Plenty of bands have written great songs about starting rock & roll bands, but my personal favorite is Art Brut’s “Formed a Band” off their 2005 LP Bang Bang Rock & Roll. Lead vocalist Eddie Argos is hilarious, repeating in a cool South London accent, “We’ve formed a band/We’ve formed a band/Look at us/We’ve formed a band!”
He’s pretty impressed with himself, he is, and he has high aspirations; “We’re gonna be the band that writes the song that makes Israel and Palestine get along.” And not only that: they’re also going to write a song “as universal as Happy Birthday” and “take that song and “play it/ Eight weeks in a row on Top of the Pops.” “Dye your hair black/Never look back,” he concludes, to a song with a raucous beat that is as primal as Bam Bam. Great stuff.
Universally acclaimed, Bang Bang Rock & Roll established Art Brut as part of the movement that also brought us Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party, but I like them more because they’re funnier, and Argos has a way of declaiming instead of singing that I find irresistible. Art Brut is big on chants, as is evidenced by “My Little Brother,” on which Argos repeats, “My little brother just discovered rock & roll” over a song reminiscent of the Clash; “he no longer listens to A sides,” proclaims Argos, proof that his brother has a case of rock fever and has it bad: “There’s a noise in his head and he’s out of control!” On the similarly chant-like Emily Kane, Argos tells a sweet story about his first love, “Every girl I’ve seen since,” he sings, “Looks just like you when I squint,” before acknowledging that he’s still in love although he hasn’t seen her “in “10 years, 9 months, 3 weeks, 4 days/6 hours, 13 minutes, 5 seconds.”
“Rusted Guns” is a slower tune about impotence, with Argos opening it by repeating “I know I can I know I can” when it’s deadly obvious he can’t. “Leave the lights on!” he repeats, apologizing and offering his disappointed lover a cup of coffee in lieu of fornication before pleading, “Don’t tell your friends” while some great backing vocals give the song its lovely punch. “I know I can when I use my own hand,” he concludes, while follow-up “Modern Art” opens with some dissonant guitar strum and pounding drums before Argos chants, “Modern art/Makes me want to rock out” over some screaming female vocalists. Did I say rock out? It actually makes him crazy: “I see a piece by Matisse/That’s my window of opportunity/I take five steps back/I put my head down/And I run at it.” The Tate Gallery, you’ve been forewarned. “Good Weekend” has a staggering and rough-hewn beat over which Argos repeats, “Got myself a brand new girlfriend,” then goes on to crow, “I’ve seen her naked—twice!” before a cool guitar solo over which Argos says, “Go guitar, go” in a deadpan that doesn’t exactly prove he’s crazy about it.
The brilliant “Once Is Enough” opens with the band shouting, “Bang bang rock & roll,” after which Argos declares, “I can’t stand the sound/Of the Velvet Underground” (backup singers, “White Light/White Heat”) and “No more songs about sex and drugs and rock & roll/It’s boring.” Irony reigns, however, as the song includes lots of drilling guitars and mimics, in its own small way, the cacophony of the second VU LP. On the pugilistic “Fight” Argos and band chant, “Come on/Come on/Let’s have a fight,” and while the lyrics aren’t as top-notch as usual the melody and the backing vocalists chanting, “Fight fight etc.” are cool, as is the police siren.
The laid-back and utterly infectious shuffle that is “Moving to L.A.” features a Argos who is fed up with the notoriously miserable English weather and who wants to move away. His plan is simple: “I think I have it sorted/I’m going to get myself deported.” To L.A., where he’ll “hang around with Axl Rose” and buy himself “some brand new clothes.” I especially like the lines, “When I get off that plane/The first thing I’m gonna do is strip naked to the waist/And ride my Harley Davidson/Up and down Sunset Strip/Hmmm, I may even get a tattoo.” “Bad Weekend” opens with a rockin’ riff over which Argos repeats, “Haven’t read NME in so long,” followed by the blunt declaration that, “Popular culture/No longer applies to me.” The song proceeds at a zesty clip, Argos whining that it’s “tough at the top” before admitting, “I saved up so much money to spend/All I can afford is a bad weekend/And there’s no reason for staying in/There’s nothing on the television.” Not the best lyrics, but the song is catchy as hell.
“Stand Down” opens with a throbbing, bass-heavy beat, and is about giving in and standing down and how there’s no shame in either. “The bravest decision/You ever make/Is admitting that/You’ve made a mistake,” sings Argos, who invokes the name of Enrico Gatti, an Italian terrorist whose gang failed so completely at their trade (they planted one bomb; it exploded and scared them to death) that a fellow terrorist told them to “give up. You’re a danger to everyone.” Gatti’s Gang is also the subject of album closer “18,000 Lira,” a battering ram of a song about the gang’s haul from its only successful bank robbery. Singing from the gang’s point of view, Argos sings, “The Red Brigade made us give our bomb back” and (because no one in the gang could drive) “He (Enrique) couldn’t even get bus passes this time/Just scooters/Very fast scooters.” It’s a wonderfully hilarious number about revolutionary incompetence (“Yeah, we’ve got guns/But they’re antiques”) and I can only wish Art Brut had saved both “Stand Down” and “18,000 Lira” for a concept LP about the gang that struck mirth, rather than terror, into the hearts of the Italian populace.
Art Brut makes smart music for people who like a good dose of irony with their tunes, and I happen to be one of those people. Ian MacKaye once said, “Rock is no joke.” He’s partly right, which is to say that rock needn’t be a joke, but I like it when it is. Which is not to say that Art Brut is a joke band. They’re simply not part of the tradition of high seriousness that Matthew Arnold wrote about and that many artists (U2 come to mind) practice. No, Art Brut fits into the great tradition of Oscar Wilde and Morrissey, the latter of whom Art Brut name-drops in “Moving to L.A.” Wilde famously quipped, “Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about” and I stand with him, rather than with the serious talkers who don’t find life, or rock, particularly funny. Which is why I love Art Brut; between the grimace and the grin, I’ll choose the latter every time.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
