Living Better Electrically - Aye, Me
Part two of today's "bands that pay homage to T-Rex" includes one of my most favorite bands in the universe. In honor of their SXSW appearance this Friday March 18th at 10pm at the Hide-Out (6th and Congress) this week, I dug deep into the archives to remind you about this band. If you need to know what real T-Rextacy is all about, this is the band you need to see. I remember when I walked into the Hi-Tone last February, I was pretty put out that my friends dragged me out on an icy night for a rock show. I was cold, tired, and pissed off. Just at the point where I could take it no more, Living Better Electrically took to the stage. Boy, am I glad I stayed. Within moments, I was motionlessly trapped in a modern-day rock opera radiant with surgical precision and sexy, raw bravado. It was suddenly 1973, and I had discovered the next Marc Bolan. Like a redheaded stepchild of Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie mixed with a touch of ELO, Big Star, T-Rex and XTC, this six piece outfit from Jackson, Mississippi, none of whom were born much less out of diapers in 1973, tore through an hour-long set of psych-pop art rock that left jaws on the floor -- mine included. I walked away from the show knowing I had discovered something way too cool to keep to myself.
Repeated listenings of their 6-song EP, simply titled Living Better Electrically leave me awe-struck, and every live performance I've seen since then has been consistently better than the last. The liner notes to the EP say it all for me - "Somehow they've managed to sneak in my house, take every relevant and meaningful album of the last forty years, learn all the right songs, and return the albums to my house undetected...they've taken all the knowledge and experience and are using it in new, wondrous, elegant ways." Recorded at Sweet Tea in Oxford, Mississippi with producer Clay Jones (the studio where he both produced the latest Modest Mouse release and engineered the latest Elvis Costello release) the EP is a bottle rocket of cleverly built anthems and love songs that at once transforms modern rock and transports you in a musical time machine to the era when a band like this would have achieved superstardom by the time you heard them first. This EP is, at a base level, a blueprint for their future masterpieces. Dennis Herring (producer extraordinaire of many notable records) seems to agree with me -- he has signed them on to his Sweet Tea label & the band is hard at work on their full-length album due in 2005. Meanwhile, you should grab up the EP while you can from Parasol - for a paltry $6 US. Talk about value. I hope one day you'll look back and thank me, but knowing these guys exist and that you've heard them will be thanks enough for me.
BONUS TRACKS: Princess Blue
Support Independent Music. Buy this EP for just $5.75
