Live music listings: March 2008Roll the mouse over the dates on the calendar below to see who's playing, then click on the date for the full listing and ticket info.Click on the mailing list link to your left there and enter your email address and we'll let you know, at the start of every week, who's playing in the next seven days and for how much, and leave you to peruse the full listings here at your liberty and leisure.
EVENTS CALENDARRoll over dates on the calendar above to show event details.
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Thu 13th The JD Set Presents Art Brut with support from The Official Secrets Act
Doors 7.30 “That’s what we kept saying all the while we were recording the album,” says Eddie Argos, ‘it’s a bit complicated’. So it just made sense that that would be the title.” Oh yes, with their Dan Swift produced second album, their first for new label Labels / Mute, Art Brut (Eddie Argos - vocals, Ian Catskilkin - lead guitar, Freddy Feedback - bass, MIkey B - drums and new guitarist Jasper Future) have grown up. But don’t worry, they’ve only grown up a little bit. “The first album was kind of me when I was 17, and I suppose this one is me when I’m 19. If we do another one, I expect it will be me when I was 21.” As chief rapier wit and unlikely champion of Britpop’s new wave, the 27-year-old Eddie Argos is used to living life at the speed of pop. It was (a bit) complicated enough for the band who combined kitchen sink drama and French philosophy to even get here – “here” being encroaching international superstardom – from humble beginnings as champions of London’s DIY New Cross Scene, class of 2004. And you’ll know about Eddie Argos, former postman, lifelong dreamer, occasional indie prophet whose only real ambition in life was to one day get on Top Of The Pops. The TOTP dream may be over now the show has ended, but It’s A Bit Complicated takes Art Brut’s love affair with pop music to dizzying new levels. “I didn’t realise how much I love England, being away from here for so long,” says Eddie. The band had just completed their biggest ever US and UK tours, festivals across the globe including Coachella, Pitchfork, Benacassim and New York’s Siren, had a hit single in all-new track ‘Nag Nag Nag Nag’ and, recently signed to Labels / Mute, they were quick to work on ‘It’s A Bit Complicated’. “It’s good,” muses Eddie, “because we never really got to write the first album. We just had to use all the songs we had. This time we knew what we were doing.” And in every sense, it’s a better album – a bit complicated, but not so much that it muddies the cast-iron pop principles the band were founded on. “The album is more if the same, but better. We’ve got a sense of humour, but we’re not a joke.” Official Secrets Act met deep in the galleys of the last of the great sea clippers. Tired of the sirens and the crack of the whip they jumped ship in Shanghai and earned a meagre crust playing sea shanties for the great and the good of the opium trade. At the fall of Singapore they stowed away to the west and now find themselves in the shark infested waters of 21st century London. They sound like a honey-trap sturm-und-drang disco hedgehog, seconds before it's squashed under the merciless wheels of the giant "rockadecker" bus, driven by Kitchener with a tear in his eye and war on his radio. Or Talking Heads if they'd listened to more Weezer, Woody Guthrie, and the Shipping Forecast.
"Pop-tential to be a classic mainstream band"- Emma Edmondson, NME |
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