Man Or Astro-man? were a bunch of madcap musicians from Auburn, Alabama, avid consumers of sci-fi TV shows and surf music.

The single Possession By Remote Control (Homo Habilis, 1993) was the first fruit of their madness, recorded on Halloween night of 1992.

The album Is It Man Or Astro-man? (Estrus, 1993) merges these two passions into a high-energy instrumental rock. Man Or Astro-man? reinterpret surf music through the lens of science fiction. Guitarist Starcrunch, drummer Birdstuff, and bassist Coco The Electronic Monkey Wizard are bursting with enthusiasm and almost always play at a gallop. Each song, often accompanied by a snippet of a film (real or imagined), is a wild dance of epic guitar twang—from the epileptic Taxidermist Surf to the ecstatic Journey To The Stars, from the comical Cattle Drive to the satirical Cowboy Playing Dead (more Cossack than country), or fatalistic ballads like Clean Up On Aisle #9. The most experimental riffs and harmonies are attempts to mimic the monsters they reference: the threatening, noisy harmony of Nitrous Burnout, the punk drive of Eric Estrotica. Mermaid Love is the only sung track. In this way, a traditional genre (Ventures, Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, Shadows) is modernized, highlighting the expressive power of vibrato and reverb. Only the Canadian Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet have done it better. Honor and glory to Starcrunch, lightning-fast guitarist and wild visionary.

The EP Your Weight On The Moon (One Louder, 1994), with Rocketship XC3, Electrostatic Brain Field, and Laser Guns Mean Big Fun, and the single Mission Into Chaos (One Louder, 1994) are just a few episodes in their comic extraterrestrial saga.

Some of their singles were reissued among the twenty-one tracks on Destroy All Astro-men (Estrus, 1994). Reverb 10,000 unleashes a riff halfway between Pink Floyd’s Astronomy Domine and a whirling Persian dance. A Mouthful Of Exhaust gallops supersonically like a country & western. Name Of Numbers pairs a pow-wow with Ventures-style guitar riffs. The band imitates the Stray Cats on Of Sex And Demise, the Fleshtones in garage-rock with organ on Landlocked, and draws from the sensationalism of film soundtracks for Bermuda Triangle Shorts, Gargantua's Last Stand, and Espanto Del Futuro (or parodies them, as in You Can't Get Good Riblets In Space). The record is capped with a wealth of eccentric covers.

A more professional sound makes Project Infinity (Estrus, 1995) a far more serious record, and indeed the band was finally taken seriously by critics. The overwhelming energy of Escape Velocity and Transmissions From Venus left instrumental rock aficionados astonished. The sinister progressions of Sferic Waves and Max Q sent shivers down the spines of revival purists. There are also hints of evolution toward a more melodic style (Complex 34, Mach One) and greater harmonic complexity (Special Agent Conrad Uno).

They also released Intravenous TV Continuum (One Louder, 1995) and Live Transmissions (Homo Habilis, 1995) as compendiums of the band’s immense output (over twenty singles).

The EP Deluxe Men In Space (Touch & Go, 1996) opens in the spirit of extreme exuberance with pseudo-surf instrumentals Maximum Radiation Level and Super Rocket Rumble. It then launches into the zany nursery rhyme U-Uranus, with guitar marking a spy-movie-like rhythm.

The album released a few months later, Experiment Zero (Touch & Go, 1996), instead channels those years of apprenticeship and scattered recordings and may be their masterpiece. Their “galactic” instrumental themes are both tasty and ingenious, featuring spine-chilling guitar progressions and relentless rhythms, not to mention B-movie sci-fi/horror motifs: Television Fission and Maximum Radiation Level are miniature films. The charging drive of DNI, the sparkling melody of Evil Plans Of Planet Spectra, and the menacing, forceful theme of Test Driver mock conventions. Outrageous scenarious like Planet Collision and King Of The Monsters relentlessly pursue the listener. Building on the goofiest instincts of Devo, MOA arrived at a definitive form of instrumental punk rock. Their evolution toward melodic, driving rock is especially showcased in 9 Volt.

What Remains Inside A Black Hole (Au Go Go, 1996) collects darker recordings by the group, including highlights like Polaris, 24 Hours, and Reverb 1000. It is perhaps their least successful album.

1997 began with the EP UFO's And The Men Who Fly Them (Drug Racer), containing four tracks including The Sound Waves and High Wire, and continued with 1000X (Touch & Go, 1997), another EP that may lack the weight of a full album, but whose handful of instrumental tracks—the driving progressions of The Miracle Of Genuine Pyrex, the psycho-industrial disturbances of Like A Giant Microwave, the lightning-fast, exuberant theme of Man Made Of OO2, and the hard-rock syncopations and alien noises of 100 Individual Magnets—belong in their major repertoire, marking a progression that is pushing them beyond the narrow confines of surf music.

However, the quintessential ’90s “surfers” stumble with Made From Technetium (Touch & Go, 1997). The record opens with a sung track, Lo Batt, which, due to its futuristic delivery, punk attitude, and overwhelming cadence, makes them sound like a poor imitation of Devo or Ultravox. The hard-rock guitar riff that drives the song continues across tracks, overshadowing even the most charming moments. Perhaps the album has too much singing and talking, perhaps the deafening guitar sound distracts from the core element, which was humor. Either way, this is decidedly a minor work in their (massive) output. Avant-garde experiments like Muzak For Cybernetics sound almost naďve. The surf progressions of Jonathan Winters Frankenstein and the absurd voodoobilly of Static Cling are not enough to redeem an album spoiled by overconfidence.

The single Cuts And Volts (Touch & Go, 1998) suffers from the same flaws.

Eeviac (Touch & Go, 1999), recorded in Brazil, showcases an equally powerful sound but also ventures into some experiments outside their usual territory. Alongside the usual breathtaking tracks—Interstellar Hardrive, Theme From Eeviac, and Engines Of Difference in particular—the album also includes the robotic industrial music of D:contamination and the languid psychedelic “ballad” Myopia. The Astroman are attempting to reinvent their career, but outside of surf they are like fish out of water. Worsening the situation, and perhaps motivating these experiments, is the drying up of the melodic vein that had sustained the band for so many years.

Servotron was an offshoot of Man Or Astroman, led by Brian Causey, that released No Room For Humans (Amphetamine Reptile, 1996), the remix/rarities of Spare Parts (1997), and Entertainment Program for Humans (Lookout, 1998) in a cartoonish sci-fi and retro` vein, even more similar to Devo than Man Or Astroman's. Causey later started the project Causey Way and released With Loving And Open Arms (Alternative Tentacles, 1999), Testimony (2000) and Causey Vs. Everything (Alternative Tentacles, 2001).