Sun. Jan. 17 

 Gary Jarman, his twin brother Ryan. and their younger brother Ross had been playing as a trio, the Cribs, since 2001. The brothers, all in their 20s, made three albums and were highly regarded as one of England’s top indie-punk. A very self-contained unit, a family business.
    But several years ago, the Cribs finished a US tour, and bassist-singer Gary was back in his adopted hometown, Portland, Ore. He was invited to a barbecue and met this pleasant, slightly older, chap, who was also from the UK..
   “At first it was a little weird,” Jarman says, from his home by phone. “I couldn’t figure out who this guy was, why was another Englishman was there. Then the penny dropped. It was Johnny Marr. He said how much of a fan of the band he was. That would have been enough for me because he was such an influence.”
     Marr, of course, had been the guitarist-songwriter for the Smiths and later Electronic. He was in Portland, playing with Modest Mouse.
      Jarman excitedly called Ryan, the guitarist-singer, and Ross, the drummer, where they still live, in England. Gary became friends with Marr. When the two traveled back to England, they joined the others and played some Cribs concerts. They also began to write together.
   “We wrote 12 songs in one weekend,” Jarman says, “and we had this creative burst. We would find any excuse to play together on a low-key level. Once we had enough songs to make an album, we thought it’d be a shame not to. There was never that moment of ‘Oh, we should make this permanent.’ It was a gradual thing. The fact that it might be a good career move never factored into it.”
    So, by the time the Cribs were ready to make their fourth CD, “Ignore the Ignorant,” Marr was in the fold. That group plays the Paradise Sunday Jan. 17, tonight, with Adam Green and the Dead Trees open at 8. (Tickets: $17.50.)
     The Cribs began as proudly “lo-fi,” “We wanted our albums to be a raw representation of how we sounded live,” says Jarman.
     But have expanded their sound, range and use of the studio. Marr’s contribution, Jarman said, was “he’s an intuitive guitarist and added extra texture, doing exactly what you would hope. We have a similar ideology and ambition.”
     The Cribs have a wild reputation in concert. “The live shows are still energetic, the reputation is justified,” Jarman says. “But now there’s much more degree of light and shade. It’s not full-on the whole time. It’s a little more dimensional.”
   What of the age difference?
    “It’s not like we’re a bunch of brats and Johnny’s like an old rock star,” says Jarman. “I’m nearly 30 and I don’t feel like a brat in a band. I don’t feel naïve or green.”
    The Jarmans are in a profession where brothers often form bands, but often do battle. Think of Oasis’ Noel and Liam Gallagher and the Kinks’ Ray and Dave Davies.
    “I think the reason they fight is the brothers egos,” opines Jarman. “One doesn’t want to take direction from another. It’s implying hierarchy. But it’s nonsense. When we were growing up, Ross would be shouted down somewhat because he was a little brother, in creating music, we try to do whatever each person wants. We try to indulge each other.”
    “At the same time, there are those moments of complete psychosis, where you go ‘Shit, I’m actually in this band for life. How do you break a band like that up? You do have these moments where everything is intensified by that. You can feel a little cornered at times.
    The Cribs were very pleased they were selected to join the Sex Pistols for their four-date 30th reunion gigs in Brixton in 2007. And the fact that notoriously scabrous singer Johnny Rotten has praised them.
     “It was cool,” says Jarman. “ When I was in my early teens, they had such an impact on me. I was into Queen ass a kid, but the Pistols were the first thing that turned me on to music that had sort of a message, a whole cultural thing around it. It was nice when they reformed they invited us to do it, we were the only band they asked. In some ways it felt like a validation. But it was kinda weird, too. They have a very partisan crowd. [And we got] largely apathy. They weren’t the greatest shows of our lives, but it’s kind of the worst thing: If people wanna boo us, boo us. Or go crazy. It’s a punk show; any extreme reaction would have been good. But we had enough respect to not be heckled, but … it was like we had to prove our mettle somewhat.”
   The Pistols, of course, injected politics into their songs. Cribs?
    “We do have lot of personal politics, very much so,” says Jarman, “ but tend to leave that out of the records, for most part. My feelings on a lot of things, I don’t think the band is the best medium for it. I’ve never really enjoyed listening to political music, outside of punk. My favorite bands have been much more intensely personal. ‘Ignore the Ignorant,’ - the title is personal point of view but people try to attach the album title to political l situation in the north of England. I like the fact people can project their own thing, but it kind of bugged me. At least it provokes.”
(This is an expanded version of a story that ran in the Boston Herald Friday and is on line at www.bostonherald.com.)

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