Author Archives: Joe Sparrow

Album Commentary LIVE! Art Brut’s Eddie Argos and Charlie Layton to discuss new LP “Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out!” for a rapt, raucous and ravenous audience in Berlin!

? Album Commentary Live: Art Brut’s Eddie Argos and Charlie Layton discuss “Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out!” (plus an encore of classic ‘Brut hits) with Joe Sparrow
? Time/Date: 20:30, Thursday 22nd November 2018
?Venue: Posh Teckel, Pflügerstraße 4, 12047 Berlin
? Tickets: Very limited spaces – GET YER TICKETS HERE

Good grief, Album Commentary has emerged from hibernation with a big art-pop-shaped splat! – and it’s one of my all-time favourite bands, Art Brut, who are making it happen.

Because, lo! Eddie and Charlie from Art Brut are going to provide what – it’s safe  to assume – will be a series of myth-laden pie-in-the-sky anecdotes, drinking stories and dubious excuses as they provide live album commentary of their new LP, Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out!

(If you’re not sure – Album Commentary is like a director’s commentary of an album, by the artist, as the record plays. It’s not a listening party, or one of those events where you sit quietly and reflect on the *importance* of a record while it plays over expensive speakers.)

And it’ll all be for a rapt, ravenous and raucous* audience in Berlin on 22nd November, the day before the album is released.

And talking of leaps – Album Commentary is jumping from the web to where slightly-dubious discussion about music should happen: the pub. Yep, the first ever Album Commentary Live event is happening at the perfect venue: Posh Teckel, in the band’s adopted hometown of Berlin.

(Posh Teckel is the perfect location, BTW – it’s the best bar in the city for people who love great music, talking about great music, and bumping into rock stars. Johnny Marr, for instance, hangs around there whenever he’s in Berlin.)

Moreover, what better way for this famously brilliant live act to celebrate the release of Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out (the band’s first album since 2011’s Brilliant! Tragic!) than in a venue designed for boisterous bands and drinking?

GRAB YOUR TICKET HERE!

Frankly, who knows which way the exact album commentary will go once we hit play Eddie gets talking, but highlights might include:

  • A never-before-heard live track-by-track commentary of new album Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! by Eddie and Charlie, who can both talk a bit, frankly
  • Eddie talking about their great new song Hospital, which documents, “the most undignified month,” of Eddie’s life – when he almost died from Peritonitis (actually maybe this bit is not strictly a “highlight”)
  • Booze! Glorious booze!
  • You can grab a signed copy of the new album scrawled on for you by Eddie and Charlie!
  • BONUS: hear Eddie gossip about an “encore” selection of Classic Art Brut Hits, possibly including the hall-of-fame pop hits Formed A Band, Direct Hit and, oh, I dunno, let’s figure this bit out on the night.
  • The exclusive opportunity for YOU, the ravenous public, to interject, jeer, cheer and ask dubious questions!

The amazeybongos new LP, Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s Rock Out! is out on 23rd November on the equally amazeybongos Alcopop! Records – order your copy here. So you can come to the Album Commentary, listen to Eddie and Charlie talk all over the album, then drink with them until midnight, and then buy the album at one minute past midnight. Top of the Pops!

GET YOUR TICKETS HERE!

*raucousness, ravenousness and rapturedness of audience not guaranteed

Cat. no: ALBCOM #003

ALBCOM#001: LOUIS BARABBAS & THE BEDLAM SIX’S GET RELIGION

louis-barabbas

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Back when Louis Barabbas had a frankly enormous beard, and I had something approaching ice-hockey hair, I asked Louis if he’d mind talking for a bit about The Bedlam Six‘s recent release, Get Religion, and then Louis spent six months trying to avoid me.

What am I saying? A man who could talk the hind leg off a donkey – and then the other hind leg, and then anything else hanging from the rear of the poor animal – he leapt at the chance.

The thorny issue of whether the collection of songs was an LP, and EP, or an Album-ette was chewed over. And, typically, what we chewed was washed down with gin and tonics.

ALBCOM#002 BONUS TRACK – LOUIS BARABBAS ON THE MAKING OF “YOUTH”

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 “This is a discussion about why things are the length they are”

Being the gobshite loquacious fellow that he is, Louis talked for so long and so interestingly about the Bedlam Six‘s album, Youth, that I sliced a whole separate interview out of it.

We talked about squeaky-clean, age-repelling friend-of-Cilla, Cliff Richard, on how recording the album was a lot like going to Center Parcs, and whether the album is a concept album or not.

SPOILER: Louis think it isn’t; and then he also thinks it is.

ALBCOM#002: LOUIS BARABBAS & THE BEDLAM SIX’S YOUTH

bedlam_six

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“This is the first record we’ve made that a year on, I still like.”

 

Louis Barabbas and the Bedlam Six divide audiences like few other contemporary bands: while some people just don’t connect with them, others are slavishly, rabidly, crazily enamoured with them.

They do it all themselves, with a DIY label and ethos that doesn’t compromise on quality or intent. They’re not cool, and they don’t get buzz.

Because of this – not despite it – they are one of the few bands I know that can book a large venue and sell it out without much worry, time after time.

One of the most amazing things about that is that, outside of their fanbase, most people probably don’t know that the gig is happening in the first place.

 

“I feel like if we stopped now… we’d still have this *thing*. Wait – I don’t want to stop now, because we have a thousand boxes of them!”

 

They attract fans by some sort of outsider-osmosis; finding people who feel alienated and have a base need for grimy, outré character-driven rock.

Sitting down with a bottle of gin – and another bottle of gin – Louis and I talk about how they went about recording Youth: an album of songs that were designed to be played live.

All the following questions are answered, in a roundabout way: how do you capture the spirit of a live rock band on an LP and make it work? What similarities are there between his band and 1970’s pop behemoths Slade?

And just how hard is it to record seagulls? (Very, apparently.)

This album commentary is best enjoyed with: gin, more gin; Slayed? by Slade; a photo album of your childhood; a deep-seated fear of seagulls.

NB: Louis has also described the LP’s lyrics in great depth: it’s a great companion to the above (by which I mean, it probably makes more sense)