|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
The History of Electric Six: 1995 - 1999
INTRODUCTION On these biography pages I hope to lay down the history and discography of Electric
Six, from their humble origins as The Wildbunch in 1995 to their worldwide success in
the 21st century.
I Met A Man With A Most Peculiar Name... (1995 - 1997) And do you think / a boy like me / would have a chance with a girl like you? [I Lost Control (of my rock 'n' roll)] Electric Six began as the band The Wildbunch in 1995, formed by drummer Cory Martin and vocalist Tyler Spencer, who had just graduated from college. Tyler Spencer didn't come from a musical family and was originally born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before moving to Detroit before high school. Cory Martin was born in Detroit. Adopting monikers of Martin M and Jackson Pounder respectively, they began touring around Detroit. Explaining their monikers: "We use stage names because we had a stupid idea one night and now we have to live with it" Spencer says on their official website www.electricsix.com. In fact, these stage names have changed over the years, Spencer now being more commonly known as Dick Valentine. Before they officially became a band, Martin had a basement studio and promised himself eighteen months dedicated to music before continuing on for a career in teaching. However, this didn't occur and soon Martin and Spencer were flying out to LA to try for a record deal. "The band had a demo deal with Hollywood Records, and the trip to LA was for the purpose of recording a demo by which Hollywood would evaluate the band and decide whether or not to offer them a record deal. This was but 6 months after the band formed. Needless to say, a deal was not forthcoming. Songs were recorded at that session, obviously, but they were never circulated. Some songs that would be familiar to fans (Gay Bar, The Ballade of MC Sucka DJ, Computer) were done in that session." A demo of eight tracks (Gay Bar, I Lost Control (Of My Rock 'n' Roll), Tiny Little Men, I Know Karate, I'm on Acid, Computer, Christian Radio Manchester and Are You Afraid of the Devil?) was made at this time, and may have been one and the same with the Hollywood Records demo. This first combination of The Wildbunch released their first single I Lost Control (Of My Rock 'n' Roll) on 7'' under the record label of Uchu Cult, a cover name for self-distribution, in 1996. Only 500 copies of this single were pressed and are naturally hard to find. There was possibly a tape cassette of this released as well but this has not been confirmed. To anyone familiar with later The Wildbunch / Electric Six songs, the B-Sides will be recognised. After the title track, come the songs Tiny Little Men, Gay Bar and I Know Karate. All four would later feature on their first live album and on various singles and albums later. On this first single, Tyler Spencer was responsible for much of the creation of the track, performing vocals, guitar, bass and synthesizer, with Cory Martin on drums. The single was also released on cassette. Though sources can't agree, this possibly came with one or more bonus tracks, probably as yet unreleased track 'Nuclear Winter' but also track 'The Model'. Aside from this single release on Uchu Cult, The Wildbunch also released an 8-track album entitled An Evening With The Many Moods Of The Wildbunch's Greatest Hits... Tonight! also in 1996. This 8-track is extremely rare, only 10 - 15 copies were pressed and was basically recorded over other old 8-tracks, but I do know that it consisted of live tracks recorded by Spencer and Martin at the Old Miami. The 8-Track begins with three tracks by support band Panhandle and concludes with five acoustic tracks performed by Spencer. This includes two as-yet unreleased / unrecorded tracks All The Coffee I've Been Drinkin' and I May Or May Not Destroy You. It clocks in at a total time of around sixty minutes By the time in came to their next single, The Wildbunch had expanded to include several new members, who were several years younger than Cory and Tyler. Their second single release was under their new record label of Flying Bomb Records, who they were with up until they became known as Electric Six. The Ballade of MC Sucka DJ, a parody of white rappers, featured six members. Aside from Spencer and Martin still adopting their original monikers were Disco on bass (Steve Nawara); Mojo Frezzato on guitar (Joe Frezza, who would become Surge Joebot); Rock & Roll Indian, also on guitar (Anthony Selph) and Blacklips Hoffman (Dr Brent Hoffman). The members met up around Gusoline Alley in Detroit. Along with the title track on the b-side, the tracks on the single were Take Off Your Clothes and Nuclear War (On The Dancefloor). Again, all the tracks were written by Spencer. Martin had the responsibility of recording and engineering the tracks at The Space Station as well as producing the title tracks. The other tracks were produced by regular producer Jim Diamond, who also mastered the tracks at Ghetto Recorders. This single enjoyed a larger release than their first. It should be noted that the tracks on this 7'' release are slightly different arrangements to the more common versions of the tracks, especially noticeable on Fire track Nuclear War (On The Dancefloor). Having completed that, The Wildbunch then contributed to, what would be, an annual release from their record label Flying Bomb Records - X-Mas Surprise Package. This 'package' released in 1997 consisted of three tracks including The Wildbunch's instrumental X-Mas Xorcismus (Ho Ho Ho). Though I've not heard this to make a comparison, the track apparantly bears a striking resemblance to the theme tune from the movie 'Exorcist 2'. I shall try and find a copy of this to compare them. During the time of releasing two 7'' singles, an 8-track and contributing to a further 7'', The Wildbunch weren't resting. They found themselves touring around many locations in the Detroit area including Old Miami and The Gold Dollar and it was this location that was going to be where their next recording would be released, on CD. Don't Be Afraid of the Robot... (1997 - 1999) This is a song of personal and political activism and was written especially... for you! [Introduction to 'Don't Be Afraid Of The Robot'] Having toured Detroit for many months, on the 26th November 1997 The Wildbunch recorded a live album at The Gold Dollar. Produced and engineered by Neil Yee and, aside from five covers, is completely written by Tyler Spencer. The twenty-three track live CD comes in at just under sixty minutes and contains many familiar tunes to Electric Six fans and shows off Spencer's excellent singing skills. The album kicks off with a rousing rendition of Nuclear War (On the Dancefloor) and continues with tracks Speak English, Naked Pictures and The Model, the latter being a cover of the Kraftwerk Classic. These tracks are followed by Computer, previous single The Ballade of MC Sucka DJ and Alice Cooper cover Clones (We're All). Immolate Me, Taxi to Nowhere, Don't Be Afraid of the Robot, Breaking Up, I'm On Acid, R U Afraid of the Devil, I Am The Knife and I Am Detroit follow. The CD then changes as Spencer plays the next two tracks acoustically: an incredibly different version of I Lost Control (Of My Rock 'n' Roll) and a cover of the Verve Pipe's The Freshman, before continuing on with the rest of the band on tracks I'm a Demon (a cover), Tiny Little Men, Take Off Your Clothes, Gay Bar and I Know Karate. It is interesting to note that in the same way Danger! High Voltage seems now to be the track everyone expects them to play, in a pre-danger era, Gay Bar was greeted with the same attitude. As a jokey-threat to sell their records, Spencer tells the audience that unless they sell $100 of merchandise he will give them an acoustic rendition of The Freshman (which of course he does) but adds: 'and we'll be doing it before Gay Bar so you'll have to sit through it.' The same could be said about the track The Ballade of MC Sucka DJ, which was another very popular track in their early sets. To the best of my knowledge, this track seems to have slipped away after the change of band in 2003 and isn't played live as far as I know. Neil Yee, owner of the 'Gold Dollar' and 'Off Woodward' label, posted the following comments on Wiki-Six: "There were either 500 or 1000 copies of "Don't be Afraid of the Robot" made. I can't remember which. My documentation is in storage... There were also some pre-pressing (lower quality printing) versions that I found when I was clearing out my house - these are the ones on eBay on occasion these days. No re-pressing has happened... "The financial deal was that after my costs were covered, all of the $ from the CD would go to the band. Of course my costs weren't very high ($1600 I think?) but weren't covered until a bit after I closed Gold Dollar... The band appeared to be calling it quits around the same time I was, so most of the copies made were given away in 2001 when I shut down the business! A souvenier for those showing up on those last few crowded nights. It seems that nobody really made any money on this one - because the band just wasn't popular then... "As for the mix... The one that came out was really supposed to be the rough mix for the band to check out, but they insisted that it not be changed at all. It really could have been much better, and I did another mix of it a year ago that I'm much more happy with. I was actually sweeping the floors and restocking the beer coolers while that "mix" was blasting on the speakers.... "Oh yeah - I actually was in DC for a few days last October... Where's my drink? and also happened to be in Spain a month before - saw E6 at Azkena Festival - great show... E6 are also perhaps the nicest people in the business... "Never know where I'll be next... It is a rather scattered life these days. Sadly probably no shows for me for awhile. I've only seen them three times outside of Gold Dollar - twice in DC, once in Spain. "Where now? Just left Switzerland actually.... and no E6 there... "Oh yeah please DO NOT contact me about getting copies of any other live recordings from Wildbunch or White Stripes or whoever... I only release things with the band's permission - why there are not bootlegs of all of this on ebay - though I have multitrack recordings of most shows that I hosted. Also please don't hassle the bands about it... Just buy their new CDs or get 'em from a paid download source that actually pays the band... "On that note, in running the Gold Dollar after having been in bands forever, it was/is particularly important to me to support the music and musicians that I enjoy. 100% of the door/cover charge money at Gold Dollar went to the bands, and they often got more if there was a contract or guarantee... People would try to get in free "I'm a friend of the band..." Well, if you're a friend then how about giving them some $$ for their work? That said, I did keep my day job for the first two years of running the place, and lost about $1400 a month putting on shows?!? Yikes... Things got better though... Was doing it for the love of creativity and original music, not for the money... used to have a good "day job." So once again.... BUY their stuff! "Finally... selling the bar for $250,000? Naa.... If only it would have been that much! Just sold the last pieces of the business in January... That seems to be the number everyone uses. Wonder who came up with it? "Cheers, neil (not online much these days...) "As for more sales of "Don't be Afraid..." I have maybe 50 more in storage in the USA, but probably won't be there for another year." As the live CD Don't Be Afraid of the Robot showed, aside from the tracks usually associated with The Wildbunch and Electric Six, they also wrote many others. According to some interviews, the band experimented with between 150 and 200 songs with around 50 or 60 of them being regularly played. A year later, The Wildbunch released another full-length CD under the record label Future Girls but was distributed solely be the band. Entitled Rock Empire, it was their first studio album and recorded near the end of the existence of The Wildbunch. Some confusion lies in the number of releases of this. Though only one studio version of the record has been seen, there are suggestions that a live version was also produced. "Then we released a limited edition of "Rock Empire." That was the last show. We mixed it in a day. We thought it was over, so we wanted to release a souvenir." [M, http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/august_2003/electric.html It was sold both at live venues and at stores, with 500 copies being pressed. Whereas the CD was the same, the cover differed. The original cover - a photo montage of the band - was changed for shop copies to a more professional version. The album is of great interest to Electric Six fans. As well as several tracks unavailable elsewhere (T.V., Take Me To Your Leader, Animal Attraction, Dancing Like An Idiot, Christian Radio Manchester, Honolulu and two Gay Bar remixes) it contains some early versions of Fire tracks including refreshingly different versions of Gay Bar, Getting Into The Jam, Synthesizer and Naked Pictures. The rest is made up with studio recordings of tracks from Don't Be Afraid of the Robot, but with some differences in tempo and style. However, after three to four years of being together, The Wildbunch were soon to split and the members went their own separate ways. However, even though they were no longer making music together, there were still other projects in the pipeline... However, The Wildbunch couldn't be kept apart and within a year they would be releasing the single that would propel them from being famous in Detroit to being famous worldwide. And that would be Danger! High Voltage. |