Flailing Members, Dancing Robots: Damn Arms!

The synth lines are piercing, like The Faint on a particularly bad trip, the screamed vocals reminiscent of the more cathartic end of American punk, and the guitar is fuzzed out to the point of collapse, Ian Jackson hugging the speaker like an Australian Kevin Shields. And yet despite the noise, all the while there’s this amazing percussion running throughout, a dynamism that even the rumoured new Rapture record would be lucky to share, in-escapable tunes that nag at our bodies and implore each and every one of us here tonight to lose our inhibitions and dance like no-one is watching. None of us actually do of course (bar an insane Japanese stage-invader). Damn Arms, playing their first-ever headline U.K show tonight, leave us no time to regret such missed opportunities.

Skip back a few hours and Gigwise is sitting at the bottom floor of Virgin’s flagship London store, surrounded by coffee machines and musical instruments, with Tim Sullivan, Damn Arms’ bassist and co-vocalist. Running his hand through the fringe of his matted black hair, he looks genuinely wide-eyed when asked how he and Damn Arms are finding their first international shows.“The tour with Test-Icicles has been amazing. Every show’s been sold out, we’ve been playing to a full house every night!”

Their connection with Test-Icicles isn’t one simply based on a shared love of knackered drum machines: ”I’ve known them for about three or four years now, way way before Test-Icicles. The way they see it, they got popular for playing music that they think is fun, and the best way to help out your friends’ band is by promoting them, because they have popularity that they got quite easily, because they write good songs. They got us all the way from Australia to come over here and tour! Now they keep telling kids to come to their shows early just to see us”

Formed in March 2005 after the demise of Snap! Crakk! (the ‘pop’ presumably being their trademark), it’s taken just ten months for Damn Arms to reach our shores with an incredible debut single under their belts (‘Please Pass Me My Anti-Robotics’, on Something In Construction, already one of the more angular delights we’re likely to hear all year). Tim explains the birth of Damn Arms: “One of the keyboardists and the guitarists just left (Snap! Crakk!) because they wanted to do something different. Simon (Parker, drums), Yama (Indra, vocals/synths and owner of the finest facial hair since that guy from We Are Scientists) and myself decided to keep working together and like, seven months later (from their first show) we’re touring the U.K. pretty fast!”

It’s a philosophy of inspired urgency that the band have followed since the start. “We worked really hard. When we first started we were practising four times a week, so we could play as soon as we could. Last month we toured with The Kills in Australia, which was amazing” Completing the Damn Arms puzzle was guitarist Ian Jackson: “We met Ian through one of my friends. I just had a phone call one day saying I want to join your band. We were pretty set on just having the three of us, trying to be something different, like keyboards, bass, drums” But Ian brought some "red wine” and wrote a few “guitar lines”, pretty much sealing the deal.

Though this may be the band’s first foreign foray, Tim is no stranger to London. “I lived here for just over a year. I went back to Australia in mid-2003. I used to play in a band with Sam from Test-Icicles, and Tom Vek and Ferry from Semi-Finalists” Like some awesome indie supergroup? “Yeah I guess! Me and Sam were joking around when we were drunk the other night about saying that we should book the ****ing Astoria for our show! That’s how we all met, and that’s how I know Dev and Rory and all that. Me and Rory were actually talking about going to Ireland and recording a black metal record!” he adds with a mischievous grin.