Archie Bronson Outfit

[Urpal]

I saw this band supporting The Duke Spirit last night and definitely the best support act we've seen this year by a country mile. Both my brother and I bought the album on the way out - on Domino, produced by Hotel from The Kills, 'nuff said.

Kangaroos being a headline topic of the week, ABO have a song by the name of Kangaroo Heart which sounds like a classic to me - a good $10,000 worth. And pretty well every other song on the record is similarly excellent.

A pretty good live experience too - the drummer is the visual centrepiece of the band. Animal.

http://www.archiebronsonoutfit.co.uk/

You can sample Kangaroo Heart by way of pressing on the camera on the releases pages of the website.

[Adam]

I don't know ABO but Domino is a great label, very rarely backs the wrong horse, and that sort of impression is increasingly important to me now the music press is in the khazi.

[Urpal]

If the new single, Dart For My Sweetheart, it's B-Side (a duet with Leila Moss of The Duke Spirit) and the track on this month's Uncut mag are anything to go by, the forthcoming ABO album Derdang Derdang is going to be well good.

Dart is a really thumping "counting chant" style number in the Bo Diddley/Saints' Erotic Neurotic tradition with some neat VU Loaded and other splendidly uncomplicted guitar tones intervening atop a striding rhythm.

I'm looking forward to seeing 'em on their forthcoming UK tour.

[bodajmac]

hmm, much as i hate to have to disagree with a hero member and moderator  archie bronson were one of the worst supports i've ever seen when i caught them supporting wilco at portsmouth wedgewood rooms in 2004 - it all just seemed to grind gracelessly on and made my teeth hurt, albeit i did feel some slight sympathy for the drummer who was putting a lot into it even if it was rubbish.

still, i spose they can only have got better...   

[Urpal]

The drummer's great isn't he? Funnily enough the drummer from Calla looks the dead spit of him right down to the beard and hunched intensely over the kit demeanor.

I'm not able to say whether they've improved or not, but they're not going to be everyone's cup of tea (and, for all I know having only heard Jesus etc, Wilco fans might well be outwith the bounds of their reach ).

[bodajmac]

fair enough, at least they engendered a reaction i spose

while we're on the subject, is archie charlie's brother?  and what was so great about his outfit anyway? 

[Urpal]

It is an odd name isn't it? I can't give an account of the origins, except that I don't think Archie's in the outfit at all and it has occurred to me that the shortened version of the band's name might well hit a bum note in Australia not too many scales removed from the one recently sounded in the "This Sporting Life" thread

[Urpal]

I got the new Domino release of Archie Bronson's Derdang Derdang LP on CD yesterday and first spins have gone down very well indeed (my wife liked it too). Not for everyone, I guess. But if you like the idea of Red Indian chant-style stuff like My Wild Love by the Doors mixed with some hearty electric blues energy and a wailing vocal that steers clear of the heavy metal castrato pitch then you'll feel right at home. It does it for me, but I'm a simple soul who enjoys raw energy as well as something quieter and more sophisticated.

They're on the road around the UK and the continent of Europe now too, so the unconverted have the opportunity to test them out in the live environment too before buying - which I'd recommend.

The CD comes in a proper cardboard sleeve (like a mini vinyl LP of old - OK it might get damaged in the rain but it feels and looks so much better than a jewel cased package) and the Domino Mart placed order came with a free lapel badge and  mini poster - all for about a tenner. If bdroop reads this, that's just the stuff for The Triffids re-issues too.

[bdroop]

perversely - i have just seen this and spotted yr thread - good on you.
not sure we're going the cardboard route wholely - but there will be cardboard...
i'll tell Dan who runs Mart yr thoughts of affirmation.
i've just listened to Graham's remastering on the way to work - it arrived here yesterday, 9 extra tracks. lots of photos for the booklets. so we're in shape to make some progress this week !


all good.

[Urpal]

Whoo hoo! Let's hope that enough people are interested in ABO that they don't miss such excellent news on the Triffids reissues front.

not sure we're going the cardboard route wholely - but there will be cardboard...

I like your style. To make a tantalising mystery from cardboard. The plot thickens with the paperwork.

[Urpal]

I just got in half pissed (or maybe whole) from the first date of the Archie's UK tour. Their saxophonist played blues guitar and sang a set to start and sounded like Elmore James with a few Lou Reed feedback tracks up his sleeve. And that was the evening's hors d'oeuvres

The Archie's were electric. I grinned my way through quite a lot of the set. They're not popular, but they're spectacular. And that's what matters. Great night. Selfishly I say this: Long may they play cosy little venues like the Late Room in Manchester. And then I hope not for their sake........and the good of humanity

I'll probably regret that in the morning.....

[Urpal]

Hey John, the Archie's Liverpool gig has been cancelled tonight I haven't felt so all shook up with no place to go since I turned up at the doors of Manchester Uni to find David McComb & the Red Ponies had cancelled that date, which must be 10 years ago.

An archie is ill apparently. Fair dos, there's a lot of the dreaded lurgy about at the moment.

BTW I see that they have a free song for download on iTunes as this week's single of the week at the moment.

[Urpal]

Smog and I saw Archie Bronson Outfit at the Night & Day in Manchester again last night. Brilliant. They seem to be about the only band at the moment from these shores doing anything exciting and making an original sound  - unlike many of the rest too entranced by Noel Gallagher's arse to notice it's only the emperor's new clothes that afford such a perspective.

Pleased to see that the venue was pretty well packed out with fans this time around as the previous times we saw 'em play Manchester there were only about twenty people watching. Derdang Derdang (combined, I guess, with some festival dates and that sort of thing) seems to be having the desired effect of creating a wider audience for the band.

As before, Luke Garwood provided solo blues guitar support and joined the band to provide a cacophonous (think Violent Femmes' Black Girls) jazzy sax dimension to their sound.

[mark t]

Touring these parts next Feb/March: the laneways festival. Might have to make an effort to actually hear something. Derdang Derdang?

[Adam]

And playing St Martins College of Art, in London's glittering west end, with Clinic on Dec 14th.  It's apparently the first time the venue has been used for such an event since the Sex Pistols played there.  Check me out, doing Dominos PR for them, like they needed any help.

I've had the new Clinic album on all week.  It's their best yet by a very long way.  There's a fair-enough criticism of them that they have a formula and by christ they're sticking to it, and it is no less true of this one than any of the others, but it is so much better a record for some reason I can't quite identify.  Maybe they've just got all the bits of the forumla lined up in the right sequence this time.  It's a very immediate record and then it grows.  I'm hearing it in my sleep now.  I've played it right through at least 3 times every day this week and it's still unfolding - not a bad deal for a set of 12 songs the longest of which is 3:40.