Tag: Grandma's Warehouse

Man’s Body is a band based in both Los Angeles and Chicago. The “soft punk” band recently released its second full-length album A Set Of Steak Knives on NocturnalSol (a division of Heyday Media Group) which was recorded at KooPin in Queens, NY, Kingsize Sound Labs in Chicago, IL and Grandma’s Warehouse in Los Angeles, CA representing perhaps the sensibilities, influences and roots of the music. The music is an eclectic form of what might be called power pop but with the kind of post-punk that has vivid moods and strong atmospheric elements and the loud-quiet dynamics that are often attributed to Pixies but which can be traced to Mission of Burma. Whatever influences the group has absorbed Man’s Body has its own sound born of its members’ various backgrounds. Greg Franco came up in the Hollywood punk and underground rock world of that city having formed The Blasphemous Yellow with his brother at age 16 and played shows with bands like Psi Com (which included a pre-Jane’s Addiction Perry Farrell) and Tex & The Horseheads (which included Jeffrey Lee Pierce of Gun Club fame in its early incarnations). J. Niimi has been in and around the Chicago music scene since the late 80s as a multi-instrumentalist, a songwriter, a luthier and as a music journalist. The two met when Niimi’s band Ashtray Boy played one night in Los Angeles and the two hit it off as friends and a year later Franco’s band Rough Church played at Schubas in Chicago where Niimi was invited to fill in on drums. From there the emergent band Man’s Body would go on to record the Found EP at Steve Albini’s studio Electrical Audio and two full length albums. A Set Of Steak Knives and its lush production and evocative and imaginative songwriting is proof that though Niimi and Franco live in different parts of the country that their creative chemistry is yielding a compelling body of work.

Listen to our interview with Niimi on Bandcamp linked below and to listen to A Set Of Steak Knives visit the NocturnalSol Bandcamp page also linked below where you can also order a limited vinyl edition of the record.