Tojo Yamamoto – Man on the Moon

Clean Sheets favourites Tojo Yamamoto continue their 7” single club project following their 2024 version of David Bowie’s ‘Heroes’ and last year’s take on The Sweet’s ‘Ballroom Blitz’ under the reworked title The Concession Stand Blitz’.

Now, I’ve always had a bit of a love-hate relationship with R.E.M., I love what they put out in the 1980’s, I even have time for their major label breakthrough albums Green and Out of Time but I’ve got to be honest I’ve always found Automatic for the People an irritating record which features ‘Everybody Hurts’, a profoundly annoying self-pitying gospel-esque number that still makes me cringe whenever I have the misfortune to hear it. Thankfully its not this which the band have chosen to cover but ‘Man on the Moon’, still not a personal favourite but definitely the lesser of two evils. In case you didn’t know, the track’s subject matter focuses on Andy Kaufman, who for my fellow Brits was Latka Gravas in the sitcom Taxi (which also featured Danny De Vito and Christopher Lloyd). A profoundly eccentric character he also performed as the absurd, audience-abusing lounge singer character Tony Clifton and had a well documented love for professional wrestling which he also participated in, (this latter point is particularly relevant given Tojo Yamamoto’s penchant for the sport). There are also rumours Kaufman faked his own death as a hoax, so he was certainly an intriguing individual, certainly a good deal more than the stadium filling behemoths R.E.M. were evolving into around this time.

So as with the aforementioned ‘The Concession Stand Blitz’ you get two tracks, one being the cover and the other a remix. The record features fantastic packaging as per usual and is one of many reasons why I love these lads so much, their care and attention to detail in this department has always impressed, especially to someone like me who loves art but who is useless at it. The band (Will Pieratt – Bass, Larry Joe Treadaway – Vocals, Elwood Francis – Guitars, Darren Howard – Drums and Lina Francis providing additional Vocals) bookend the track with wrestling samples and while the original had something of a country-rock flavour, there is a more of a Psychedelic feel here that is offset at various times by pretty heavy hitting and crunchy Noise-Rock. Think mid-70’s Pink Floyd if they lost the pomposity and started jamming with the likes of Killdozer and The Cows. In fact the work Treadaway et al produce here remind me of Killdozer and their interpretations of ‘American Pie’, ‘Take the Money and Run’, etc. I’d say Mr Kaufman were he still with us would have much preferred this tribute to what the Athens, Georgia quartet presented, given his anarchic nature (also there’s no annoying Elvis vocal tics present either, is a double bonus). THIS is how you take a somewhat bland, innocuous track and do something interesting with it, spectacular. Then there’s the ‘remix’ which at times resembles Dream-Pop or even Shoegaze, giving the listener a haunting Mazzy Star 'Ghost Highway’ vibe. Its like the band have taken the essence of what the original was trying to achieve but actually done it in a fashion that makes it far more interesting and inspiring, (this can actually apply to both tracks). A deeply moving, creative piece that helps conclude the record.

Tojo Yamamoto have hit yet another home run, with probably their best cover to date. With this midas touch the band could probably take a tune as risible as ‘Wonderwall’ and turn it into something special, not that this is a personal request.