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Electric Street Queens have some unorthodox tactics for warding off boredom, and they’re not afraid to get graphic about it.
“It’s like, there’s nothing to do, so let’s do drugs, summon spirits, or both,” says lead singer Coco Roy on the theme of new song “Don’t Drink The Devil’s Blood,” perhaps the best-named track of the group’s forthcoming album QUEEN SIZED. “Hot Pants From Hell” and “Teenage Death Girls” are close seconds, though.
The collective’s nine new songs make their debut this Saturday (July 29) at the Lilypad in Cambridge an album release show with support from Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion!, CreaturoS, and Dandy Sherman.
Originally formed in 2012, the thrash-y, admirably trashy Boston femme-punk band has undergone a slight transformation since we first heard them on the Live From Your Dreams, We’re The… record. While original member Mel Bernier split from the group after the release of the 2014 album, Randy Saturday (Bent Shapes/Baby Driver/Andy Sadoway), Reba McEntire (One Happy Island), and Scram Maulagain (Sam Mulligan) all hopped onboard.
“When Mel left to pursue other projects, we had kind of a whole new reconfiguration of the band,” Roy explains. “We had Randy Saturday join on drums and Reba McEntire join on bass, and [I] switched to full time singing. When Randy left we had Reba switch to drums and Scram join on us on bass. We need a family tree for this shit!”
Roy adds: “I love the dynamic of our band. I think with this line up we have the raw/loud sound I personally have always envisioned.”
It’s definitely a new musical formula that works. When Electric Street Queens went to the Boston Converse Rubber Tracks studio, the band cranked out eight songs — in only half a day. For the record, that’s nearly quadruple what most bands get accomplished in the same amount of time.
“Usually Rubber Tracks books a band to record one or two songs in a day, but we recorded eight songs by lunchtime,” says Bobby Abraham, guitarist of the group. “We didn’t know what to do with the rest of the day, so we ended up writing and recording a completely new song from scratch. That ended up being one of my personal faves, ‘Cat Called.’”
“I get it now!/Call me a slut/Oh you’re so cool/And oh so tough” Roy exhales sharply on “Cat Called,” mocking the nonsense that is wolf whistling and street harassment. That very bonus track locks in the uber-feminist themes of the nine-track album, especially alongside “Thigh High,” which Electric Street Queens released last year as the album’s first single.
After toying with mixing the album themselves, the band eventually sent the album back to Matt Carlson from Rubber Tracks mix the album (you can hear their appreciation for the studio culminate in final track “Cheap Thrills,” where Roy peppers in an improvised shout-out on to “thank all the beautiful engineers here tonight,” per true outro fashion).
But even with all of the group’s tweaks — from band members and Converse engineers — Electric Street Queens remains as raucous as their subject matter on QUEEN SIZED.
“The songs that we are writing now aren’t quite as heavy and like 10 percent more danceable,” Abraham adds. “And now we have Scram on bass, who brings a smile to everything and makes sure that we are ‘tight.’ But Electric Street Queens are always about being a little ridiculous. That hasn’t changed.”
ELECTRIC STREET QUEENS + DANDY SHERMAN + BEWARE THE DANGERS OF THE GHOST SCORPION + CREATUROS :: Saturday, July 29 at Lilypad, 1353 Cambridge St. in Cambridge, MA :: 10 p.m., $10 :: Facebook event page :: Featured photo by Mary Dolan, courtesy of Electric Street Queens
