Author: hankkalet

Eddie Argos wants to be a famous rock star. Or maybe he doesn’t. It is difficult to tell from the lyrics he writes. But there is no denying the band he fronts, Art Brut, deserves a lot more attention than they are getting.

The band played Johnny Brenda’s in the Fishtown section of Philadelphia on Saturday, a rollicking show filled with the kind of snide irony that makes Art Brut one of the funniest group’s in rock ‘n’ roll. The band is tight — drummer Mikey Breyer banged and banged, driving the post-punk forward along with the heavy bottom provided by bassist Freddy Feedback, the two guitar ripping and snorting.

Any singer would be grateful to front such a crack outfit, but Argos is more than a standard front man. He’s got the lounge-singer shtick down perfectly — that is, assuming the lounge singer is Johnny Rotten but thinks he’s Bryan Ferry.

Basically, Art Brut is all about attitude — as anyone who has heard their latest release, Art Brut vs. Satan, can attest. Argos railed about record stores — yes, record stores — that sell DVDs, slammed the Kings of Leon, ordered audience members to form a band, got into the audience and commanded that everyone dance.

It was hard not to, though the crowded dance floor below me — I was up above the band with a perfect view of the stage — had little room for full-out foot work.

The band ran through 18 songs in about an hour and a half — after a tight, but derivative set from Cymbals Eat Guitars — picking from each of its three albums and leaving everyone, the audience, the band members, even the bartenders, sweat-soaked and satisfied.

The set list, according to Music Snobbery:

1. “Alcoholics Unanimous”
2. “Bang Bang Rock and Roll”
3. “The Passenger”
4. “Pump Up the Volume”
5. “Summer Job”
6. “Bad Weekend”
7. “Demons Out”
8. “Emily Kane”
9. “Nag Nag Nag Nag”
10. “Love to L.A.”
11. “DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshakes”
12. “Modern Art”
13. “Direct Hit”
14. “My Little Brother”
15. “Slap Dash to No Cash”
16. ENCORE: “Formed a Band”
17. “Twist and Shout”
18. “Post Soothing Out”

Steve Earle is not exactly shy. The singer-songwriter, who now makes his home in New York, wears his politics openly in a way most other musicians are afraid to do.

On Thursday, at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, a night that one might have expected him to put the political discourse aside, when he was focusing most of his energy on his new 15-song tribute to close friend and mentor Townes Van Zandt, Earle still found time to state rather plainly what he thinks about the state of the nation.

He is hopeful, he says, about an Obama administration, but expects to be disappointed. He admitted to being to Obama’s left and said it was up to us — the people — to keep the government honest.

And he played some amazing music. For nearly two hours, he talked about Van Zandt and played his music — managing to avoid the kind of romantic memorializing that would have been a disservice to Van Zandt. He made no bones about Van Zandt’s alcoholism and his inability, ultimately, to live up to his talent or reputation, also acknowledging his own addictions and the impact they’ve had.

Plus, Earle offered a handful of his own songs — “City of Immigrants,” “Jerusalem,” “Copperhead Road” — finger-picking his way through the entire night. What was striking — and confirmed for me when I finally watched Earle’s appearance on Tavis Smiley’s show on my DVR over the weekend — was how the songs sounded of a piece, how the Townes Van Zandt material and Earle’s songs fit so well together, as if they could have been written by the same person.

Part of the reason is, as Earle told Smiley, their guitar style is similar. I’d go farther, though, and say that Van Zandt and Earle shared a sensibility that was apparent last week and is apparent on Townes.