Saw The Electric 6 from Detroit at the Entry last night (tiny venue attached to the larger First Ave. Main Room). I almost didn't go as it promised to be a really late night--they were on the schedule as going on at 11:45 and I knew I'd be missing copious morning classes. Then I remembered that it killed me to miss them in the UK last month and I just went.

The band has two big singles now, "Danger, High Voltage" and "Gay Bar." The lead singer really is a shorter, more mobile, version of Jack White. He has a dynamic growlly voice that creates the impression that one is watching a human Cookie Monster leading a band. Very weird.

They're playing at The Troubador in late June, if memory serves. Oh and the other kick I got was out of seeing The Deaths, with Wade Boggs from the Beck bbs on keys!

http://www.pollstar.com/tour/searchall.pl?By=Artist&Content=Electric+Six

Looks like they will hit West Hollywood in mid-July.

3 of the band members have left! Gay Bar went top 5 in the UK last night

Peace
Mark

I know, I went up to one of the guys thinking he was in the opening band and he said he was in the E6! I said I had wanted to catch their show in London but was at another. He replied that he just joined the band two weeks ago. Very weird.

Gay Bar is one of the best songs on the album, though my favorite is "Dance Commander."

In case you already havent seen this....

http://www.rathergood.com/gaybar/

Though Phobiac and I were looking forward to heading down Santa Monica towards the Jonathan Stevens/Alex Ebert art show last night, we mapped out the place and realized it way on the other end of SM and we already had tickets to the Electric 6. Which was odd since the Electric 6 were playing around the corner from Ima Robot at the Astoria in London last May when we were out there and we thought they were siphoning off a lot of the audience that might have seen the 'Bot that night. The coincidence had an aura of cosmic order to it...especially since we recalled handing out promo fliers at the Astoria entrance that night and, when we came out of the Electric 6 show, people were handing out Ima Robot stuff. Weird.

So we stopped by the House Of Blues to pick up tickets for the Human League August 17th. We just could not resist.

The Electric 6 were on fire, as usual. The lead singer has a voice that is definitely from the Jack White school, and he also shares the childlike persona that Jack sometimes hints at in his music. But this guy is more the bratty, emotionally disturbed type of kid and he plays off of this character on stage. He scratches at his head like he has a lice problem, makes up stories about getting lyme disease from a deer that ran onto the tour bus and bit him, and grins at the audience for uncomfortably long stretches of time.

Phobiac said he enjoyed the performance better than the times we've seen The Hives. I would probably say that both bands have a good handle on how to rock and audience the way they want to be rocked, in the old-fashioned Chuck Berry way. It helped that the crowd was out of control...I mean, who would have thought a band could get a crowd to mosh to a song called "Gay Bar?"

Poobs, I should have called you for this one. You would have gotten a big kick out of them.

unforutantely the camera quality of my cell phone leaves more to be desired.

Here's a picture from the Electric 6 show at The Troubadour; as if you couldn't tell.

[Edited on 18-7-2003 by Phobiac]

It could be anything, that picture! Squad car, plate of pasta, anything. Damn camera phone.