Change of musical pace today.

There are a few artists now that I consider spectacles, wonders of the music world, that everyone should see at least once regardless of taste or personal ethics. One of those bands is Electric Six, which absolutely floored me late last year. (The other two bands are The Polyphonic Spree, and just recently, Andrew Bird. I thought Local H could be entertaining to everyone but I took a bunch of people to a Local H show once, one girl was a big Neil Young fan, and everyone I brought walked out of the show a few songs in. I was pretty offended.)

Dick Valentine, front man and creative force behind the whole thing, seems like he was born to entertain. I’d presuppose that aside from recording albums and performing on a stage, Dick Valentine is probably retarded, and I don’t mean like “ha ha you’re an idiot” but that he’s actually retarded. I bet God got all fucked up one night and was like “I’m going to take an empty shell of a person and put this amazing gift of entertainment in him, and NOTHING ELSE, BWHAAHA let’s see what happens it’ll be fun!” Then Dick Valentine was born.

I wrote a review of the show I saw, somewhere, I think, let me find it. Found it! I’ll just blockquote it.

I am not an Electric Six fan. I went to go see Local H and took a friend of mine who is a partial-fan of the Six.

Local H rocked. Way better than they were at the Troubadour, but I attribute that to a shitty audience and a shitty venue (the Troubadour can suck cocks and die, i have seen three shows there and they were all bullshit thanks to a lousy fucking crowd and shitty acoustics) but they rocked at the Key Club the same way they did three+ years ago when I saw them touring for PJ Soles. They were great, so great.

But what was better was Dick Valentine walking out on stage in a big red cape and the band launching into some the the loudest danciest coolest rock whatever-the-fuck music I’ve ever heard. When the bassist took off Valentine’s cape just to reveal another one underneath, complete with a big SHOWTIME reveal on the back during the second song, oh man.

We Were Witchy Witchy White Women is the song that made me realize that this band is something significant that I should be listening to. The synth/vocal ‘riff’ that runs through the end of the song is so amazingly powerful that I could do nothing but stand in awe of the things that were unfolding around me.

Women were dancing, the entire floor was jumping and people were crowd surfing. This is a band that knows how to get people pumped up. Maybe it’s because their music appeals to something deeply stupid and primal in all of us, and maybe that’s why I never gave them a shot: they do play stupid dancy music, but they’re not Andrew W.K., they’re sarcastic. They’re, or I should say Dick Valentine is a showman.

No amount of listening to Electric Six albums will recapture how amazing they were live. I will just be forced to go see them again and again.

That’s all.

Go see Electric Six if you have a chance. They’re really quite amazing.