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The History of Electric Six: 2001 - 2003
The Dirty Shame (2001) I'm a man / and I'm torn between vengeance and fashion [Vengeance and Fashion, The Dirty Shame - Smog Cutter Love Story] Prior to the release of Danger! High Voltage, the most important thing to mention is Tyler Spencer's solo project. Going under the name of The Dirty Shame, the album Smog Cutter Love Story contained eleven tracks, including Vengeance and Fashion, which would be later re-recorded by Electric Six for their debut mainstream album. Recorded in 2000 and released in 2001, the eleven tracks were as follows: The International Symbol for Radiation; Chinese Restaurant; Say Goodnight, Crazy Lady; Hospital Bed; Vengeance and Fashion; Commit No Crime; My Love Is A Knife; Surgery; Turn Your Parents Against Each Other; and Who's Gonna Suffer All Your Industrial Accidents? All tracks were written by Spencer and he also performed all vocals and instruments, aside from a guitar solo and percussion on Who's Gonna Suffer All Your Industrial Accidents? by Chris Peters (who would later become a permanent member of Electric Six), whose brother Drew played accordion on the same track, as well as Chinese Restaurant. As with their second Electric Six album Señor Smoke, the album was recorded at 40oz Studio at Ann Arbor in Michigan by Drew Peters, who mixed the album as well. The reason for this release is most commonly cited as the reluctance of the other band members to include these songs in the Wildbunch canon. Therefore Spencer went away and recorded them in this "solo" album. Danger! Danger! High Voltage (part one)... (2001 - 2002) Well don't you wanna know how we keep startin' fires? [Danger! High Voltage] In 2001, The Wildbunch were back together and recording a new song that would become their biggest hit to date and would lead them to fame on the biggest scale yet. The first big change in this new line-up (though still under the name of The Wildbunch) was the adoption of new monikers and a new member. Tyler Spencer had changed his stage name from Jackson Pounder to the now familiar Dick Valentine around the time of Rock Empire. Original The Wildbunch member Cory Martin changed from Martin M to the tongue-twister M. Cougar Mellencamp. Blacklips Hoffman adjusted his name slightly to Dr Blacklip Hoffman and Joe Frezza altered his stage name to Surge Joebot. Disco left the band and was replaced by Frank Lloyd Bonnaventure on bass. It was about this time that the band created a promotional video entitled 'Young As Hell' that was created for a VH1 television show called 'Bands on the Run'. This competition, which was subsequently won by band Flickerstick required entrants to create a short five-minute video from which the programme makers would pick four bands. Sadly, the Wildbunch weren't picked but it wasn't a loss as the show only lasted one season. The narrator of the piece is Joe Frezza, impersonating a narrator of an Exorcist documentary (doing a pretty good impersonation apparantly). What with this and their 'X-Mas Xorcismus (Ho Ho Ho)' song, the band seemed to have an interest in the film. It was probably at the same time they did a black and white promotional video of 'Dance Commander'. The single was again recorded at Ghetto Recorders by Jim Diamond, and the cover was once more created by Ballistic, who did the cover of The Dirty Shame album. The single does throw up some interesting topics, one that has passed into Electric Six folklore. The first is that they say Bill Clinton did the saxophone on the record, which, though not impossible, is unlikely. The saxophone is actually performed by producer 'Jim Diamond'. The second and most interesting declaration on the single cover is that the additional vocals were done by the artist John S O'Leary. To anyone who has heard any of The White Stripes songs, will recognize the additional vocals as those of Jack White. However, this has constantly been denied by all sides, a recent interview by Spencer saying that he'd neither confirm nor deny his presence on the record. The official story post-release is that John S O'Leary won a competition to appear on the record. However, the Jack White theory wouldn't go away. The truth of the matter is that Jack White did do the vocals on the record, using the pseudonym that he used when booking into hotels. The song was originally recorded in 2000 and Jack White was approached after showing interest in recording a song with The Wildbunch. Originally the lead vocals of White and Spencer were laid down together as a standard duet but were later adjusted to a call and response style of duet which got a better reception. The reason that Jack White doesn't sing all the parts is because he didn't want to endorse Taco Bell. He did, however, record his parts of the song in twenty minutes and history was made. The song is a departure from the usual as, aside from sounding different to much of their other material, is credited as a combined effort from four members of the band. The track came about after Spencer added lyrics to a riff a member of the band created that was played when a string on their guitar broke. The original release of Danger! High Voltage was accompanied by two tracks on b-side. Neurocameraman was about the conspiracy theory of government's planting messages in the brains of Americans, and She's Guatemala about the singer's lust for a woman of that country origin. Again, both tracks were written by Tyler Spencer. Having released their third single, The Wildbunch recorded one more track under this original name. It was a duet with Detroit artist Troy Gregory, who had appeared on Rock Empire, on his album Sybil (named after a book from the 70s about Sybil, a woman with multiple-personality disorder; the album is a collection of personalities), again produced by Jim Diamond (along with Troy Gregory) but this time released under record label Fall of Rome. The vocals were shared between Troy Gregory and Tyler Spencer, though Spencer's familiar vocals aren't as prominent as usual, and the line up was similar as on Danger! High Voltage, with Surge Joebot, Martin M (returning to his previous stage name) and Rock 'n' Roll Indian. Disco was now on bass. The track, Dealin' In Death 'N' Stealin' In The Name Of The Lord, is different from most other tracks, probably because it was written not by Tyler Spencer but by Troy Gregory instead. Unreleased second solo album We're starting a fire / Electric Demons in love! [Electric Demons In Love] After these releases, Tyler Spencer began work on a second, more electronic-based, solo album. Only four tracks were recorded however - Future Girls, Brand Name Recognition, Transatlantic Flight, and Electric Demons (In Love), which would later appear on Fire. Spencer didn't have chance to complete the album as The Wildbunch had just signed up to record label XL Recordings and that would lead to The Wildbunch becoming Electric Six and worldwide fame... Danger! Danger! High Voltage (part two)... (2003) Fire in the disco! Fire in the disco! Fire in the Taco Bell! [Danger! High Voltage] In 2002, having released three 7'' singles, two live albums, an eight-track and a feature on another album, The Wildbunch finally got a new record deal, with XL recordings. However, though they now had the opportunity to go for worldwide fame, they had to change the name. The name The Wildbunch was already taken by the group that would become Massive Attack. This meant that they would have to alter their name. Their website lists different names they'd come up with before settling on Electric Six, including The Turkeys, The Detroit Pythons; The Push (already taken!) and Electric Five. Electric Six was a name that the band didn't really like. They still prefer to refer to themselves as The Wildbunch, but for legal reasons they couldn't continue under that old name and the new name was the one that they disliked the least. However, Electric Six it was going to be and this allowed them to continue on to release singles in the United Kingdom. And the first was going to be a re-issue of Danger! High Voltage. Having been included as part of Soulwax's mix-compilation '2 Many DJs' the previous year, Danger! High Voltage was released on the 6th January 2003 as part of a 2-CD set. It was a joint writing effort between Tyler Spencer, Joe Frezza, Steve Nawara and Anthony Selph. Sadly it was beaten to number one by the first single from manufactured band Girls Aloud. However, for a first release, number two was excellent and made Electric Six a name on the lips of the music-buying public. This release of Danger! High Voltage was re-created from the original tapes and, though some slight remixing and adjustments were made, it's pretty similar. The song was released with several b-sides. The first was a re-recording of I Lost Control (Of My Rock 'N' Roll) and the second track was Remote Control (Me), a re-recording of the Rock Empire track. The second CD including two remixes of the song, new for the release. And with a single release in 2003, they had to make an accompanying video, which most likely added to the appeal of the record. The Video The concept behind the video is a strange one. Tyler Spencer and actress Tina Kanarek - who lip-synchs (badly) to Jack White's vocals - sing along to the song in a house that is a contender for the world's worst wallpaper, with many strange objects including weird paintings on the walls and a large stuffed moose. The strangest aspect of the video is that as the words 'High Voltage' are sang by either Spencer of Kanarek, their genitals and breasts light up respectively. Quite. The other band members are represented in the paintings hanging on the walls. The promo was directed by Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire, who would later go on to direct the videos for both Gay Bar and Radio Ga Ga, and filmed in August 2002 in a house in the suburbs of Toronto (or maybe just a studio...) This strange and quirky, but nonetheless great, video helped the song make an impression on the British buying public. Naturally, the single was also launched with many performances on television, including the iconic BBC music programme Top of the Pops. After releasing such a popular song, many wrote Electric Six off as one-hit wonders. But their next single release, though not quite reaching the position of Danger! High Voltage, was in many ways even more popular. And that single would be one of Spencer's earliest songs: Gay Bar. However before this release and literally days after recording a live version of Danger! High Voltage for Jools Holland's television show (in fact Jools Holland was worried this performance wouldn't go ahead as they were arguing before the show, as detailed in the DVD booklet), just when they thought things were going well, the group went through yet another change... Split and Reform - part two... (2003) Don't ask / too many questions / my son / you might not like what you find [Tiny Little Men] Now you would think that, after releasing their first major single and achieving a debut number two in the British charts that Electric Six would be on their way up. However, just after the release problems began. Three of the band members left the group: Surge Joebot (Joe Frezza); Disco (Steve Nawara) and Rock 'n' Roll Indian (Anthony Selph). Although the reasons are unclear, many blamed the band's new manager for the split, though this is most likely a cover story. No one is really happy to talk about this time of the band, which is understandable. One reason is that the band was split over which direction to go creatively. Another possibility is that the band members weren't happy with the sudden change from playing smaller, local clubs to being on a worldwide stage. However, the next singles from the album would still be credited to these members. Whilst on tour, the remaining members Spencer, Martin and Tait, were joined by new members Johnny Na$hional (John Nash) and Frank Lloyd Bonaventure (Mark Dundon). So with the new members, Electric Six continued on tour to promote themselves and their music before preparing to release their second single as Electric Six. I've Got Something To Put In You... (2003) Let's do an edit... / ...do a radio edit... [Gay Bar - radio edit] In many ways, Gay Bar would become the most famous of the Electric Six songs for two reasons: the video and the lyrics. But first, a history of the song. Gay Bar first appeared as a b-side of the first Wildbunch release I Lost Control (Of My Rock 'n' Roll), although in a slightly different version: the second chorus of 'do you have any money?' would not make an appearance until this re-recorded Electric Six version. It also appeared as a demo on An Evening With The Many Moods Of The Wildbunch's Greatest Hits.. Tonight and later as the penultimate track on the live CD Don't Be Afraid of the Robot. It would also make an appearance as track number three of Rock Empire. It was the extended, re-recorded version that was used for the 2003 release (also released on Fire) that went on to increase the success of the song that had already proved popular in The Wildbunch days. Gay Bar was released on June 2nd 2003 and was accompanied with the usual promotion on television including on Top of the Pops. The crowd were obviously familiar with the group's previous song, as before the song began they chanted lines from Danger! High Voltage. The song was released on 7'' with their cover of the song Living End, on CD with Wildbunch favourites Don't Be Afraid of the Robot and Take Off Your Clothes and on DVD, with the video, Gay Bar sung by Peaches and Electric Six's cover of Peaches' Rock Show. Both versions of Rock Show would be released together on a vinyl that year. However, even before Gay Bar's release it caused controversy with its lyrics. No, it wasn't the line 'I've got something to put in you'. No. It wasn't uproar by the Gay community. It was because they mentioned 'Nuclear War' in the song which, because of the Iraq War being in progress and WMDs common talking points, the song had to be altered. So Spencer went back into studio and adjusted the lines from 'Let's start a war... start a nuclear war...' to 'Let's do an edit... do a radio edit.' Now with the lyrics altered, the only thing left to do was release a video. The Video The video was again directed by Tom Kuntz and Mike Maguire and featured Spencer dressed up as American president Abraham Lincoln (who was rumoured to be gay). It was shot in April 2003 in a Toronto studio and used many stand-ins to achieve the final results. The video starts with Spencer in the Oval Office before showing him in a bath, in a bedroom, in a gym and in a pole-dancing room with his many clones, with the scenes being intercut with various suggestive items including a pepper mill, an egg in an eggcup and a train entering a station. As with the track itself, parts of the video were subject to editing, with several of items being blurred out, making the items look even worse than they did before they were pixelated. None of this damped the popularity of the video, which proved more popular than the first, and even won Video of the Year at both the Q and Kerrang awards in 2003. The video helped the track reach the position of five in the UK charts. With their second single released and successful, Electric Six continued to tour but didn't have much chance to rest as within a month their first album under the new name would be released. And that album would be Fire... Gay Bar popularity So popular was Gay Bar with the public, it spawned many different things. London radio station XFM ran a competition to make a bootleg using the acoustic Gay Bar lyrics and any song you pleased. Hilarious entries include the song mixed with YMCA by The Village People, Justin Timberlake's Rock Your Body and The Stranglers' No More Heroes. Secondly, the song was used as of a viral e-mail with doctored video of Tony Blair and George Bush singing to each other and edited in such a way that it seemed like they were singing the song. Thirdly, and perhaps most famously, the song was used on the website www.rathergood.com on a 'Viking Kitten' flash animation by Joel Veitch. I went to the store... to get some more... [2003] Now I ain't educated but I sure ain't stupid [Electric Demons (In Love)] Having released two singles under the new name of Electric Six and having toured extensively in the first half of 2003, they released their second full length studio album, though the first as Electric Six, entitled Fire, titled after the band noticed the abundance of the word on the album tracks. The album was created by the five members before the split in early 2003: Dick Valentine, Surge Joebot, The Rock-n-Roll Indian, Disco and M, plus other associates Tait Nucleus?, Dr. Blacklips Hoffman, Jeff Simmons, Johnny Vegas-Hentch and Frank Lloyd Bonaventure (some of which would appear in later line-ups of the regularly changing band) plus many other additional musicians. The tracks were produced by Soulchild (though the album had previously been recorded without them but this version was scrapped) and recorded between London and Detroit. The group had already promoted the album live on BBC Radio One's Lamacq Live show, playing Dance Commander, Danger! High Voltage, Gay Bar and She's White. All the tracks on the album were written solely by Tyler Spencer, apart from Danger! High Voltage which was written by Spencer / Frezza / Sylph / Nawara. The album acts as a kind of bridge between The Wildbunch releases and Electric Six with six tracks having been released before in one form or another (they are: Naked Pictures Of Your Mother; Danger! High Voltage; Gay Bar,; Nuclear War (On The Dancefloor); Getting Into The Jam and Vengeance and Fashion.) Fire was released on CD and 12'' vinyl in the UK on June 30th 2003. Fire was released on the same day in Japan but with some extra bonuses: a lyrics sheet, the CD-Rom video of Danger! High Voltage and three tracks tacked onto the end: Don't Be Afraid Of The Robot; Remote Control (Me); and I Lost Control (Of My Rock & Roll). The album reached number seven in the charts and enjoyed relative success. On the same day that Fire was released, Danger! High Voltage appeared on the OST of Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. In fact, Danger! High Voltage and Gay Bar appeared on lots of compilations around this time. See the discography for more information. Throughout the rest of 2003, Electric Six toured extensively around the UK and USA, plus in various other places including the 'Pukkelpop' festival in Belgium. They also continued to update their website and also providing many items for their fans including t-shirts, cigarette lighters and badges. But there was one more event for 2003: their third and final single from Fire was released later in 2003, and that would be a modified cut of the first track on the album. You must obey the dance commander... (2003) Radio Message From HQ / Dance Commander / We Love You [Dance Commander] On the 13th October 2003, Electric Six released their next single: Dance Commander on two CDs and a 12'' vinyl. Featuring rousing lyrics and a catchy tune - slightly altered for the single release from the album version - the single was destined for success following the previous two releases but never quite got there, debuting only at number forty in the charts. The releases of the single including remixes by Soulchild, Fatboy Slim and Benny Benassi, as well as the original album version and re-recording of popular live favourite I Am Detroit. Naturally there was a video made to accompany the song that, although not shown on the music television channels as much as the previous two, was just as mad as the others. The Video This third video was directed by Ruben Fleischer, who did some videos for Dizzee Rascal among others, and was a combined effort of two ideas; one from Fleischer and one from Spencer. Fleischer's idea was to have Spencer going round his house smashing everything up. Spencer's on the other hand was of himself, the Dance Commander 'holding court in a high school gymnasium with cheerleaders, freaking them as needed'. The director and star of the video reached a compromise and combined the ideas. As Spencer says on the official Electric Six website, 'resulting in a video that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever'. The video starts off with Spencer, sporting unusual clothes and an even strange haircut, dancing and throwing himself around his bedroom before going downstairs and smashing up items in the living room using a golf club among other things, whilst being intercut with Spencer dressed up as a military person with a large moustache, dancing around a gym with lights, a stereo and girls. After the release of Dance Commander, Electric Six faded from the spotlight. For a reason that has never been disclosed, XL Recordings dropped the band even though they'd secured two top ten singles and one top ten album. There had been plans for a fourth single - a christmas release for Radio Ga Ga but, obviously as the band had been dropped from the label, this never materialised in 2003, instead appearing a year later under the Warner record label. They continued to tour and write songs but little happened. There songs, however, continued to appear on compilations into 2004. However, the quiet period was all to change in Summer 2004 when postings began to appear on the official Electric Six website promising new releases from the band... |