"Electroclash" is just a hipster punchline at this point, but around the turn of the millennium, it was this new, fresh niche thing birthed at the old club night Berliniamsburg, at the old club Luxx (now Trash Bar, I think) in W-burg Brooklyn. (Also, back then it was still kind of ... spicy to frequent establishments around the Lorimer stop of the L.)
A.R.E. Weapons was one of the original bands to emerge from that scene. But where a lot of their peers were dripping in pseudo-New Romantic cheese, this group always had a seriously loud, punk-derived bite. There was serious buzz around the band's early 2001 singles, and itrs self-titled 2003 debut album -- all hit the lower reaches of the UK charts.
But almost immediately after that came some serious setbacks. In 2004
guitarist Ryan Noel died of a heroin overdose, and by then, the electroclash scene was long gone into its death throes.
The whole "electroclash" tag for A.R.E. Weapons was always a misnomer,
though, a tag slapped on the group to describe more where and with whom
it hung out in its early days. These days, the tracks on the band's
Myspace page ring have an awesome, sometimes almost atonal post-punk,
no wave type of thing going on, and doubtless the band's live show
remains electric. The weekly No Brainer party at PS14 is the perfectly dirty, dark setting to check it
out.
Thursday, August 27. PS14, 28 NE 14th St., Miami. Doors open at 10 p.m., admission is $5. Beers are $1 until 1 a.m.! Ages 21+ with ID. 305-358-3600; ps14.com
