The early ’90s were the age of grunge, when the hair metal that had dominated the airwaves of ’80s was pushed aside by scruffy, flannel-clad slackers such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice In Chains. But just under the surface there were a group of bands who drew inspiration not from Neil Young and Hüsker Dü, but from the Ventures and Dick Dale. At the head of this surf rock revival were a group of space aliens by way of Auburn, Alabama, known as Man Or Astro-Man?
“We just wanted to do something as completely different as possible,” says astro-guitarist Birdstuff (aka Brian Teasley), who, along with Coco the Electric Monkey Wizard (Robert DelBueno) and Star Crunch (Brian Causey) formed the core of the band. “We had always been from the world of punk rock, and there was an energy to instrumental surf music that we thought was akin to punk.”
The band’s first two full-length releases, 1993’s Is It Man…Or Astro Man? and 1995’s Project Infinity stand beside the classics of the ’60s as blasts of pure, reverb-drenched surf energy. But instead of dreaming of breakers and bikinis, Man Or Astro Man? were using their songs to drop science — or, at least, science fiction. They were geek rock when being a geek was still geeky. Their songs are shot through with samples from golden-age monster and sci-fi movies. They were incredibly prolific, recording 12 full-lengths and dozens of EPs and singles in eight years, mutating beyond the pure surf of their first recordings into a harder-edged hybrid that included vocals and increasingly experimental soundscapes.
