionable for that long some amusing wag is bound to have a stab at resurrecting it.  I get the impression there may be something in this one, Toadlings.  If you notice the banner at the top of the page you will find that a certain discerning green gentleman has been sporting a rather fine and most elegantly waxed example for some time now.  If you want to be at the croaking edge of fashion, keep an eye out for chaps sporting the only real choice of face furniture suitable for a true gentleman.  It’s the future I tell you!

Man Man – 10lb Moustache
The Monochrome Set – Man With the Black Moustache

These chaps will be pleased.

I am going to have to stop posting about bands I found through reading Cable & fucking Tweed or Rich is going to have some sort of creepy internet stalker restraining order taken out.  When discussing the Ice Cream Socialists’ superb new album, he mentioned that they sounded a little like Man Man, who I’d never heard of before.  You won’t go far wrong following Rich’s recommendations, so I went and had a listen, and bought their latest album, Six Demon Bag.

It’s a bit full-on, and nothing that you’d play when the in-laws are around, but it’s rude, loud, and just a little bit unhinged.  The music is a kind of mixture of carnival exuberance, old time jazz styles, and seedy seafront marionette shows delivered in a manic combination of Waits, Beefheart and Zappa.

Some supercilious arse at Tiny Mix Tapes – you know, the kind of world-weary indie reviewer who has just seen it all before, to the extent that you wonder why he even bothers if the world bores him that much – has a bit of a dig at this album.  Dismissing it as ‘just’ indie-pop and pointing out, quite accurately that is has nothing of the depth or artistic merit of The Genius That Is Tom Waits.  Which is true, it is just indie pop.  But even Tom Waits wasn’t The Genius That Is Tom Waits after two albums.  Mind you, not that I’m denying the truth of his statements – this is just an indie-pop album that sounds a bit like Tom Waits in his more circus-friendly moments, but he seems to consider this a criticism, whereas I do not.

What I hear is an indie-pop album that sounds a bit like Tom Waits in his more circus-friendly moments, and is thus an absolute joy and completely inconsistent, but for the most part an uplifting marvel of discordant, raucous fun.  So there.

Man Man – Skin Tension
Man Man – Black Mission Goggles

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