Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Tuesday Tuneage
Electric Six - "Nuclear War (On The Dance Floor)"
2003

At the end of 1991's Stairway To Hell: The 500 Best Heavy Metal Albums In The Universe, Chuck Eddy posited that a disco-metal fusion was inevitable in the nineties. Among his 25 reasons were Kiss's disco song "I Was Made For Lovin' You" (paired with) Rick James's most metal moment being "Love Gun", Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave" having the exact same rhythm as Blondie's "Call Me", and Van Halen's "Dance The Night Away" and "Dancing in the Streets." And, he wrote: "In Canada circa 1980, an unjustly noticed pop vanguard starring Loverboy, Bryan Adams, and Aldo Nova took it for granted that metal, disco, and new wave were all gonna be ONE AND THE SAME THING." The conclusion being that not only was disco-metal inevitable, it had been with us all along.

Last decade, Detroit's Electric Six debuted in 2003 with "Danger! High Voltage", the best rock 'n' roll single since "Smells Like Teen Spirit". The album, Fire, was a Revelation (capital "R", New Testament-like). It shares a similar concept to Prince's 1999 album, the lesson seems to be that a nuclear apocalypse is imminent, so let's hit the dance floor and/or sheets. Along with stops at "Taco Bell" and a "Gay Bar" (gays -  along with blacks and Latins - invented disco, and I'm not even going to Wikipedia to confirm this) and a nod to Van Halen's "Panama." Not sure where an extremely pale girl fits in ("She's White" - Detroit bands don't seem afraid of addressing race. See also The Paybacks' "Black Girl" and The Hentchmen's "I'm Through With White Girls", both available on the Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit anthology) but the Six's relentless disco-metal attack pulls it all off seamlessly. Perfect for dance parties in your apartment's living room or getting through a cardio workout. The riffs, beats, jokes, and asides pile up so furiously that there's no conceivable way these guys ever made another album. (They've made many, many more …)

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Tuesday Tuneage
The Dead Boys - "Ain't Nothin' To Do"
1977

My social life's a dud, my name is really mud. Another Valentine's Day alone. The plan? Tombstone pizza, TGI Friday's wings (the day deserves no better) from my grocer's freezer, Food Club mixed nuts, Old Dutch cheese popcorn, cans o'beer, Finlandia, hockey game on the tube, and this mix loud on the stereo:

1) Music Machine - "Talk Talk"
2) Tigers of Pan Tang - "Killers"
3) The Stooges - "T.V. Eye"
4) Metallica - "Jump In The Fire"
5) The Dead Boys - "Ain't Nothin' To Do"
6) Nine Inch Nails - "Down In It"
7) Electric Six - "Nuclear War (on the Dance Floor)"
8) Black Sabbath - "Supernaut"
9) Faster Pussycat - "No Room For Emotion"
10) Action Swingers - "Glad To Be Gone"
11) Motorhead - "No Class"
12) The Sex Pistols - "No Feelings"
13) The Rolling Stones - "Paint It, Black"

All served up in the spirit of a certain Thatch comic strip, where a character declared: "It's just not Valentine's Day without chips, dip and a couple King Kans of Schlitz."

Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Tuesday Tuneage
Streetheart - "Under My Thumb"
1979

Dry funk or ist es Kraftwerk-influenced? Punk-ish vocal or is it Brit-influenced? Mott-like chanting during the chorus, piano fills, weird synth noises that date it, handclaps, garage rock organ. Partially responsible for Loverboy. Long long long guitar solo to remind the boys that this is a rock song yeahhhh, whole shebang saved in end by GNR-anticipating move of whispering a mantra, in this case non-Stones lyrics.