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Electroclash acts do the time warp

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Special to The Times

Those who don’t remember the ‘80s are doomed to repeat them, or at least to re-invent them by ironically reveling in the era’s bad hair, tacky clothes and vapid synth-pop.

“Electroclash” is the name for neo-new-wave disco, and on Monday a capacity crowd filled the Henry Fonda Theatre to see four acts associated with the term.

DJ and host Larry Tee played the nerdy yell leader at this multimedia pep rally, where a mostly early-20s audience flaunted passions for robot voices, Giorgio Moroder, Blondie, Kraftwerk and leg warmers. This is supposed to be up-from-the-underground stuff, yet the karaoke-style presentations by headlining singer-rapper Peaches and Brooklyn girl group WIT were not unlike the more elaborate concerts of such current pop superstars as Britney Spears.

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The trio WIT wore identical, shiny halter-dresses and vogued through burbly dance numbers and ballads from a forthcoming album. At one point they even oh-so-aptly used a guitar and bass as props.

Peaches went for in-your-face sexuality with selections from her 2000 debut, “The Teaches of Peaches.” Wearing hot-pink fishnet thigh-highs and a succession of skimpy two-piece outfits, the Canadian vaguely resembled Jennifer Beals in “Flashdance” as she gyrated aggressively for about an hour.

The mostly unprintable song titles incorporated Stooges-like guitar riffs along with much whip-snapping percussion, but Peaches, though certainly more verbally explicit, didn’t cover any territory that Madonna hadn’t already strip-mined back in the day.

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At least there were more overt political and social components to Olympia, Wash.-based Tracey + the Plastics and Munich-born Chicks on Speed.

The former featured performance artist Lynne Greenwood interacting with videotaped sidekicks while exploring feminist and gay issues with tunes from her album “Musclers Guide to Videonics.”

Chicks on Speed infused pulsing house and new wave with quirky commentaries on fashion, individuality and economics. The members wore homemade leather dresses and injected a much-needed sense of purpose into an evening that mostly served to remind us that for some, Blondie’s “Call Me” has much more resonance than Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

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