The Last Shadow Puppets is a side project of Alex Turner of Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane of Liverpool band The Rascals.

In August 2007 NME reported that Arctic Monkeys lead singer Alex Turner and lead singer of then newly formed The Rascals, Miles Kane would be recording an album with James Ford producing and playing drums.[1] Turner & Kane became friends when Kane\'s previous band The Little Flames played support for Arctic Monkeys on their May/June 2005 UK tour. The Little Flames also supported Arctic Monkeys on their April 2007 UK tour, when Turner and Kane wrote songs together for a collaborative project.[2] Their collaboration extends into Arctic Monkeys material, with Kane playing guitar on \"505\", the closing track of second Arctic Monkeys album Favourite Worst Nightmare and on \"Fluorescent Adolescent\" b-sides \"The Bakery\" and \"Plastic Tramp\". Kane also guested on \"505\" or \"Plastic Tramp\" at several Arctic Monkeys gigs in 2007, including the summer mini-festivals at Lancashire County Cricket Club and Arctic Monkeys\' 2007 appearance at Glastonbury.

The initial recording of the record took place in France in late August with additional material added between August and December. In December Owen Pallett was appointed to arrange the strings, brass and percussion for the album with the 22-piece London Metropolitan Orchestra. During the recording of the album Turner and Kane hired a documentary film-making team to capture the story of the project.[3]

On 20 February 2008, the duo revealed they would be known as The Last Shadow Puppets and that their album would be titled The Age of the Understatement and be released on 21 April 2008. The first single, \"The Age of the Understatement\" would be released the week before on April 14, with new song \"Two Hearts in Two Weeks\" and covers of Billy Fury\'s \"Wondrous Place\" and David Bowie\'s \"In the Heat of the Morning\" (a song previously mentioned by Turner as a favourite[4]) as b-sides.[5] The duo have said they took inspiration from Scott Walker and early Bowie.

The band played their first ever show in Brooklyn, New York at Sound Records on 4 March 2008,[6] playing a second gig at the Lower East Side\'s Cake Shop the following night.[7]

The Last Shadow Puppets played a short two song set on 5 April at the Lock Tavern in Camden, London. They played \"Meeting Place\" and \"Standing Next To Me\" in support of Remi Nicole, who organised the party both to celebrate her birthday and to raise money for MS sufferers. The band have also recently performed on Jools Holland\'s show Later... with Jools Holland, with producer James Ford on drums and Owen Pallett conducting the string accompaniment. The band will not tour until October 2008 because of Kane's commitments to his band The Rascals as they will be touring to promote their debut album.[8] Also Turner has reportedly clashed with the record label over who will pay for the 16 piece orchestra if they were to go on tour. [9]

According to an interview given to NME published on 23 March 2008, it was announced that the second single of the band will be \"Standing Next To Me\".

Source : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Shadow_Puppets