There are numerous pop culture “twins” out there that for whatever reason I always mix up. For the life of me, I would not be able to point out the difference between Nick Nolte and Gary Busey in a police line-up. Same goes for Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck and even after seeing Iron Man (which blows btw) Robert Downey Jr. and Rob Lowe. In the rock realm, there are few other examples as well.
Arab Strap and Mogwai are one such set of “twins”. If you throw The Tindersticks in there, they actually may form “triplets”. They all feature spoken/mumbled barely decipherable vocals over dirgy atmospheric music. I have limited knowledge of the three which is furthered by being lazy – that might be part of the problem. What I do know, though, is that Arab Strap tends to have filthy lyrics.
This is a great soundboard recording from a show at Circolo degli Artisti in Rome on 19 February 2006, on Arab Strap’s second-to-last tour. It was recorded by international operative J-Bird.
The recording file was corrupted so only the first two songs were recorded. They later played a song that they said was so dirty that they had never released it. The mind boggles to imagine what Arab Strap considers “too dirty.”
[audio: http://thesoundofindie.com/archive/2008/20080528/AS-FuckingLittleBastards.mp3|titles=Fucking Little Bastards (Live)|artists=Arab Strap]
Download: Arab Strap – Fucking Little Bastards (Live)
Mogwai and Arab Strap have a few similarities but don’t really sound much alike. I would say that there are a handful of Mogwai songs (the ones with singing, mainly) that sound like Arab Strap but most of the time they are a lot different… Mogwai a lot more rocking and Arab Strap a lot sadder. Both are good though.
There are a lot of those musical twins, but I think they all start to disappear if you listen to them closely, or at least all the ones with any talent do. I’m trying to think of examples. Maybe the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev? Slint and Rodan? Journey and Foreigner?