The title of Electric Six’s fourth album, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master, is borrowed from a drawing by an artist named George Grosz. The drawing portrays the gluttony and excess of Berlin in the interwar period.
Now, Electric Six has never been to Berlin, and will never live in an “interwar period†as war is now everywhere and totally going to keep going for a really long while.. But we know a thing or two about excess. Excessive compulsive fans plague us. Excessive mean-spirited journalists write an excess of mean things about us. Excess baggage enters our hotel rooms. And the time has come to do something excessive about it.
Electric Six has plenty of access to excess. Upon embarking on this recording journey, Electric Six had an excess of free time. We purchased an excess of foodstuffs from Trader Joe’s and hunkered down and recorded…..excessively.
The album is excessive in its exploration of excess. Every song in one way or another is the result of excessive access to excess. The jazzy cabaret-ish album opener “It’s Showtime! “ explores what happens to a band when it plays in excess of 250 shows a year in front of…..people. Here’s a hint: excessive resent and anger at…...people. It is followed by the piano-raga grooviness of “Down at McDonnellzzzzz†a real time documentation of the erosion of American youth culture at the hands of excess trans fats and supersized shareholder profits at the expense of excessive burgers.
The album is heretofore and previously referred to as “The Album†since the title, I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master, is, in and of itself…..excessive.
The anchor track of the album is the radio-ready Coldplayish “When I Get To The Green Building†, a beautifully textured musical tribute to Domino’s Farms in Ann Arbor, Michigan. How is this excessive you ask? See what happens to you when you sell that many pizzas! You’d probably think you have a hotline to God too! And that’s the sort of thing we in Electric Six deem….a tad excessive.
The album closes with a triumphant new wave/stoner rock big bang in the magnificent “Dirty Looks†, an exploration of the “big picture†in three parts. The most Shakespearian of the E6 catalogue, the album of excess closes in such an accessible way.
When it’s all said and done, Electric Six feels that they’ve done a good job at weaving fun, good times and high-octane pleasure into the fabric of this crazy world, damned by its excess. At 16 songs, the album is Electric Six’s most excessive in terms of number of songs. The band rehearses excessively and will take its act on the road in the fall of 2007 on the It’s Showtime! Tour coming to an American town near you….that is, if you haven’t already been crushed by the weight of your own access.
I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master will be released by Metropolis Records on Oct. 9, 2007.
Tracklisting:
1.It’s Showtime!
2.Down at McDonnellzzzzz
3.Dance Pattern
4.Rip It!
5.Feed My Fuckin’ Habit
6.Riding on the White Traiin
7.Broken Machine
8.When I Get to the Green Building
9.Randy’s Hot Tonight!
10.Kukuxumushu
11.I Don’t Like You
12.Lucifer Airlines
13.Lenny Kravitz
14.Fabulous People
15.Sexy Trash
16.Dirty Looks