Electric Six
Vibrator”
electricsix.com
The E6 has always been spot-on when reanimating ’80s musicultural clichés, a practice that has of late become a music industry pastime. Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse and the Killers have covered the waterfront to fawning coverage. Hell, even Duran Duran has attached the jumper cables to their sagging jowls for another run.
So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the E6’s latest tune, the ersatz-controversial “Vibrator” rides the new wave. This is also the first full jam to emerge from E6 that doesn’t in some way involve contributions from former members who were dismissed/quit last year.
The ditty starts by rescuing Devo’s synth-dork nadir “Dr. Detroit” and whipping it up on an irrepressible bass rumble replete with fey counterpoint backing vocals. It’s about as removed from the arena rock posturing of E6’s Fire as can be and there’s no disco in sight. It tells of a man who thinks that his newfound babe don’t need no “artificial stimulator, non organic excavator.” (Yep, the pancake-makeup-thick casual-ironic misogyny is part of the shtick.) Maybe there are a couple tick-tocks left on E6’s quarter-hour.
Download “Vibrator” for free at electricsix.com, or see the band’s homecoming show at the Majestic Theater (4140 Woodward Ave., Detroit; 313-833-9700) on Thanksgiving Eve with Los Fancy Free and Peelander-Z.
Livernoise
“Shell of a City” b/w “Almost There” and “Youthanized”
D-wreckEd-hiT Records
Unless “Silvenis” is some willfully incomplete anagram for Livernoise, this little spinner was created by three young lads who also happen to be the brothers Silvenis. (The cheeky cover shot sees them posing, instruments in hand, on the street sign at Livernois and Hanson — nyuck-nyuck-nycuk.) Once the needle drops, the youthful exuberance becomes less an aesthetic liability than a musical asset. Both “Shell of a City” and “Almost There” shiver with the kind of just-glad-to-be-holding-it-together punk-informed glee that make bands like the Fallouts, the Drags and the Monarchs such fun, if only fleeting, listens. Remember when you had your first beer?
D-wreckEd-hiT Records
P.O. Box 9677, Detroit, MI 48209
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