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Atom and His Package
Quirky One-Man Band Gets Down to Essentials
 Listen to Neda Ulaby's report.
July 27, 2002 -- Adam Goren writes songs that are deeply personal -- perhaps even obsessively self-referential. Through his songs, Goren frequently mocks himself and his friends in an idiosyncratic mix of shameless emoting and cheeky in-jokes, all wrapped in a retro '80s sound that comes from an electronic sequencer. Goren and his sequencer bill themselves as Atom and His Package. During one recent show, devoted fans in the audience ranged from a teenage girl with a skateboard to an off-duty Marine who enthused, "It's thinker's music. It's geek punk rock. It's great!"
As Neda Ulaby reports for Weekend Edition Saturday, Goren has no qualms about being a geek. To him, it's basically the same as being a rebel. That attitude, he says, was shaped in high school. His song Punk Rock Academy, a place he dreamed of as a sanctuary "where no one made fun of me," goes a long way toward explaining the roots of his geekhood.
Goren plays more than 200 shows a year -- not counting bar mitzvahs. He studied neuroscience in college, but he ditched his degree and threw himself into the Philadelphia music scene. When his punk band broke up, he tagged along with another band on tour, and on a lark he started opening for them with his "package."
"There are a lot of jokes about the package and all that stuff," he says. "And part of me takes complete blame for that, and it's completely my fault for naming it something so stupid. But I've heard every joke about it and… ha ha."
While many of his songs are funny, Goren takes the music seriously -- and even some of the funniest songs make some kind of point. One of them -- the title cannot be repeated here -- takes aim at the owner of the Washington Redskins, and defends the discerning deployment of "political correctness" when it's warranted. Other titles include "Tim Allen is Not Very Funny," and "Sting Cannot Possibly Be the Same Guy Who Was in The Police."
Goren also helps to run an independent record label called File 13 that handles about eight bands, some of which are starting to draw the attention of big labels. But with Atom and His Package, he strips the do-it-yourself credo down to its barest essentials. It's just him and his package.
Other Resources
 The Atom and His Package homepage
Adam likes "weird burritos." Here's a recipe.
Glen McDonald's music review site
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