The Drake Hotel

A few years back I had the privilege of meeting Jonathan Macias. He was in a band called Harbinger. Harbinger changed my life. I was absolutely obsessed at their raw, punk rock power. I awkwardly followed them around to every show they played, hoping that one day I attain such punk rock greatness.

Yesterday we played with Jonathan's new band Revolution Love. Jonathan has proven once again to be a man of many talents. Here are some photos that he took of our set. Enjoy.

An interview.

"Whatcha say about my momma?!"

It's late. I've ingested too much caffeine. I want to sleep but I'm too intrigued by the televised version of Menace 2 Society (they bleep out the word "bitch" but not the word "fuck").

About a year ago Dance Electric played an extremely eventful Wavelength show at Sneaky Dee's. In typical Wavelength fashion, I was interviewed and told that they would post the interview on the Wavelength website. I guess they got too busy to publish it, which is understandable; those cats put on so many shows within the year. But I digress.

I thought the interview turned out well--so here it is.


DANCE ELECTRIC INTERVIEW

So, I was pretty surprised by how heavy your music is. Based on your name and the picture on your Myspace I expected another ipod bleep-bloop jump and shout enthusi-band. My question is, do you know what I’m talking about? Plus, what do you think about that kind of stuff compared to your stuff?

Theo: I do know what you are talking about. Like, Le Tigre… right? There’s something about preprogrammed drumbeats and Casio keyboards that gets me going, I guess you can draw a few similarities between our stuff and ‘bleep-bloop’ music. We both share the same enthusiastic tongue-in-cheek spirit. Hmm… I guess that’s the only comparison you can make.

Everybody’s last name is Electric. This can’t just be a coincidence. What is it like to be a family band a la The Partridge Family or The Ramones? Do you have a hilarious manager or controlling parents who stunt your emotional development? What happens when the kids aren’t cute anymore?

Theo: We’re clearly a family band; one that is creepily comfortable with each other and has strange talks about pubic hair maintenance and fellatio etiquette. And when the kids go through their “awkward stage” they’ll be shot and replaced with the younger and more adorable.

I read that Theo is a university dropout. Is he dumb, or was there some other reason? Like maybe he lacked the psychological fortitude necessary for serious academic pursuits. Also, what school did he attend?

Theo: I went to York and I am pretty dumb. If I were smarter I would have picked a better major than philosophy—by third year I was having an existential crisis and I dropped out. Go figure. If I were truly smart I would have bypassed the whole post secondary educational process all together and become an eccentric autodidact / business tycoon. I further solidified my ineptitude soon after and went to college to complete a Social Service Worker program. Yep, I’m a tool.

Besides being undereducated, Theo also sounds like Dennis Lyxzen from Refused. That is high praise. Is this similarity deliberate or serendipity? What other vocalists have influenced him?

Theo: That’s a high praise indeed! I enjoy Dennis’ style quite a lot and I admittedly have listened to a lot of Refused, but I do not consciously try to emulate him. I suppose this is a case where I can not escape my influences. The list of vocalists that have influenced me could be written out on a mile long scroll—but I’ll just list a few that I currently really admire. Justin Pearson, Mark McCoy, Jesse Keeler’s Femme Fatale stuff, Chloe from Aidswolf, are vocalists that I really dig. Not only do I feel they have incredible voices but they exemplify an uninhibited freedom that is often not possessed by most vocalists. Their performances are usually in-your-face and gutsy and all of them have a very natural charisma on stage.

As I’m writing this, you are preparing to play a show at The Silver Dollar Room. When you answer, that show will be in the past and I can sensibly ask you how did it go? What are some of your favourite Toronto venues and why?

Theo: The show went well. We played with some very rad bands including one that sounded like The Birthday Party. I really dug it. Dan Burke (the man behind the show) really likes us for some reason and has been incredibly supportive. Our shows at the Silver Dollar always run smoothly. I always enjoy playing Clinton’s; I don’t really know why. To be honest (I know people are going to give me a lot of shit for this) I enjoy playing in the ‘burbs a lot more. Younger kids tend to come out to shows and they’re usually less jaded and more into it. They usually make me feel less dead
inside—but only a little.

Nobody is perfect Dance Electric. What are some of your faults? (Don’t say you’re perfectionists, this isn’t a fucking job
interview.)

Besides Tori’s germophobia, Jamie’s terribly forgetful nature and blue-collar musk, NJ’s OCD, and my toddler like crankiness and aforementioned undereducated mind, we’re pretty much perfect. We’re probably as perfect as you can get before you become too perfect.

We've been added to this show. We will be replacing the infamous NAR.

Drake show with Revolution Love

Behold, the awesome power of Revolution Love.

We have a show coming up this Saturday (DEC 13) at the famous Drake Hotel. We’ll be playing with these sexy cats, Revolution Love. They’re sexy, fun, synth punk, and currently one of my favourite Toronto bands.

Doors are at 8 and the first band plays at 9. It’ll be a short show—only two bands. 5 bucks at the door.

Event Page


Here’s a clip of us on King Kaboom! playing The Devil’s Thrust.
The Devil's Thrust


Here’s me meeting Lloyd Kaufman, creator of TROMA and The Toxic Avenger.

Dance Electric's Bite TV appearance!

Our appearance is finally online! Click on VOLUME episode 2 part 2 to see us.
Scope it out!

Nations

As mentioned before, NJ and I are in a new band called Nations. Finally, there are some demos online. Scope them out!

NATIONS MP3s

Strawman Fallacy

A few years back NJ and I started a band named Strawman Fallacy with the purpose of annoying as many people as possible. We did quite well for a ragtag group of kids. After several years of lineup changes, spit, silkscreening, basement shows, sneaking over boarders, arguments with shitheads, internet shittalk, injury after injury, and countless hours driving around in a van, we finally wrote this opus.


Like most people in punk we did a small run then let our cd go out of print almost immediately.

Due to the digital revolution we have now made our final masterpiece available for very cheap. The guys at Gorgeous Industries have just digitally re-released Strawman Fallacy's Finale and you can get yourself a digital copy for 5.99.

Click .here

Oh yeah, we did that!

During the summer some cool dudes from Bite TV decided to do a feature on our little band. This prompted an awkward interview from NJ and I, and a surprisingly casual interview from Tori and Jamie. They filmed us, edited the story together, and sent us a DVD copy of the story. We sat down, watched it, gave each other high-fives, then totally forgot about it.

Yesterday I received an email from one of the cats who put the show together. Our segment is going to air on Bite TV December 1st at 9:25pm. The tv show is called Volume. The first episode can be viewed online here. AUX BETA (scope out part two of Volume and you may see a familiar website). Bite TV is planning on launching a new music channel called AUX and Volume is one of the shows featured on said channel.

Catholic Guilt

I’ve been losing an epic battle with insomnia. I’m awake and bored; it is time for a blog update.

We’re playing a Catholic School, which is perfect since most of the Dance Electric crew still experience intense Catholic-Guilt from years of parental and institutional indoctrination. Every year Our Lady of Mount Carmel Secondary School holds a charity rock show. We had such a wonderful time playing their 2006 show. Hopefully, this show will exceed the fun-factor of the last.

If we get our rears in gear, we should have a special edition t-shirt ready for this show. Remember, blank t-shirts say one thing to the general public: “I listen to Nickleback” or something just as reprehensible. Buy our t-shirts!

Tickets are 10 dollars at the door but you can buy advanced tickets for 8 dollars at Strings Attached in Streetsville. Use the internet sensation Google to get the exact address you lazy assholes.

Here is a flyer and a Facebook event link for all you “computer literate people” (nerds).


Oooooooo Facebook

Finally, me (this is Theo by the way) and NJ have given up our aspirations of becoming accountants to pursue an additional band. Our new band is called ‘Nations’. Nations features our friends Jay, Scotto, and Ken. You may recognize them from the bands The Smile and Akroid. Unfortunately, they too had to give up their aspirations of becoming accountants to start this band—we may love numbers, but we love rocking a lot more.

Nations' mp3s should be up in a week. In the meantime you can check out The Smile, Akroid, and me and NJ’s old band Strawman Fallacy, on the Gorgeous Industries website.


Strawman Fallacy clip

Fan Vids and Van Bids

"Theo napping in our van. Good night sweet prince."

Our infamous van “Death Machine 2.0” has been sold, leaving us vanless. We mourn the loss daily. She was beautiful, as untrustworthy as she may have been. Consequently, we are going to be very selective about our upcoming shows. Until we get our lives together enough to purchase another van, we won’t be playing the bounty of shows that we usually play.


Send pleasantries to this fellow if you see him at one of our shows. We’re leeching off his access to his parents’ van. Sure, he may look like a Rastafarian Jesus, but that’s all the more reason to give him a big hug every time you see him. Thanks Brent, we love you!

Speaking of love, I was surprised today by a message from this cat named Nelson. He used one of our songs in a video he made of him and his friends having a lot more fun than I ever have. This video has thugs taking shots, sexy blonde girls taking hits from bongs, a little kid, white girls flashing gang signs, a water slide, sumo wrestling, and much more.

You can view the video here: Scope it out!

He used the song “I Don’t Care… I Don’t Care if I live or Die” which is my favourite of the Dance Electric songs (probably due to its striking similarity to every Some Girls song ever written).

Finally, here’s a picture of us when we were on tour with The Arcade Fire.

DE UPDATE NUMBER 1

Welcome to the first of hopefully many Dance Electric blog updates. Here we’ll keep you updated on upcoming shows, merch, tales of woe, and other Dance Electric related things.

Here are some flyers for upcoming shows.