Men's Recovery Project

The Very Best Of (5RC)

Sam McPheeters's Men's Recovery Project must have been very confounding to the hardcore fans of his previous band, Born Against – even more so considering how, even a decade later, some of these songs are wholly unlike anything else out there. It may be that they were ahead of their time in 1993 or that no one could, or wanted to, emulate Men's Recovery Project. Noted for their warped humor and keyboard-and-drum-machine-driven sound, MRP also had bizarre live shows that went past masked shtick. McPheeters performed the entire Patrick Henry "Give me liberty or give me death" speech in colonial garb at the start of one tour, and there are tales of band members leaving shows mid-set, driving off without a discussion or contingency plan. The elaborate photo booklet in this package captures some of the costumes and conceptual leanings of MRP, including plentiful bondage masks and shoes strapped to faces.

All in all, MRP might be considered punk analogues to Andy Kaufman's extended put-ons, totally confounding the desire for "entertainment" while still being entertaining. It is definitely not mass entertainment, and one could rightly feel that the laughs are coming at the listener's expense. The band's name always sounded a bit scary in the drum-circle way, implying that men were in some posttraumatic state that might be fixed by McPheeters and longtime collaborator Neil Burke. I would venture to guess the name was as much a dig at the machismo of the East Coast punk scene as it was at the ascendance of boomer hypocrisy in the Clinton era. There are Dada-esque scatological one-liners, as in the brief "Man Urinating, Laughter" (just what you'd think) and the minimalist "Manhole," though the exclusion of "Email Is a Men's Room" is somewhat baffling. Their deadpan art damage is best exemplified in the postapocalyptic "Frank Talk" and the existentialist despair of anthropomorphic furniture in "The Couch," the closest thing to a developed character in the entire oeuvre.

On further consideration, the closest cousins of this band are not really punk at all. The schizoid personae of hip-hop weirdos like Kool Keith and the perpetually masked MF Doom come to mind rather than sonically similar electro-punk ilk. MRP never maintained a consistent universe or characters, jumbling Egyptian assassins with robot mayors and Walt Disney's frozen head, but can you imagine any other acts from the '90s ABC No Rio scene delving this deeply into its internal illogic? With more than 200 songs in their catalog, most of which clock in at under a minute, a box set may have been an unmarketable excursion, but it would have been nice to include McPheeters's Shooting Space zine about MRP's tour to Alaska. Thankfully, that zine and a few choice MRP discs are still available at www.vermiform.com. (George Chen)