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Do You Know Your (Electric) Six Timetable?
I can’t help but feeling this was another stage in the
plan, this strange Electric Six timetable?
Different stages have so far been identified …
STAGE ONE: You discovered them as The Wildbunch,
with their underground, jumpy, simple fuzzed up tracks
on Flying Bomb Records out of the US of Detroit
back in 2000.
If so you are a trendsetter…by now you have left them
behind but hey they are in the country so you will go
to a gig.
STAGE TWO: You picked out ‘that’ track from the TooManyDJs/Soulwax
compilation in late 2001.
You then are an early adaptor…and wish you were as cool
as the trendsetters. You will definitely go to a gig
because you always do.
STAGE THREE: A classic example of riding rumour waves.
In mid-2002 original copies of Danger! High Voltage
were filtered into your local tunesmiths. An ‘Is It
Jack White or Not?’ rumour was swallowed by indie press.
And in the midst of more cryptic rumours and further
Stripes-hype The Wildbunch morphed into the Electric
Six … Danger! got itself a few more chart loving
drums … everyone falls for the glitter ball TNT disco
surge.
By stage three there are many more under the spell of
the rumours of this Electric Six. And so that is why
we find ourselves dragging friends across the country
to this first night gig on the band’s second UK trip,
regaling newcomers with stories of the ‘shoulda been
there’ last visit and praying silently that they don’t
suck.
It was less an air of expectant enthusiasm that had
filled up this wind swept Brighton seafront venue, as
one of wondering if this band had it in them to really
show us a good time…. Everyone knew the stories and
had heard that song but they wanted more, to have this
motley bunch of Village People rejects truly
wow them.
The crowd’s hubbub lessened as one by one the Six snuck
on to the stage, live their ironic line-up of five actually
expands to a full sextet. No big entrance, no fancy
lights or backdrop, just a 1-2-3 Go… straight into their
favoured opener ‘She’s White!’ …not a note dropped,
even a hand clapped before it was the current single
flip-side, ‘Remote Control (Me)’.
All that instant energy slipped after each song, the
crowd politely clap before and then limply-whoop after.
Frontman, vocalist and hopeful porn star Dick Valentine
recalls just where he is, thanking everyone for coming
and joking about Brighton piers. But something in their
demented attitude and overblown/unknown reputation is
just mislaid.
Midway through the too short set next single ‘Gay Bar’
was carelessly thrown aside without introduction or
warning. As a follow-up chart attempt it’ll carry the
band through to their debut album, Fire, but
on tonight’s showing 'Gay Bar' was just too straight;
it too may just need a chart-friendly remix.
Before there was a chance of it being lost altogether
to an increasingly disinterested crowd, Danger! High
Voltage’s insistent guitar loop drags attention back
stage-ward. Against the pumped up chart mix and the
many other remixes out and about sadly even their ‘hit’
doesn’t lift the crowd. Another track or two fizzed
by, 'Dance Commander' sounding much more like a useful
hit single than Gay Bar.
The audience’s gig-politeness was even more apparent
at the end; people just didn’t seem to believe there
was any more…finished? Goody, another pint. To be fair
hose that left missed a highlight of the night. It too
was a classic #2 single, a fact not lost on Electric
Six who ironically thanked us for matching their dizzy
chart heights.
But who is kidding whom? Radio GaGa is likely
to be around for decades, will 'Danger!' even make it
to an end of 2003 compilation.
We had a need to be lifted out of our freezing UK winter
and transported to a sleazy LA Strip bar. In the end
it felt as if hype and expectation only spread so far,
the general feeling was of not being wowed.
Relevant sites:
http://www.electric6.com
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