Also this issue: Founding Fathers The experts at Philly's new Foundry label want to make good music and good money at the same time. -A.D. Amorosi Bringing It All Back Home Bob Dylan returns to Newport. -Nate Chinen Mixed Messages Electronic music pioneer Mark Farina puts it all together. -Sean O’Neal Tomas Jirku -Sean O’Neal The Catheters -Paul Burress

August 15-21, 2002

musicpicks

Manplanet/ God-The Band

Humor: It's not easy to do well within the confines of rock, especially if there's a madcap visual element each band member (usually with the exception of the drummer) participates in with theatrical relish. Devo and The Residents found a way to maintain a palette of ironic quirk. Few have succeeded since. Presently, Minneapolis' Manplanet and Brooklyn's God-The Band seem to possess the big-goggled, paper-costumey herky-jerkiness of Devo (see Manplanet's robo-pop self-released An Introductory to Musicianship), while adding the snarky sincerity of Weezer and '80s power-pop for something crisply Donnie Iris-ian. God-The Band have the manic dinner-theater edge in that they've allowed themselves -- at Painted Bride, yet -- to be thespian-like as the band behind Hedwig and the Angry Inch. On this, their night off, GTB promises to rip through God's Money Back Guarantee and God's Greatest Hits with goofball gusto. Khyber regulars beware: Musical theater types will attend.

Thu., Aug. 15, 9 p.m., $7, with The Walkie Talkies, Mini Band, The Khyber, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888.

—A.D. Amorosi

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