“I’m Iggy Pop, and I just ate burger listening to Death Valley Girls,” the singer says matter-of-factly as the music concludes.
The video is an homage to a 1982 short by Danish filmmaker Jorgen Leth that featured Andy Warhol eating a fast-food burger. It’s a curious choice for a video topic, but it’s completely in line with Death Valley Girls’ interest in reviving counterculture touchstones, from Rock & Roll to art-trash connoisseurs like John Waters.
Fueled by frontperson Bonnie Bloomgarden’s shrieking vocals and guitarist Larry Schemel’s heavy riffage, Death Valley Girls is a kaleidoscopic trip through Garage Rock eras; the band’s three full-length albums revel in reverb and atmospheric menace, recalling everyone from old-school icons like The Stooges and Black Sabbath to such contemporaries as L7 and The Black Angels.
“To us, Rock & Roll is everything,” Bloomgarden said in a recent interview with narcmagazine.com. “It’s our life’s blood. Whatever people want to call it — Rock, Punk, Garage, Heavy Metal, Psychedelic … it’s all Rock & Roll and it’s the universal language to make people want to dance, scream and have a good time all the time!”
Death Valley Girls play a free show at MOTR Pub this Sunday with Moonwalks and Still Witches. Earlier this week the group released a new music video for their song "Dream Cleaver."
