‘This Tour Could Be Your Life’ or ‘How Official Secrets Act toured Europe with Art Brut and ended up falling in love with a continent’
By: Lawrence Diamond
As I sat admiring the beautiful vista from the front of the Denmark/Germany ferry one week into the "OSA VS EUROPE TOUR", so called in honour of our headlining band’s new album Art Brut Vs Satan I couldn't have predicted the fun and games that would await us in the next fortnight. In all honesty I just made up the tour name about 25 seconds ago but I like it so it can stay. Ironically the tour felt anything but OSA VS EUROPE and more OSA AND REALLY AMAZING EUROPEAN CROWDS GO CRAZY TOGETHER. All the shows had been pretty much perfect up till then and they would only get better as we dragged our van further south into the heart of continental Europe.
It all started at Belgium, where rather than the usual 400 capacity venue, merch stand and free Stella, we were greeted by a 15 band festival on a Friday night in Brussels’ botanical gardens. We didn't even play the same stage as Art Brut, instead playing in a massive tent to about 600 people, all of whom went mad for sparkling brand of New British Escapism (as European journalists have decided to name our sound). It was one of OSA’s finest shows and the only option afterwards was to gather Brakes, ourselves and Art Brut together into Brakes dressing room and throw an old fashioned lash up of epic proportions. If a really small bomb had dropped on that dressing room at 3 in the morning it would have wiped out a large part of the beating heart of British Indie in one foul swoop. (Well, the White brothers, Eddie Argos and ex BSP member Eamonn at least) After our show we had all ran over to watch Brakes play in the Rotunda Venue that was part Greenwhich observatory part Brixton Academy (but a wee bit smaller). It was one of the most insane shows I've seen in ages. If there are better live bands in this country I haven't seen them. Brakes are a band to believe in that is for sure.
Amsterdam is a city that OSA have loved from first view and the gig that Saturday gig did little to change that. We partied on stage and did our little cosmic dance across the stage from front to back and side to side. However the real news of the day was that Sir Eddie of Argos had injured his back while rocking out at the Van Gough museum and nearly had to pull the show. Instead he tramadoled himself of his face and limped through one of the most unique Art Brut shows in history. Jasper and Iain pulled out twice as many moves to cover Eddie's lack of lateral movement and certain songs turned into Modern Loves meets Kerouac train of thought musings on love, life and back pain. It was as Eddie so succinctly put it "The End of the world, and he felt spine." We partied in Amsterdam with the Art Brut heroes, including a particularly unsavoury Mayonnaise incident before scattering across Holland to find some much needed sleep. (OSA don't really do hotels. We try as hard as possible to live the life of a mid 80s punk band as best recorded in the epic Michael Azerad book This Band Could Be Your Life, I've shotgunned being Paul Westerberg, but really I think Tom does that role better. I always wanted to be Peter Buck anyway!) The day after was our last day off for 16 days, and we made the most of it by sitting by the canal side in the Jordaan, sipping vermouth and letting the new European Cannon formulate in our craniums. That and watching cool Dutch boats float by.
Hannover was cool, and the first time we got to see the famous Art Brut/Germany Love Affair first hand! Some kid spent 5 minutes telling me how much he loved the show, before I realised he wasn't talking about my band and thought I was just Art Brut’s merch guy. (Yeah, I wear frilly shirts and make up, and tour Europe selling T-shirts for Art Brut!) After that we went on to Denmark, where in a truly Scandinavian style, gigs are held in stylish socialist meeting houses from the 1950s. It was OSA's first time in Scandinavia and although we didn't get to see as much of the city as we liked we certainly got a feel for the Danish way of life. One of the things OSA try and do for every country they come into is to name important cultural figures or artistic works/monuments from that particular city. Obviously Scandinvia particularly hits above its weight in amazing pop rock bands that usually fit into some kind of female/male membership dynamic. However as OSAs resident sports fan (Spot Fact, Rivers Cuomo loves football, or if you prefer, soccer, but doesn't watch too much of it because it upset him that someone has to lose. I love this man unreservedly) a trip to Copenhagen was just an excuse to real off a list of mid 90s Danish footballers including Stig Inge Bjornbye, John Jensen, Jon Dahl Tomasson, Thomas Gravesson and of course Peter Schmeichel. This is a game that really gathers momentum when we return to Holland, but with the rest of the band not really being up on their football trivia, I could in reality be making these names up.
Denmark has a huge bridge between itself and Germany. Before we are allowed onto it we are stopped and searched by German police. Something that would happen to us many times over the next few weeks. At the show in Copenhagen there are 2 mental fans who have come only to see us and dance and shout through the whole show and then when we walk off, collect their jackets and leave. We find them later in a local bar, completely plastered, trying to rip light fittings out of the ceiling. OSA fans are a distinct and dedicated breed. We love them.
The next stop is Hamburg, another complete treat of a city. Most famous for The Beatles and its red light district, Hamburg is really all about St Pauli, an enclave of anti-fascist and punk families who maintain both the love all spirit of the 60s and the leather, tattoos and DM chic of 76. The football team St Pauli is more a sporting embodiment of the areas belief in tolerance and free thinking than a football team, while the skull and cross bones flag that flies everywhere gives you a sense of being in a place apart from the rest of Germany, or indeed the world. It makes the punks around Camden Lock look pretty part time.
The venue, the Knust, is typical of the St Pauli spirit. Everyone is kind and open, keen to do all they can do to help, as well has having their own style and confidence that stems from living a truly righteous life. St Pauli and Art Brut were made for each other. Both being fiercely independent, intelligent and completely different from everything around them (The rest of Hamburg is like a giant Hampstead Heath, which makes the existence of St Pauli even stranger).Fans of the band will know they even have a song paying tribute to St Pauli and all that sail with it. All this means that it's a pretty loved up atmosphere in the club, and with our singles having received quite a bit of play on German radio we are drawn into the bosom of the Knust crowd by people singing along and calling out for encores. By now the tour was turning into something a bit special. We are also starting to see the beginnings of the OSA Germany fanclub as people who had come to see us on our previous tour began to follow us around the country to catch as many of the support shows as they could.
We take a couple of days back in England to play a JD Set show for Channel 4 and play 2 shows at the Great Escape (one for this esteemed webzine and one for Artrocker) before dragging our now slightly exhausted bodies back to Stuttgart. It's worth noting at this point that earlier in the year our drummer/keyboard player Alex MacKenzie was involved in a car accident that saw him being knocked off his bike by not one, but two, cars. He had been kept in for 4 days observations but had been let out to do this tour with us, with a clean bill of health from the hospital. We would find out later (After 8 weeks on the road and 15 different countries) that he had actually broken 2 vertebrae in his spine and could have been paralysed at any moment. I guess Alex was a character in Mr Azerad's book he would have been in The Minutemen, bad luck and genius in equal measure.
Stuttgart was one of the biggest shows of the tour (all of which were rammed! Art Brut are like The Ramones in Germany, the support is rabid.) It took place in a giant cavern next to a road tunnel. The story being that the workman started digging the tunnel from both sides of the mountain at the same time, but realised that they weren't going to connect so abandoned one of the tunnels and had to start again, the spare tunnel becoming the venue. Either way it makes for a startling venue and one of the most intense shows of the tour. A couple of girls faint during the Art Brut show and Tom polaxes Alex when leaping from the Bass Drum at the end of a particularly vitriolic $$$ and nearly sends him back to hospital. The walls drip with sweat and we meet more OSA fans cross crossing the country to follow us. At the end of the night the whole touring party sits out on the balcony behind the venue watching the rain fall and the traffic drift past. We drink cold Tuborgs and swap tour stories like charectars in a Tarentino movie, if Tarentino did biopics of erudite British bands touring Europe.
The burgeoning camaraderie between the two bands would reach new heights in Munich. During Art Brut's set we dress up in their clothes and run on to provide backing vocals for ‘Summer Job’ from their new album, then with Dino, the local promoter, and some friends of Mario our Tour Manager, we retreat to a little dive bar called the Fleischeneffner (The Bottleopener) to put in an old school punk rock drinking session. Art Brut are devotees of the drinking game "Buffallo" (essentially right hand only drinking) and OSA, more used to discussing the finer points of the Bowie's Berlin era rhythm section while drinking a Gin and Tonic and removing their eye shadow, get absolutely schooled. Tom is getting caught left right and centre drinking with his left hand, while myself, suffering from temporary beer inflicted memory loss, tell Mr Argos about the link between Glasgow Celtic (My team) and St Pauli F.C on 6 different occasions before the night is over. The night ends with Jim, Art Brut's hero of a guitar tech, trying to pay for a pint of the local ale using every currency except Euros and not understanding why the woman won't take his money. OSA have a whip round to get the relevant amount, and after thanking us Jim picks up his pint, cradles it in his left hand for 2 seconds, gets Buffalo’d by everyone in attendance, downs said pint in mere seconds, then stumbles out the door never to be seen again. (maybe)
Vienna is a dream. Maybe because we are so hungover when we arrive that staying alive seems a challenge, let alone playing such a wonderful show. We are interviewed for Austria's big indie/rock station FM4 and with my German GCSE I become unofficial OSA spokesperson for the day. The crown slips slightly though when the taxi we are in drives off without shutting it's boot, leaving me and Mike staring at tarmac whizzing past at 70 miles an hour shouting at the driver in our best Austrian accents "Das Boot, Das Boot" ("The Submarine, The Submarine!!") ‘So Tomorrow’ has been a bit of a sleeper hit in Austria (it was even played on the German equivalent of EastEnders) and by the time we end our show with it that night all hangovers have been sweated out and ourselves and the crowd are flying back and forth and getting mixed up in each other’s spaces. It's one of OSAs best shows and things are really starting to click into place. Broken spines and questionable German vocabulary included. Hearing 500 Austrians singing along to the ‘Girl From The BBC’ in German is a pretty surreal feeling. We slip out onto the promenade beside the venue and watch the sunset over the Danube (or maybe one of its tributaries) and do some interviews for local press. It really feels unreal, Vienna is a truly beautiful city.
Even more beautiful is the drive to Innsbruck. The alps glisten and glimmer as our trusty van crawls up the side of mountain after mountain. The sun breaks across valleys and bathes everything in a glow that would make Michael Palin reach for the Thesaurus. Europe steals our hearts more every hour. Today is meant to be a day off but Innsbruck is home to Weekender club, who's owners run Weekender Records in North London, who in turn put out our first 7" single 'Victoria' in May of last year. With Art Brut pencilled in for a DJ set we decide to hitch along and play a show of our own. We don't really do days off in OSA. Also appearing on the bill are the Rock and Roll idiots, which compromises of Ed Art Brut TM, Mike Art Brut drums and Jim Rhesus who is to the London Indie seen what Steve Claridge is to Championship football (or Pete Mandelson to Cabinet politics if you prefer) They have played 2 shows, both at Koko, and have never realised their debut single, despite it being finished 2 years ago, because they can't get round to finishing the B-Side. They are the B52s to Art Brut’s REM, and they know how to party. Although we've never been to Innsbruck before it feels like a bit of a homecoming, as the Weekender boys are all old friends, and we get a chance to play a full OSA show tonight. We take the opportunity with both hands, playing nearly everything from the album, a selection of B-sides and some unheard covers from back in the day. It is a sloppy beautiful thing. Beer flows across the stage, Tom ends up tumbling over the stage barriers to sing ‘So Tomorrow’ from the middle of the pit and ‘The Girl From The BBC’ causes pandemonium in drunken Thursday night party students. The usual precise arrow of romance and passion that is an OSA show is replaced with scuzzy filthy boozey rock and roll and it feels good. Tom sums it up before the parting shot of ‘So Tomorrow’ - "You've been wonderful, we've been shocking, it's been beautiful".
The Rock and Roll idiots take to the stage and play their "Hit" single ‘Love Is Poison 3 times’ - that's 3!!! times. For the final encore half of OSA, all of Art Brut and a couple of people who happen to be in the right place at the wrong time end up on stage as the band go through 4 false endings of said tune before crawling off the stage into the safe arms of the dressing room. Some of us pull up bar stalls and have a few nostalgic drinks with some old friends, some of us run off to look at the famous golden roof, others just crawl into bed, but it's a fairly special night for everyone, and as I go to sleep I hear the sound of Mr Rhesus cracking open another beer and contemplating his 35th hour awake.
Milan, like Vienna, seems like a dream. It's so different from everywhere else you play in Europe, and due to circumstances that will be explained later, it would end up being a beautiful swansong to the tour. We head off from Austria fairly early and chase Art Brut down the autobahns out of Austria and pop out into an Italy basking in blazing sunshine. We pull over as soon as possible and get deeply involved with Italian espressos. OSA live a life of late night smoke and deep black espressos and Italy does both very very well. We sit atop an Alpine service station hammering down thick dark coffee and preparing for Milan. On our last trip we had been amazed at the turn out for what was meant to be a small scale introduction to the capital of fashion, and we were excited to get back, this time with Alex in tow. (He had been in Hospital for our first visit on the last tour)
The venue was an outdoor nightclub of the kind that only exists down among the paradise of the Mediterranean. Enrique, our Italian promoter and all round beautiful person greets us on our arrival and hugs and stories our quickly exchanged. We watch local Italian rock bands (Extremely cool men in dark leathers, watched by immaculately dressed woman who all look like supermodels or characters from an Ian Flemming novel) and wait for the sun to set. We take to the stage around 9 and take all the sleazy stupid passion from our Innsbruck show and tighten the screw on it so that the 40 minute show seems to last 5. It is probably the best show of the tour, if not the year and we all fly off stage dripping in sweat and buzzing about the last hour’s activity. We keep a lid on our celebrations and dive back on to sing Summer Job with Art Brut a the temperature seems to rise as the sun drops deeper over the city. (How do Italian men cope in those leather jackets). We meet up with Ellie Coden who runs the Cool For Cats record label and club nights back in London and who is an Italian herself, and Hatcham Social, both of who have come over for a show elsewhere the night before and sit in a dusty field drinking cold Italian beer and breathing the sweet Milanese air. We have another 3 gigs in London to come at the weekend so we are soon all gathered by Mario and herded into the Van to drive to Mpenza airport. The drive takes longer than we thought and by the time we arrive the sun is starting to rise ove the runways and terminals. We are buzzing from the last few shows which we all agree are some of the best we've played, and are excited to get home and stretch our legs some more before returning to Paris for the final night with Art Brut before a headline tour of our own around Germany and Holland.
On landing we all scatter back to our various London bases expect Alex who rolls down to Kings College Hospital for a routine scan on his back. Rather than gradual improvement and healing, the scan shows that he has actually broken two vertebrae and could be paralysed by a false movement at any time. He is immediately strapped down and before the weekend is over a two day operation is planned and his touring for the year is over. He would end up spending 6 weeks in hospital having 2 rather serious operations. We fly back to Europe on the Monday without him (taking Alex White from Brakes, who is one of the most intelligent, gifted musicians a man could hope to know) but for now the OSA Art Brut Europe adventure is over, we cancel our weekend’s shows - the first shows OSA has ever cancelled, and prepare for a summer without Mr MacKenzie. The rest of the year would see appearances at Glastonbury, a sold out tour with bonafide pop stars Athlete, 2 more trips round Europe and festival appearances in Sweden, Austria, Spain, France and Switzerland. But looking back from the hill that is the early onset of autumn, that fortnight in Europe with Mr Argos and his crew seems like the most perfect fortnight a band could wish for. Not so much “This Band Could Be Your Life”, as “This Tour Could Take Your Life” - and what better way to go?
Artists in this article: Art Brut, Official Secrets Act