Biography
Around the turn of the millennium, three MIT graduate students—bassist and frontman Dan Paluska, guitarist Grant Kristofek, and drummer Clark Kemp—crossed paths and began shaping Electric Laser People. These mechanically trained minds brought juvenile humor, a D.I.Y. punk rock sensibility, and a sharp artistic irony to their project, twisting vintage rap conventions into playful absurdity by floating ridiculous lyrics above spare electronic textures and guitar stabs that recalled a fusion of Ratatat and Licensed to Ill.
Paluska, who broadcasts under the name Six Million Dollar Dan, constructed a basement studio called Flinstonia for its cave-like interior in north Cambridge; the room doubled as rehearsal quarters for several earlier group incarnations, among them Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Stentorian Effluvium, and the Sneaks. The trio roamed freely across genres in the manner of Ween, unconcerned with coherence, until they settled on the Mellow Gold-era Beck tactic of grafting hip-hop onto miscellaneous outside influences.
That shift produced the two-song demo The Makeout Song EP, whose A-side offered a buoyant Beastie Boys homage built on nonstop verbal nonsense while the B-side, “High School,” leaned into psychedelic guitar work. The same material prompted the creation of a parallel outfit called the Product, which the members promoted through a press kit formatted like a corporate sales brochure. Live shows soon followed, featuring a red BC Rich heavy metal guitar, exaggerated tiptoe marionette dance moves, and homemade synth pedals of eccentric design.
In 2007 Kristofek began working full-time as a design consultant verifying corporate product performance, yet he still performed nightly; Paluska meanwhile earned his living building robots and contributed to “new media” art exhibits when not appearing onstage. Early that year the group adopted the name Electric Laser People to avoid online confusion and self-released its first album, Straight Talk for Raising Kids, which again spotlighted the single “The Makeout Song” alongside tracks concerning drunken neighbors and mysterious electronics. Months later Kemp exited to pursue other projects, leaving the remaining members searching for a new drummer.
Paluska, who broadcasts under the name Six Million Dollar Dan, constructed a basement studio called Flinstonia for its cave-like interior in north Cambridge; the room doubled as rehearsal quarters for several earlier group incarnations, among them Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Stentorian Effluvium, and the Sneaks. The trio roamed freely across genres in the manner of Ween, unconcerned with coherence, until they settled on the Mellow Gold-era Beck tactic of grafting hip-hop onto miscellaneous outside influences.
That shift produced the two-song demo The Makeout Song EP, whose A-side offered a buoyant Beastie Boys homage built on nonstop verbal nonsense while the B-side, “High School,” leaned into psychedelic guitar work. The same material prompted the creation of a parallel outfit called the Product, which the members promoted through a press kit formatted like a corporate sales brochure. Live shows soon followed, featuring a red BC Rich heavy metal guitar, exaggerated tiptoe marionette dance moves, and homemade synth pedals of eccentric design.
In 2007 Kristofek began working full-time as a design consultant verifying corporate product performance, yet he still performed nightly; Paluska meanwhile earned his living building robots and contributed to “new media” art exhibits when not appearing onstage. Early that year the group adopted the name Electric Laser People to avoid online confusion and self-released its first album, Straight Talk for Raising Kids, which again spotlighted the single “The Makeout Song” alongside tracks concerning drunken neighbors and mysterious electronics. Months later Kemp exited to pursue other projects, leaving the remaining members searching for a new drummer.
Albums