Art Brut – The Blood Arm – at The Echo – Los Angeles, CA

Tonight's journey to The Echo in Silverlake started many many years ago, more on that later. The Echo has to be one of the coolest club's in Los Angeles to see the bands of tomorrow, today. Over the years many of our staff has seen so many bands there long before they became the names they are in music today. With the smell of “Danger Dogs” in the air, as we walked the forgotten parts of Sunset Blvd we ran into plenty of people all going the same way to the show.

Opening the show was Los Angeles based, The Blood Arm. The first time we had caught wind of this band was on Indie 103.1, which is sadly no longer on the airwaves in Los Angeles. It had been a while since we had seen them play and they still packed the punch they always had. Nothing has changed with the gregarious nature of vocalist Nathaniel Fregoso.

During tonight’s show he was really on the hunt to make sure that the audience’s astrological signs were compatible as well as other points of engagement. He ended a solid set by singing from the top of the bar and the crowd just loved it.  Band MySpace: www.myspace.com/thebloodarm

Next up was the headlining act, Art Brut from the UK. As said before, the journey to this show started many years ago. If was during the 2006 Adicts tour that Adicts guitarist, Scruff had an Art Brut sticker on his guitar.

During that tour he told us about the band and said that we must go see them perform live. Needless to say over the years it seemed that the writing staff at Big Wheel was always spread through out Los Angeles on the nights that they were playing. This year a point was made early in the year to make sure they got covered.

Currently Art Brut is out touring on their new album that was just released in April titled, “Art Brut vs Satan”. Their 18 song set got kicked off with the first track on the new album “Alcoholics Unanimous” which is a pretty contagious little song. Singer Eddie Argos magnetic personality quickly sucked the crowd in with lyrics that are sung / spoken and his on stage antics that even included throwing Planned Parethood "safety packs" in the crowd.

What is so unique about this band is that the music is so catchy and at the same time it can’t really be described or fully compared to something else, which is the attraction that Scruff had detailed to us so long ago about Art Brut. The stage show is visually stimulating with guitarist Ian and Jasper mixing it up, sliding guitars in between the legs of the other, then other times they are pressed against each other that it was like watching guitars having intercourse. The big surprise came when Mikey on drums is part of that rare bred of drummers that drum while standing up, certainly something you do not see every day. Four pints later, an hour plus performance was over and the band was thanked with the cheers and applause from the audience.

Tonight’s show was one of those experiences where a friend turns you onto a band they are passionate about, then you see it live for yourself and now the two of you have another thing in common –passion for the same band. Go to their MySpace and give their music a tumble.
Band MySpace: www.myspace.com/artbrut

 

- Big Wheel Online Magazine -

More photos of the show can be seen HERE

 
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