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Media: PressHere's a brief tasting menu into the UK press we have got over the few years whilst promoting the first LP. Stay tuned for new press updates as, when and if they happen...keep reading these illustrious organs.Murder on the Dancefloor Interview with Bizarre Keep It Surreal Our Friends Electric Shock To The System Ire In The Disco Chancers in the nicest possible way |
Ire in the Disco! - NME, 24th May 2003
Electric Six have followed their camp dancefloor smash with a bona-fide gay anthem, so where better to celebrate than a noisy bar in Manchester’s Canal Street? Except – as they’re peeved with pointing out – it isn’t about that sort of thing at all “Hey! Drinking these gay drinks us actually pretty easy if you overlook the gayness,” hiccups dandyish Electric Six drummer M before selecting another ‘Cactus Banger’ from today’s cocktail menu. Huh? Such is the skewed logic of the Electric Six, the Detroit pervs who are following the runawau success of ‘Danger! High Voltage’ (Number Two in the UK! Number One is Scotland! Number 17 in Latvia!) with ‘Gay Bar’, a redneck-baiting two-and-a-half minutes of cockahoop daftness culminating in frontman Dick Valentine screaming, “I’ve got something to put in you! / At the gay bar! / Gay bar! / Gay bar!” Which is why NME finds itself getting its round in on Manchester’s celebrated uranist enclave Canal Street. After swiftly downing a pint in the shaven-headed 30-something smokiness of the Rembrandt Hotel we opt for settling in the corner of Bar 46 (sign outside: ‘BIG GAY DRINKS!!!!’) for some serious gay bar action. The music is loud and housey; the hair is bleached; the T-shirts are sleeveless. Not unreasonably, we expected the band who’ve just shot a promo video with them stroking each other’s half-naked torsos and featuring singer Dick Valentine as Abraham Lincoln in leather shorts to be right at home. Yet, while the band’s flamboyantly scuffed-up version of debonair deportment draws nary a second glance, they actually look pretty fucking uncomfortable. “This is my first experience of a gay bar,” mumbles shy bassist Disco. “I’m kinda disappointed: I thought it would be a little gayer.” “Look at the cocktails!” splutters the ever-gregarious M. “I don’t see how it could be much gayer!” Which reminds us, we need to go to the bar again. So would you like a ‘Leather Panties’ or a ‘Frou-Frou’ this time round? And have you ever been picked on for looking gay? “Once this guy in Williamsburg started cat-calling, then making motions and telling me how he was going to fuck me,” recalls M. “I guess that’s what you do with guys you think are gay before you beat them up. Though I was wearing woman’s clothing at that time, which may have had something to do with it.” “Just because you’re a transvestite doesn’t mean you’re gay,” points out Valentine, sagely. Indeed, anyone who isn’t Richard Littlejohn knows that the gay bar of ignorant stereotype – where the clientele are rampant, moustachioed and lurking in the toilets – is an outmoded cliché. Which is why places like this need an anthem, goddam it! “I think the video would go down pretty good in a bar like this,” agrees the slightly-sozzled frontman. “Though I’ve never found gay bars to be that outrageous per se. A gay bar is just a bar like any other bar, but they’ve usually got great ambience and great décor. It’s not like a gay bar was in your parents’ day.” Right. Is that why your music’s so camp – to stick the finger up to prejudiced jocks while simultaneously celebrating the vibrant gay bar and club scene? A chilly silence descends. “I don’t think of our music as being camp,” mutters Dick, finally. Oh pur-lease! ‘Gay Bar’ aside, your album’s got a cover that’s straight off Saturday Night Fever, the lyrics are obsessed with sex, submission and stripping, and it opens with a track called ‘Dance Commander’. Short of including a version of ‘It’s Raining Men’, we fail to see how it could be any more camp! “Well, the album is just a brochure to your nightlife,” retorts Dick after more harrumphing. “Any other theme you want to drop in there is up to you; it’s not about politics, it’s not about going to a gay bar, it’s not about disco.” Even as NME winks at the barman and orders another round, we realise that it hasn’t dawned on our heroes that making a song called ‘Gay Bar’ – accompanied by an homoerotic soft-porn video – could turn them into gay icons. Happily, we get chatting to student David Barker at the bar, and decide to introduce him to the band. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to write a better anthem for gay bars after ‘Danger! High Voltage!’” he exclaims, after introductions all round. “I think it’s a really good idea. Are you lot gay, then?” “Only at weekends. Actually, I just have to make it clear that the song really is about absolutely nothing at all,” snaps the by-now ‘tired and emotional’ Valentine. “It doesn’t have anything to do with going to a gay bar; it doesn’t have anything to do with starting a nuclear war. It’s just two minutes and 20 seconds of pure chaos.” Too late for those kind of protestations now, Dick. The night is young. You’re a superstar. We’re gonna spend all your money. At the gay bar! Gay bar! Gay bar! |
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