Brute farce

Londoners Art Brut satirize their Britpop pack

By Ian Port

› a&eletters@sfbg.com

If you like to hear the point where indulgent absurdity becomes acerbic satire, where distorted irony melts into art, a gang of neophyte Londoners called Art Brut spits a number called "Formed a Band" that treads the transition with devastating cuteness. Vocalist Eddie Argos whips up his acute Bournemouth swagger over a sloppy plate of prepackaged post-punk reductions — making sure to talk through each verse — and the resulting jumble subtly mocks the Britpop promotion machine with the hypocritical innocence of a Johnny Rotten figurine:

"We're gonna be the band that writes the song that makes Israel and Palestine get along. We're gonna write a song as universal as 'Happy Birthday'.... Then we're going to take that song and we're going to play it eight weeks in a row on Top of the Pops.... Look at us, we formed a band!"

Though they're named after painter Jean Dubuffet's definition of outsider art, Brut are basically everything they make fun of: The four lads and lone miss met at a party soon after moving to London. They had a gig before they had instruments. They shared a womb with Bloc Party. And now they're fodder for the Britpop promotion machine.

So while bragging "we formed a band" seems to take aim at the rock-star factory, like Argos's other tongue-in-cheek assertions, it could have been his diary entry one day. He's admitted to having a special place in his heart for Top of the Pops, and who doesn't yearn to pen the next universal song, as dorky as "Happy Birthday" is?

On the 12 meditations of his band's debut, Bang Bang Rock 'n' Roll (Fierce Panda), Argos breezes through deliciously indulgent topics with barbed wit, blending his drily idiosyncratic persona with a flair for the perfect fable. "Emily Kane" recalls the immaculate haze of a high school fling with the refrain, "Other girls went and other girls came. I can't get over my old flame. I'm still in love with Emily Kane." It's neither a love song–satire nor a hiply uncool brag — it's both. Their familiar 1979-era snarl parts wistfully on the hilarious whiskey-dick tale "Rusted Guns of Milan," in which Argos earnestly pleads, "It's nothing to do with anything I've had to drink. There's something wrong with the way I think. I know I can, I know I can. I'm fine when I am with my own hand."

Where their targeted sarcasm, embarrassing disclosures, and dual-guitar dynamics align, Art Brut reveal the flimsiness of other trumpeted import greenhorns (Arctic Monkeys included), and they do it without claiming to be anything but flimsy themselves. Their one-trick, Pulp-meets-punk shtick won't shine long enough for another album, but the band mocks even its own dead end. "Yes, this is my singing voice," Argos snaps on "Formed a Band." "It's not irony, it's not rock 'n' roll, we're just talking — to the kids." *

ART BRUT

With Gil Mantera's Party Dream and Crystal Skulls

Mon/20, 9 p.m.

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

$12

(415) 474-0365

With the Cribs and Gil Mantera's Party Dream

Tues/21, 9 p.m.

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

$12

www.ticketweb.com