Heave Media

A Return to the Gay Bar

Electric Six continue to kick out the jams with their fifth release

Electric Six

Flashy

Released on Oct 21, 2008

The guilty pleasure.  It’s what every serious music nerd tries to hide from their elitist friends, storing those My Chemical Romance albums under their bed before every party.  But does a lack of musical maturity make music any less serious?  Detroit rockers Electric Six have been trying to answer this question with ludicrous lyrics and white-hot rock and roll rather than make-up and theatrics.  The band sprung from the rich Detroit rock scene in the late 90s as the Wild Bunch before officially releasing their first album as Electric Six in 2003.  Their style is best described as music without borders.  Nothing is off topic for Electric Six.  Who doesn’t remember every kid singing “Gay Bar” over and over again?  Well maybe not every kid, but every punk aficionado with a pension for humor either saw the music video filled with scantily clad Abe Lincolns or listened to Electric Six’s ode to the gay bar scene.  Now with their fifth studio album Flashy, lead singer Dick Valentine and his crew of misfits continue on with their humorous but very seriously executed songs.

Flashy from the start shows that Electric Six may be growing older but their lighthearted while hard-rocking style will never get old.  The first track “Gay Bar Part 2” continues Valentine’s epic on homosexuality that started on their first album, Fire.  While “Gay Bar Part 2” lacks the directness that “Gay Bar” had, its effect is still prevalent.  With lyrics like “You were silenced for a moment by my ‘Peter, Paul, and Mary’ box set” Electric Six shows that seriousness has yet to enter their repertoire.  They are true genre-benders, throwing everything from rock to disco into a blender and hitting “Purée.” “Flashy Man” has an amazing, pimp-worthy bass riff and synthesizer flourishes to accompany the story of a class-act ladies man.  Valentine even goes as far as to call him “the Xbox to your Atari.”  The only thing that could make the song better is if crazy '70s graphics were flying at your face at warp speed.

Don’t knock Electric Six because of their choice of subject matter though.  Flashy may have a song all about Formula 409 and how amazing it’s cleaning abilities are, but it’s more like Spinal Tap without the stupidity than just pure garbage.  These men are good musicians; they just choose to not take their lyrics as seriously as some musicians would.  The words in “Heavy Woman” aren’t exactly Shakespearean poetry, but that doesn’t make the song any less credible.  Valentine’s voice sounds better than ever, his gruff tone matching the heavy crunch of the guitar part.  It’s a great little number, full of that rock and roll spirit that many rock acts try to achieve and fail at.  Electric Six may be no Sonic Youth or Broken Social Scene when it comes to life-changing lyrics, but Flashy is a great romp for the listener that just wants to have fun.

Posted by Amy Dittmeier on Nov 05, 2008 @ 10:00 am