Live
< Art Brut @ Mean Fiddler
words by Sam Little
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Forget the fact that guitarist Jasper Future is embarrassing himself, showing off as he auditions for a bigger part in a bigger band; cast aside those memories of Loud And Quiet last gigging it with Art Brut in the million degree Californian sun of Coachella; even allow yourself to forgive Eddie Argos for ditching the mustache after reading a review that informed him he was 40 (amongst other odds and sods tonight, Argos confides this very fact with us by means of an exclusive slab of goss). Having topped the charts (quite literally with ‘Good Weekend’) in every country from the US to Germany, the former Yugoslavia and beyond, Art Brut have returned to the very city that spewed this make-shift garage band onto a bed-sit carpet back in 2004. “If Jay Z were here he’d say, ‘You’ve got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one,” imagines Argos, halfway through ‘Emily Kane’ and void of any back track. “And I’d say, “Sorry Jay Z, I don’t like your misogynistic view on women,” continues the day dreaming singer to rapturous applause and whoops as the chugging guitars of his band are fired up once more.
How Argos is still enjoying playing his band’s brutally honest pop/noise nonsense as much as he is is beyond us, but now he’s even shouting about it too - “LOOK HOW MUCH FUN WE’RE HAVING!” he yells over the outro to ‘Bad Weekend’ in an attempted to make every last one of us follow suit and ‘form a band’.
But tonight isn’t purely about keeping the Art Brut name alive with the band’s ‘Bang Bang Rock’n’Roll’ back catalogue. As well as showboating an opening instrumental of AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’, new songs - still very much about love in the 90s and parents ‘not worrying about us’ - pepper tonight’s performance. And - would you believe it - tracks like new single ‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’ suggest that, if they take a run at it and flap their foppish fringes like crazy, Argos and Co. are indeed evolving into a band who could well make that leap the mainstream with their next 2007 release
Originally appeared in volume 1, issue 19 of Loud & Quiet magazine
