by LORRAINE CARPENTER

New York's A.R.E. Weapons could be accused of many things. Matthew McAuley and Brain F. McPeck are former punk bums endorsed by Vice, with capital "E" Electroclash credentials, who got signed to Rough Trade U.K. through Jarvis Cocker from Pulp. Not to mention their other celeb connection, manager/third member Paul Sevigny, a Hollywood sibling who, incidentally, may or may not want to kick Vincent Gallo's ass for a hardcore head scene in his new movie starring Sevigny's sister Chloe. (Ew.) With an eponymous debut album to pimp, A.R.E. Weapons are rocking stages continent-wide, and the Mirror spoke to McAuley amidst the confusion of LaGuardia airport.

Mirror: So you guys don't have a background in electronic music?

Matthew McAuley: No, we came to do that out of necessity. Me and Brain have been in bands together for years but he and I were the only ones who could ever stick with it, so one time Brain bought a drum machine and that kind of took care of that, you know what I mean?

M: Uh-huh. And I hear your shows attract violence.

MM: That is true, but it's usually not a bad violence. It's just people having fun, even though it's stupid, throwing bottles and shit. Most of the time it's our fucking drunk-ass friends, they throw 'em at us, we throw 'em back at them, whatever. Sometimes people get hit, but very rarely is anyone injured past the point of a couple of stitches.

M: Sounds like a punk show.

MM: Definitely, that's what it is. We wanted to do something different from your everyday show, different from the feeling you could get going through security at LaGuardia. When we were little kids, hardcore shows were fuckin' scary and weird, but it was fun, you kept going even though there was this threat of danger and violence.

M: I know you guys have been questioned about whether you're punks or hippies, so I won't bother with that question, but do you think everyone can be divvied up into those categories?

MM: Naw, I think they're exactly the same, actually, especially in this day and age. Fuckin' the same thing from a different fuckin' time.

M: What about in the context of electronic music?

MM: I guess there are different mentalities. You hear boring-ass, ambient hippie crap, and somebody who considers themselves pretty punky would think of that shit as crap. There's people who use electronics to be aggressive and entertaining and there's people who do it to be fucking trippy and healing, but what they're not realizing is that being aggressive is also being healing. But some of that really fucking heavy techno shit - I see glimmers of good shit in it, but it's fuckin' boring. They should throw some singing over it.

M: Well, we're in the middle of a minimal techno festival here. I'm guessing you're not a fan of that stuff. I mean, a lot of it is really alienating to people from a rock or punk background -

MM: But you know what their secret is? It's alienating to everybody, it's meant to be. I guess those guys think they know what they're doing, but I think they're wasting their time.

With guests at la Sala Rossa tonight, Thursday, June 5, 9pm, $10

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