Cleverly Dumb
An album art shot of Electric Six for the release of Zodiac (2010)
The Detroit based Electric Six sound a little bit like every dumb band that grated on your nerves in the 70s and 80s. What's unusual about E6 is they subvert the music by playing it from ironic perspective. Clearly E6 loves the music they parody which makes their cleverly dumb perspective so entertaining. Jack White of White Stripes is a big fan of E6 and he contributed backup vocals on their early album
Danger! High Voltage.
Let's face it... the music wasn't as nearly as bad as we remember it. The problem was that the popular hits of the Seventies era got incessant airplay on Top 40 AM radio. A rational person can become a candidate for a straight jacket fitting if forced to listen to
Play that Funky Music White Boy, 900 times in a row. The Geneva Accords have laws against that sort of torture.
Since their first record release in 2003, E6 has enjoyed more success in the UK than in their native United States. It took until 2006 for E6 to finally sign a recording contract with Metropolis Records in the United States, which has released their back catalog of UK released albums and singles. Even so, Electric Six is hardly a household name in either the UK or the USA, but they're developing a word of mouth, cult following in both nations.
Electric Six follows Detroit's long tradition of producing kick-ass rock and roll bands like Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, the Amboy Dukes, MC5, the Stooges, Alice Cooper, Brownsville Station, White Stripes & Kid Rock. E6 has all the furious sound and power of a classic Motor City rock band in their live performances.
The video below,
Dance Commander, has gotten 1.4 million YouTube hits since being posted. E6's charismatic singer D1ck Valentine is hilarious as he parodies the fascistic impulses of both metal and disco fans:
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Below is Electric Six's metalized cover of the Spinner's 1976 hit,
The Rubberband Man. This song is usually the barn burning finale song for most of Electric Six's live shows.
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As a contrast, I've embedded a live television performance of the original 1976 version of
The Rubberband Man with the magnificent Philippe Wynn on vocials. It was the last songwriting contribution Wynne would make to the Spinners before climbing aboard the Mothership with Parliament/Funkadelic. As it turned out,
The Rubberband Man was the last significant hit song for the Spinners.
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