To date, I’ve seen Death Valley Girls twice live on stage. I’ve seen Iggy Pop in concert once. I’d never met Andy Warhol because he died a long time ago.
Luckily for all of us, this video for Death Valley Girls’ Disaster (Is What We’re After) off their 3rd album, Darkness Rains (named after a dog!) handily gives us all three. Albeit after a fashion.
The video, directed by filmmaker Kansas Bowling, gives us James Jewel Osterberg, aka Iggy Pop, dressed in a suit and tie and sitting at a table eating a hamburger. I know. What more could you want?
The setup is a direct homage to a scene in the 1981 art film 66 Scenes From America in which Danish filmmaker Jorgen Leth shot Andy Warhol devouring a burger in a similar fashion.
On top of that is the Death Valley Girls at their anthem-rocking best, with Larry Schemel’s shredding matched perfectly against Bonnie Bloomgarden’s ultra-confident warble and a killer rhythm section. That’s backed up by some of the jankiest sax accompaniment you’ve likely ever heard.
If you need to get your heart started this morning or just need an awesome earworm for the day, all I can say is “turn it up!”
Plus, if you’re as big a DVG fan as I am, you’ll probably want to check out the Death Valley Girls podcast. That’s where you’ll hear Bonnie inviting you to “open up your head and your heart” to the heroes she interviews.
On the podcast, Bonnie and her guests talk about a myriad of life’s mysteries and subjects of importance like why Larry gets to wear the same clothes on the stage as on the street while the women of the band all have to adopt a “stage uniform” of sorts. Check it out wherever podcasts are sold.