It is highly unlikely that there is a more experimental or adventuresome band at this year’s 80-35 festival than Man Man.  They’ve been described as “Viking-vaudeville, manic Gypsy jazz,” but as soon as you attempt to label them, they seem to pull something new from out of their musical sleeves.  They sometimes sound like what would happen if Tom Waits was in a car crash with a New Orleans brass band on the way to a circus, but sometimes not.

Man Man comes from Philadelphia, and each member uses a pseudonym – the frontman’s name is Honus Honus, and other band member names include Critter Crat, Pow Pow, Sergei Sogay, and Chang Wang.  When playing their energetic live shows, they wear white outfits and war paint.  They’ve opened for Modest Mouse, played at Coachella, and had a song on the TV show “Weeds.”  One of their songs was in a Nike commercial featuring “The Office” star Rainn Wilson.

The music of Man Man is often driving, has a European flair, and has instrumentation featuring everything from pianos and horns to xylophones and even the occasional banging on pots and pans for alternative forms of percussion.  Their most recent album is 2008’s “Rabbit Habits” (the video for the title track is on their website, and is hilarious and sad).

Man Man plays the Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield Main Stage on Saturday, July 4^th at 3:15 PM.  This is a show not to be missed!

For more info check out http://www.myspace.com/wearemanman and http://www.wearemanman.com