Arthur Brown – Downtown Magazine

During this collective time of crisis in the wake of Covid-19, Le Poisson Rouge, a good friend of Downtown Magazine, is currenly working on streaming live performances, unveiling archived concert footage, and engaging the independent music community in unprecedented ways. At the moment, however, it is asking the public for support on their Patreon and through payment apps to keep this jewel of the West Village open for the foreseeable future.

We love LPR and all the beautiful opportunities they have given us, and hope that they can continue their mission to bring amazing live music to New York City. Please support their hardworking staff, as they are all out of work. So many incredible acts have come through, including Peter Murphy, Clan of Xymox, The Bellwether Syndicat e, The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and White Denim.

Official Statement From Le Poisson Rouge:

Hello everyone,

Sunday evening, New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio announced an executive order to close all music venues across the city. The decision on how to deal with the Coronavirus outbreak has been taken out of our hands and we intend to comply with the mayor’s order. As much as this hurts our hearts and our business, we believe this is the right thing to do and understand the need for mass closures at this time.

Though we may be temporarily shutting our doors to the public, we cannot quarantine our love for music. We refuse to give up. We are working on streaming live performances and programming, unveiling archived concert footage, and engaging the independent music community like never before. If you are a musician or have a musical story to tell – let us know! We want to enable you to get the support you need. Now more than ever, we need the healing power of music and art.

If you have a ticket to an upcoming show, please be patient. There are a lot of logistics involved with figuring out refunds and exchanges and we are doing our best to sort it out. Refunds are taking longer than usual to process so please be patient. If you can hold onto your ticket for a rescheduled show, please do so.

We applaud the communal effort towards social distancing, but are faced with the harsh reality that these decisions also obliterate income for half a million New Yorkers who work in the Leisure and Hospitality industry. LPR’s bartenders, servers, bussers, porters, technicians, kitchen staff, security guards, etc. face this struggle head on. Many of them rely on hourly wages and tips to provide for their families and suddenly face the prospect of weeks without work.

Many of you have reached out to us about what you can do to support LPR and its employees in these uncertain times – we are so grateful for this response. Here’s how you can donate to our employees and ongoing operational expenses:

Sign up for an LPR Membership via Patreon
Donate via Paypal: donate@lprnyc.com
Donate via Venmo: @LPRNYC

Buy your future self a drink ticket via GoFundMe

The independent bars, restaurants, and venues of New York are making extreme sacrifices to flatten the curve. We need our government and financial institutions to recognize that and lend us a hand. We call on Mayor De Blasio, Governor Cuomo, President Trump, and all of our elected officials at the local, state, and national level to assemble a relief package for the events industry.

Follow our site, social media, and mailing list for more.

Stay tuned and stay safe,

The LPR Family

All photos by Alice Teeple

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Fire, to end all you’ve become.

The Amazon is ablaze, the West Village is so thick with humidity you can practically chew the air. The time is ripe for those queued outside Le Poisson Rouge to descend underground, and bear witness to the legendary God of Hellfire, Arthur Brown.

“Who is Arthur Brown?” a friend asked. The answer requires a time machine to another volatile point in history.

It’s 1968. Arthur Brown, a soft-spoken Englishman, is recounting his recent American tour to Brian Matthew in a BBC Radio One interview. Brown languidly lists the costumes used in his act: masks, gowns, face paint…a fire helmet.

“It’s very spectacular,” Matthew interjects. “Is it dangerous to you?”

“Yes. Well, ah, we set one stage on fire. Set my gowns on fire. I burnt my face the other day.”

Arthur Brown lit so many fires in his wake that he got booted off a tour with Jimi Hendrix when venues feared incineration.

Even if Brown himself isn’t a household name, he certainly made a distinctive mark in music history. His neo-pagan theatrics, inspired by the wild antics of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, served as a catalyst for musical newcomers in Great Britain. Despite Fire being his one major hit, the list of Brown’s imitators is staggering.

A young Londoner attended Brown’s Paris gig, cribbed his mime and drag elements, and studied with legendary performance artist Lindsay Kemp…emerging as David Bowie. The Who wrote Tommy with Brown’s operatic voice in mind; he appeared in the film as the crazed priest of a Marilyn Monroe cult. Iron Maiden borrowed Brown’s banshee screeches. Alice Cooper nicked the corpse paint. Peter Gabriel owes a thank you to Brown’s flamboyant headdresses. Ozzy Osbourne covered Fire; Lizzy Mercier Descloux’s frenzied disco version in 1979 remains a club banger today.

Photo: Alice Teeple

Back to Le Poisson Rouge 2019: Arthur Brown, now 77, crackles with the vocal prowess of a man five decades younger. His band, each wearing costumes, headgear and face paint, is ready for the long haul. Brown is a mystical spectacle, beginning the set with Nightmare, lyrics straight out of a William Blake painting:

Dynamic explosions in my brain

Shattered me to drops of rain

Falling from a yellow sky

Orange faces to an opened eye

After each song, he runs offstage during a musical interlude, returning draped in a different costume. Pirate shirt! Sequined tunic! Fiber-optic waistcoat! He is mischievous, jamming a microphone down his trousers for Muscle of Love, his ode to kundalini rising. Brown paid tribute to Screamin’ Jay with a screeching rendition of I Put A Spell On You. No fire helmets at this show, but he did don a massive black feather headdress during a twenty-minute performance of Fire, his frenzied keyboardist practically in trance as Brown mingles with the audience.

The show generates so much energy that one leaves feeling exhausted, rejuvenated, and wondering if Brown is, in fact, a sorcerer. The answer is…perhaps.

All photos by Alice Teeple

Fire, to destroy all you’ve done.

Fire, to end all you’ve become.