Event Description

MAN MAN Based in Philadelphia, PA, Man Man is an experimental indie band that incorporates Eastern European and circus-esque styles in their music, creating a unique sound. The band consists of Honus Honus (lead vocals, piano, percussion), Pow Pow (drums, auxiliary percussion), Critter Crat (aka Cougar) (guitar, trumpet, bass, marimba, vocals), Organ Freeman (synth, organ, accordion, vocals), and Chang Wang (alto sax, bari sax, vibraphone, melodica, flute, percussion, vocals).

Their style has been compared to a mixture of Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, and Captain Beefheart. Man Man is known for their distinctive live shows where the members of the band dress in white tennis outfits and don war paint. During their sets the band does not take breaks between songs in order to keep a constant energy level.

MURDER BY DEATH

They may call Bloomington, Indiana, home, but since their 2000 formation, Murder by Death have been a band without musical borders. Theirs is a world where Old West murder ballads mingle with rock-injected Western classicism; where an album's sequencing can take listeners from a haunted back alley in rural Mexico to a raucous Irish pub. All of which is to say, Murder by Death albums don't just string together songs; they create experiences. With their fifth album (and second for Vagrant), Good Morning, Magpie (04/06/10), Murder by Death continue the tradition of border expansion that drove career standouts like 2006's In Bocca al Lupo and 2008's Red of Tooth and Claw. The difference, however, is that this time, the band literally went off the map to get there.