August 1st at TOTAL DRAG!!
Death Valley Girls AND Holy Wave on the same bill!!!
Tickets on sale Friday June 3rd & available at Total Drag (307 E. 12th St. Downtown Sioux Falls SD) or by calling 605-521-6439
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS
Rock n’ roll has always served as a means to elevate the fringe of society, though it’s accentuated the plights of the outcasts and misfits in different ways throughout the years. In its infancy, rock was a playful rebuttal against segregation and Puritanism. In the ‘60s, it became a vehicle for an elevated consciousness. In the years following the Summer of Love and the clampdown on Flower Power, that countercultural spirit adopted the aggravated and occasionally nihilistic edge of bands like The Stooges, Black Sabbath, MC5, and The New York Dolls. And then as the ‘80s approached, popular rock n’ roll turned into a relatively benign celebration of hedonism and decadence, but that contingent of dark mystics from the ‘70s who lifted the veil and used music as a means of rallying people to altered planes had left their mark. It was an undercurrent in rock that would never die, but would percolate in corners of the underground. Today we can see it manifest in LA’s Death Valley Girls.
The group feels less like a band and more like a travelling caravan. At their core, vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Bonnie Bloomgarden and guitarist Larry Schemel channel Death Valley Girls’ modern spin on Fun House’s sonic exorcisms, early ZZ Top’s desert-blasted riffage, and Sabbath’s occult menace. Their relentless touring schedule means that the remainder of the group is rounded out by whichever like-minded compatriots can get in the van. On their third album Darkness Rains, bassist Alana Amram, drummer Laura Harris, and a rotating cast of guests like Shannon Lay, The Kid (Laura Kelsey) and members of The Make Up, The Shivas, and Moaning help elevate the band from their rogue beginnings to a communal ritualistic musical force. On the surface level, Death Valley Girls churn out the hypercharged, in the red, scuzzy rock every generation yearns for, but there is a more subversive force percolating beneath the surface that imbues the band with an exhilarating cosmic energy.
Death Valley Girls’ sophomore album Glow In The Dark was based on the concept that many of us are trying to become more enlightened, and you can tell by the way they ‘glow in the dark.’ Darkness Rains goes a step further, attempting to shift the consciousness of those that have not yet considered how we are all connected and how that relates to the way we view life beyond death. Those that ‘glow’ can use the songs on Darkness Rains as new chants—or they can be used for pure entertainment. “Songs come from beyond and other worlds, you just have to tune into the right radio wave signal to dial them in. Our signal happens to be in a 1970 Dodge Charger Spaceship,” says Schemel.
Album opener “More Dead” is a rousing wake up call, with a hypnotic pentatonic guitar riff and an intoxicating blown-out fuzz-wah solo underscoring Bloomgarden’s consciousness-rattling proclamation that you’re “more dead than alive.” The pace builds with “(One Less Thing) Before I Die”, a minute-and-a-half distillate of Detroit’s classic proto-punk sound. But at track three, Death Valley Girls hit their stride with “Disaster (Is What We’re After)”, a gritty, swaggering rager that takes the most boisterous moments off Exile On Main Street and beefs it up with Zeppelin’s devil’s-note blues. Darkness Rains retains its intoxicating convocations across ten tracks, climaxing on an astral plane with the hypnotic guitar drones and cult-like chants of “TV In Jail On Mars.”
“Learn from the stars and beyond! Be happy and thankful we got to live together on Earth at the same time! And death is just a shift—stay alive and awake,” Bloomgarden and Schemel respond when asked for a final thought on Death Valley Girls. “Embrace the darkness and don’t fear the Reaper.” Suicide Squeeze Records is proud to further the cause by releasing Darkness Rains on October 5th, 2018 on LP/CD/CS/ and digital formats. The first vinyl pressing is limited to 1,500 copies. Both the cassette and vinyl include digital downloads.
HOLY WAVE
Holy Wave is an experimental dream-pop band originally from El Paso, Texas. After seeing a life-altering performance by My Bloody Valentine in 2008, the band moved to Austin to pursue their own vision of Texas psych, their sweet melodies dyed in carefully constructed noise.
Over the course of four albums, the band have cemented themselves as a staple force in the international indie scene, with key performances at Levitation, Desert Daze, and nearly every psych gathering on the planet. They’ve toured the world, and shared the stage with heroes such as Slowdive, Spiritualized, Hope Sandoval and The Black Angels. Their body of work has received critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Consequence of Sound, Paste Magazine and countless others, and in 2020 they are prepared to release their latest body of work.
Interloper sees the band adding new layers to their lush and mesmerizing songwriting style. Written about the duality between life at home and life on the road, it sees the band expanding on their most esoteric and thought-provoking themes. “I’m Not Living in the Past Anymore” is a mantra about breaking the cycle of the mundane, “Escapism” is a dream-like meditation. “Interloper” serves as the centerpiece for this self-expanding record, asking, what happens when the world beneath your feet changes so much that you feel like a stranger in your own shoes? The band turns inward, to blissed-out moments on album opener “Schmetterling”, the saccharine haze of “R&B”, and the freak-out catharsis of live favorite “Buddhist Pete”.
With Interloper Holy Wave weaves together a contemplative tapestry that can serve as a road map for the diffident, a soundtrack to self-realization, or simply an invitation to escape.
LIVE VIDEOS
“Adult Fear”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLr2dYTwsUE
“Western Playland”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKc6h_L496A
MUSIC VIDEOS
“Crys”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igwSgI7G4Xg
“California Took My Bobby Away”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbXZo0U_LCE
PRESS
“Austin five-piece Holy Wave is certainly dreamy in a sense, but theirs is the kind of dream that’s more vivid than blurry, more present than passing.” - Consequence of Sound
“They've got the far-off, dreamy vocal wash of the shoegazers, but their guitars and hooks are anything but subtle” - Pitchfork
Adult Fear Review
https://www.thesouthernsounding.com/.../album-review-holy...
Freaks of Nurture Review
http://post-trash.com/.../holy-wave-freaks-of-nurture...
Relax Review
https://www.pastemagazine.com/.../01/holy-wave-relax.html
Doors at 7pm - Music at 8pm
ALL AGES WELCOME!
be rad