ART BRUT AND GIL MANTERA'S PARTY DREAM AT THE TROUBADOUR: WORTH $16

Considering a move to L.A.


I had never heard of the opening act, Gil Mantera's Party Dream, but now I know. They put on the sleaziest performance I've ever seen. The band consists of two macho looking guys with beards and dirty shoulder-length hair; last night they were dressed entirely in black leather (even hats). I didn't know what to expect. Then they started playing a deranged mixture of metal guitar and drum machines and vocoded singing and slimy synthesizers. Imagine if M83 brought Andrew WK on tour to perform with them. And while they played, they stripped. Gil (presumably Mantera, the keyboardist and singer for all the vocoder parts) got down to a pair of bikini briefs. He kept putting his hands and the microphone in his underwear and prancing around the stage like a fairy. Throughout the show he had a self-satisfied look on his face and playing the keyboard sent him into a particularly masturbatory rapture. The singer, Donny, wore a black, skin-tight crop-top and (surprise!) bikini briefs. He strutted more than he pranced.

I liked these guys enough to go see them again, but not enough to buy one of their CD's after the show. They only played 5 0r 6 songs and a couple of those sounded a little flat. Still, these guys are showmen and the homoerotic tension between two pasty, unimpressively packaged bearded men was enough to hold my attention.

Then Art Brut came on. These guys are my favorite rock band right now and my expectations were pretty high. I was sure that their energy would translate really well on stage and the band lived up to my hopes. They were in synch and on fire through the whole show. The frontman, Eddie Argos was a little disappointing. I thought that his vocals were mixed perfectly on Bang Bang Rock & Roll: they were loud enough to hear, but complimentary to the band behind him. Unfortunately, his mode of discourse/shouting wasn't as well fitted to live performance. He sounded like he was struggling to be heard on the verses... and isn't one of the primary joys of Art Brut the excessively prosaic throw-away lines? He further mucked things up by squinting a lot and repeatedly extending his hand to the audience in an annoying, pleading motion. Also, he was wearing a terrible earring that was just barely offset by his terrific mustache. I don't want to get to down on him though, because he was in good spirits the whole night, exhorted the crowd sincerely to form a band and lead everyone in a chant of "Art Brut! Top of the Pops!"

It was unclear to me before seeing them live, that this is plainly Eddie Argos's band. Now I wonder if he writes all the music. After seeing them play, I would guess that he does (and that he is more than a little frustrated that he can't sing and be a genuine Top of the Pops rock star) but I forgot to check my CD liner notes when I got home. As I said before, the band was killer. They opened up by playing the intro to Metallica's "Enter Sandman" before segueing into "Formed a Band" and absolutely tearing through the rest of the set. After the first encore, Argos announced (in a nice way) that there wouldn't be a second one and walked off stage. The two guitarists, Ian Catskilkin and Jasper Future (who was wandering through the crowd during Gil Mantera's set in an overcoat and a pair of Rick Moranis-glasses), turned to each other and traded fire riffs back in forth for a couple of minutes. Great way to end the show.

In case you were wondering, they did play "Moving to L.A." And they smiled all of the way through.