Art Brut @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC 4/4/06
Enter Art Brut. "Enter Sandman." Tongue firmly in cheek, Art Brut took on Bowery Ballroom Tuesday night with a quick jam on Metallica's rock radio staple. Within moments, they had moved into the triumphant debauchery of Bang Bang Rock And Roll lead track "Formed A Band." And though front man Eddie Argos claims his singing voice isn't born of irony, you better believe this opening sequence was. Tease an ode to the dark side of fantasy and cede to a celebration of the grandeur of the dream. Satirically calculated, Onion-approved.
Watching Argos nod his head to each sidesplitting syllable, arm extended to the congregation, everything about this band just clicks. As with many in the pantheon of punk legends, Art Brut's unorthodox vocals somehow bolster each song's musicality. Take "Emily Kane." A sure-fire anthem built on a simple, descending major scale riff. Though taut and dynamic, sing any melody to that instrumental and -- no matter the lyric -- you've written a snooze-fest. Argos's solution: don't sing. Inflect. With no sappy melodies to distract, the focus is on Argos's brilliant lyrics and the band's charging assault. Merriment and moshing ensue.
Eddie's backers are lethal assassins, to a tee. Drummer Mikey B leads the onslaught, with fills born of double stroke rolls and muscular tom patterns. His perfect posture behind the kit belies the reckless abandon of his playing: smashing crash-cymbals in chorus, intricate closed-hat snare patterns in verse. The outfit's guitarists - Ian Catskilkin and Jasper Future - are a perfect art wave tandem: weaving power chords and angular guitar lines, wearing impossibly tight tops, stumbling in feigned intoxication. Unless it was true intoxication.
The crowd's teeming energy whipped to frenzy during the mania of "Modern Art," with a mosh pit attractive enough for Eddie to join. After a few minutes with an arm in the air and his trademark crooked grin, Argos ran back up on stage, only to exit again through the side door and parade through the balcony. "I thought that was a good one Art Brut, well done!" he said upon return. There's just something about Eddie calling the members of his band "Art Brut."
"Popular culture no longer applies to me!" Eddie rants in "Bad Weekend." Maybe he was being confessional when he penned this lyric those many months back. Maybe he secretly wished it would prove as ironic as the rest of his canons. But with a show this brilliant -- and punk this smart - popular culture may not merely apply to him: it may lie down and submit to his most perverted desires. And I imagine that would make for a fine Art Brut song.
Check out more of my pics at Village Indian, and download this unnecessary but not unlistenable Brutleg of "Formed A Band" mashed with the Knack:
Spoiler Boy (Feat. Art Brut) - "My Sherona [sic] Formed A Band" (MP3)
Posted at 1:10 PM in Concert
What did you think of the Party Dream? They are a hometown favorite. In Ohio.
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AND: Art Brut are doing a guest DJ spot -- and maybe more -- at The Annex tonight for Stolen Transmission.
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At the Chicago show, Party Dream were incredibly close to stealing the show from Art Brut for me. Absolutely the most whacked-out, hilarious, sickening and yet frighteningly catchy show from an opener I've seen in a long time.
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I sang. I danced. I jumped. I screamed. I I pumped fists. I moshed (a bit, during Modern Art it was hard to resist), and I laughed A LOT. I didn't realize how punk they'd sound live, and it was awesome. Eddie is one of my favorite front men of all time.
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As a graphic designer, I fail to see how this is bigger news than the new K-Fed leak: http://wwtdd.com/index.php?type=box&p=kfedsnap.shtml
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I was at mercury. the stills show was packed and sounding great. where've they been hiding? great band. lots of fun.
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I find it interesting to learn that every Art Brut show is basically exactly the same.
Seriously though, I was at the Vancouver show a few weeks ago, which is described here: http://itcameoutmagical.blogspot.com/2006/03/bang-bang-rock-n-roll.html and has a picture of what is basically the same set list save that Post Soothing Out is called New Song
And Pitchfork reviewed a show from November which I thought could apply as a perfect description to the march show i attended.
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/features/live/a/art-brut-05/
And now this.
I don't want this to affect my opinion of Art Brut, but I have to admit that it makes the show seem a lot less spontaneous.
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Back here in the UK, Art Brut are known as a complete joke, albeit a moderately amusing one.
They are huge in Germany.
Go figure.
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Gil Mantera's Party Dream (check out the video at partydream.com) are playing Northsix tonight, for anyone who missed the Art Brut show.
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village indian: get a job at rolling stone. your reviews are about as loquacious and desperate as that magazine.
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Re: Posting from The Idiot
The UK considers Art Brut a joke, yet worships at the altar of Babyshambles.
Merely considering the source.
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on the subject of every show being the same, i was at the 4/05 show, where eddie argos basically said that their show would all be requests. the order of songs turned out to be suspiciously similar, if not the same, as the tuesday show. except for the sandman bit, they didn't do that. still, even if their spontaneity was all a sham, the show was awesome and i loved it.
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i think the spontaneity of their shows is really just misconception and misinterpretation of their name and ostensible "message." i mean, honestly, of course it's not going to be fucking spontaneous. gil mantera's party dream are incontrovertibly not spontaneous. spontaneity just doesn't really fit in with the present conceptualisation of popular music. i mean, it authentically is pretty formulaic. regardless of the band's opinions towards the libertines and bbshamblz and that, they legitimately are just a variation on the present-day british modification of punk music. they do cull influences from the modern lovers and loads of other musicians peter doherty's probably never paid attention to, but due to context and things, it's predominantly just an alteration of the libertines and that. IN MY OPINION. your expectations are truthfully a bit high if you believe that eddie argos is going to start chucking paint at you.
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Re: Posting by EE Cummings.
Loquacious?? You’re criticizing someone’s fluency using the word ‘loquacious’ ??? Why don’t you get a job at Webster’s and save your input for the Scrabble Club.
VI review/s have been stellar! Keep’m Comin'
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Re: The Idiot & the UK
i'm in the uk and don't get the impression that art brut are a complete joke... they're pretty popular amongst my pals & the coverage they get on bbc 6music is almost always favorable.
even when they had their summertime spat with bloc party, which picked up a bit of NME coverage, they still came out pretty well.
i get the impression the uk critics/tastemakers like them, as do a lot of listeners. they've just not made any significant chart splash but wotevaa. not a joke round these parts.
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A dumb, smarmy-ironic mustache for a dumb, smarmy-ironic band.
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smarmy-ironic? Thanks for coining the dumbest phrase of 2006.
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I met some the members during the editors sxsw show, they were standing next to us, pretty cool guys.
ultra8201.blogspot.com
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jesus christ...what's with all the anger in this thread? who do you think you are, graphic designers?
Bunch of morons if you ask me...
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Way to not get defensive about the bands you like, Matt. Good man.
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Ahhhh... the return of the overwritten review by Amrit.
Kudos to working the sentence:
"Tease an ode to the dark side of fantasy and cede to a celebration of the grandeur of the dream."
into the very first paragraph.
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Art Brut! Top of the Pops!
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"overwritten?" go back to trolling livejournal posts then; some mighty fine reviews over there.
is it too much to ask to have a well-written review online that isn't inundated with p'fork (or others) pretention?
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I saw Art Brut in the 7th St Entry a little while ago (wrote about it here: http://pandasthatwontscrewtosavetheirspecies.blogspot.com/2006/03/i-saw-me-some-art-brut.html ).
Anyway, I loved Gil Mantera's Party Dream. I mean, to be so shocked and awed (and frightened) by a band you know nothing about when you go to see them, it's always an unexpected treat. Afterwards I read up on them and learned about the cult, almost legendary, following they have around Ohio. Don't know if they will make Top of the Pops, but hot damn are they some wild fun. "I don't know why I love you" indeed.
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oh man, "Good Weekend" to close the encore? I gotta see these guys.
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pics from 04/05 show at www.merryswankster.com
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Actually, if they were playing at a dive bar near me I'd go see them, just for shits and giggles.
The same goes guns n roses and p diddy though.
Art Brut were famously dropped from rough trade after one single, when the label boss actually got round to seeing them play live , he was shocked at how bad they were.
There are a lot of good bands on rough trade.
Itt's great to see everyone getting involved and emotional about stuff, if art brut can stir that up then in a few years eddie argos could do a jarvis cocker.
Art Brut are still huge in germany, just like david hasslehoff, and i'm sure the germans don't understand the subtle nuances of eddie argos' culture that get the yanks hard.
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pics and clips from the Chicago show here:
http://www.fasthack.com/archives/282
The Party Dream did indeed steal the show.
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