Tag: death valley girls

And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Death Valley Girls at Lodge Room

Danny Baraz December 29, 2021

I discovered … and You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead from their Relative Ways EP less than 30 days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and subsequently their first 2 releases on Interscope Records, in a newly, Post 9/11 world. As hard as the Source Tags and Codes album hit me, it was dwarfed by 2005’s Worlds Apart in how close to my heart a record could be. So when Trail of Dead played “Will You Smile Again?” toward the end of their set at the Lodge Room, I had quite the mixed emotional response of crying and headbanging. On top of all this, Death Valley Girls were opening for Trail of Dead on this tour and their 2020 album, Under the Spell of Joy got me through the dystopian days of a post quarantine, pre vaccine landscape. Death Valley Girls Glow in the Dark at The Echo Record Release Party So here I was, at the Lodge Room, about to intersect past trauma and current disillusioned malaise with the magick that helped me through them both. It also happened to be the first time I was seeing Death Valley Girls with a new battery.

Take This: Win Two Tickets to ….And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead at Lodge Room

Janky Smooth Central Command December 8, 2021

…And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead are back to leave a fresh trail of bodies from the Lodge Room to prog post-hardcore heaven as they jam the night away with Death Valley Girls for another unforgettable show. We’ve got two tickets to give away to the show, you don’t want to miss this trip. YOU CAN BUY TICKETS HERE or ENTER TO WIN 2 TICKETS TO …AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD DECEMBER 11TH AT LODGE ROOM Step 1- Join Our Newsletter (look for pop up every time you arrive at jankysmooth.com) Step 2 – Tag a Friend in the comment section of our INSTAGRAM or FACEBOOK …AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD Ticket Giveaway Post WINNER WILL BE SELECTED ON DECEMBER 10TH AT 1PM PST VIA EMAIL CONFIRMATION

Hell or High Roller: Psycho Las Vegas 2021

Rob Shepyer August 26, 2021

There was a time when for me, going to Psycho Las Vegas meant budgeting only enough money to eat McDonalds for three days while I slept on a friend’s couch in some lawless Vegas neighborhood so far off the strip, Ubers wouldn’t dare travel to such unsavory corners. Now, in the post-pandemic world, I report on Psycho with new purpose. This year, I was staying in a Delano scenic suite high above the city and budgeted enough money to properly chase the American dream. Raoul Duke’s American dream in Hunter Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was a metaphor for the limits of human consciousness. With freedom as the central American covenant, what greater expression of patriotism is there than breaking free of reality’s chains by dosing yourself past every threshold? Now though, as I take that same trip as Duke in 2021, my search for the American Dream is a futile attempt to connect with a time long gone. You might assume I mean the world before the pandemic but I also mean that beautiful era in music history where rock and metal bands could draw crowds as far as the eye can see. How do we recover

The Road to Psycho Las Vegas

Rob Shepyer June 12, 2021

Later this month, I’ll attend my first indoor concert since March 2020. People will not be wearing masks or social distancing. I’ll have dipped my toes into the cultural soup I’ve swam in the majority of my adult life, relearning all the in’s-and-out’s of concert going. Stage-dives and mosh pits have been relegated to my long term memory banks awaiting to be unearthed. Although most metalheads will be breaking their concert fasts soon (if they haven’t already), Psycho Las Vegas is the spiritual grand re-opening of the metal scene in the wild American west. As the first large festival to take place since the beginning of the pandemic, Psycho is a test much like the ones Hunter S. Thompson indulged in with Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Our senses may have been perverted, inverted, dulled and destroyed by lengthy quarantines but our imaginations are in better shape than ever and if I can imagine Psycho Las Vegas being the most insane heavy metal summit of my life, then I can will it into being. related content: A High And Beautiful Wave: Psycho Las Vegas 2019 Before the world shut down, Psycho’s 2020 lineup was one of the most anticipated slates of

Don’t Slander Me: Roky Erickson at Teragram

Janky Smooth Central Command October 13, 2018

Photos by: Dillon Vaughn Very few performers have lived lives as hard as Roky Erickson. A godfather of psych rock and garage, Roky’s history is almost unbelievable. A musical prodigy from childhood to a genre defining songwriter at age 19, it’s hard to believe the scope and impact of his work hasn’t made him a staple among Venice Beach type stencil paintings and graphic tees at Urban Outfitters. (His story’s much cooler than that.) related content: Halloween At The Roxy With The Evil Ones: Roky Erikson & Death Valley Girls Finally having the chance to see a performance was something I made my heart drop the moment he walked on stage – not from anticipation, but from fear that the hints of mental illness and the very visible mark of time on this man would lead to a performance that would make it hard to listen to the music again. Sitting on stage in front of everyone was an older man that seemed somewhat lost and nearly puppeteered by his much younger backing band nearly hiding in the shadows. The moment the music began my fears were crushed; applause and screams from the audience fueled something in Roky. His eyes gained some

Halloween At The Roxy w/ The Evil Ones: Roky Ericksen & Death Valley Girls

Rob Shepyer November 2, 2017

Halloween shows at the Roxy have become a Janky Smooth tradition after last year’s showcase with Ho99o9 and The Shrine, Halloween 2017 Death Valley Girls support, a Roky Eriksen and Death Valley Girls collaborative evening was a mandatory spooking, especially with DVG lead guitarist Larry Schemel now playing guitar in Roky’s band. The last time I saw Roky Eriksen was also at the Roxy with him playing with his Hounds Of Baskerville band. Their set was filled with 13th Floor Elevators material but as a guy understanding Roky from a metalhead background, I wanted to hear his halloween staples off his solo album The Evil One. related content: House Of Ho99o9 Halloween At The Roxy Lots of artists claim to be evil but few actually live parallel to their projections. Roky, on the other hand, has been dabbling in the paranormal, the horrific, and the down right psychotic for a very long time. It’s a miracle he’s on stage playing psych rock and not chained to a rock in some psych ward. Roky hit so many bong loads and dropped so many tabs that he was thrown into institutions numerous times throughout his music career. Yet that never slowed him down once,

Bonnie and Larry of Death Valley Girls by Josh Allen

Death Valley Girls in a Desert Daze Disneyland- Janky Smooth Sessions

Danny Baraz October 25, 2016

Death Valley Girls front woman, Bonnie Bloomgarden aka Bonz Doomgarden is no stranger to the unexplained mysteries of what lay just beyond the logic of the material world. Death Valley Girls axe man, Larry Schemel stands guard at the gates of sanity to guide his friend and artistic collaborator through the challenges of channeling other dimensions and both friendly and diabolical deities that look to walk through the doorway of this domain. Does that sound hyperbolic? Have you met Bonnie? Larry and Bonnie joined Janky Smooth Sessions and Danny Baraz at Desert Daze 2016 to discuss the magick of the festival and the significance of ending their nationwide tour supporting their impressive sophmore LP, Glow in the Dark at what so many that attended the fest agree is one of the most significant festival experiences of their lives. Alien abductions, fan sing alongs, corporatism, Desert Daze founder, Phil Pirrone vs Disneyland founder Walt Disney and attempting to quantify the magick that surrounded Desert Daze under the blood red, hunters super moon that enveloped the Institute of Mentalphysics in Joshua Tree California. Read more about Death Valley Girls: Buzz Bait: Bonnie of Death Valley Girls on Music, Magic and Metaphysics Death

Death Valley Girls at The Echo Record Release Party

Death Valley Girls Glow In The Dark At The Echo Record Release Party

Danny Baraz July 6, 2016

There is something different emerging from the Los Angeles music scene. It’s not nice. Or sweet. Or candy-bar-bubble gum. Or a drunken teenage blackout filled with mild regret. And I like it. Death Valley Girls aren’t like your typical Burger Records band. You can’t simply attach the punk, psychedelic or garage rock label to them and be done with it. They aren’t your standard, soft balled psych rockers seeking some type of enlightenment through their experiments with hallucinogens. They are what happens when the acid turns and the faces around you become deranged and unfriendly; surrounded by deeply troubled individuals slipping further and further away from society with each hit of blotter. Death Valley Girls’ second album, “Glow in the Dark” summons the seventies more than it summons the summer of love. When America was in the midst of an identity crisis, amidst events such as the Nixon resignation, Patty Hearst and Jonestown. And even though the Manson murders occurred in 1969, the events surrounding the high profile slayings in the Hollywood Hills reverberated across the forthcoming decade and dispelled the image of hippies as harmless, peace loving druggies. Trust no one. But singer/songwriter Bonnie Bloomgarden insists that, “you can

Buzz Bait: Bonnie of Death Valley Girls On Music, Magic and Metaphysics

Brent Smith February 16, 2016

High noon. Under the stark, blue February sky I encounter Bonnie Bloomgarden standing at the entrance of the Red Lion Tavern in Echo Park. The singer/guitarist of the doom rock outfit Death Valley Girls greets me in green sparkly eye makeup with a big smile and gifts in the form of a limited edition 7” and a live singles cassette wrapped in caution tape. I rejoice and accept like it’s the Holy Communion. After slipping into the dark of the ancient Germanic pub, we head to the upstairs bar. Death Valley Girls have popped up on the indie map like a baffling string of UFO sightings, ever since their Street Venom debut. Some may remember Bloomgarden’s exploits in the NY band The Witnesses, or maybe her cameo in King Tuff’s third album Black Moon Spell. Though perhaps nothing was as enthralling as DVG’s performance last October at the Natural History Museum’s mummy exhibit, which served more as a necromantic rock séance to communicate in peace with the Egyptian dead. The new Death Valley Girls LP Glow in the Dark is due June 10th via Burger Records, just in time for Burger Boogaloo. It’s unlike anything we’ve heard from them before. Though the

Death Valley Girls at Lolipalooza shot by Taylor Wong

Death Valley Girls Drop New Limited 7″-Stream Death Valley Boogie

Brent Smith October 7, 2015

Death Valley Girls has something witchy for us this week. With what may be their most meta track yet, a new 7” is being released featuring the new single, “Death Valley Boogie”. From French label April 77, and distributed by Cobraside here in L.A., a limited press of 20 records was made, 15 of which will go on Death Valley Girls bandcamp store starting Wednesday, October 6th at 7:30. The remaining 5 will be sold during Sunday night’s show at Echoplex. Not ten seconds into “Death Valley Boogie” and it’s easy to see how it stands on its own. The intro riff is the real refrain of the song, like a hook right out of Poison Ivy’s tackle box. The distorted hums and drums crescendo into dystopic dance rock with tambourine beats. Bonnie Wandgarden’s voice parallels the likes of Karen O. and Kathleen Hanna, but sets itself apart as a disembodied echo of a Post-Summer of Love world, when vice and grimy glam ruled the streets of Hollywood, and Dr. Gonzo was off eating acid in Vegas sputtering diatribes about the Death of the American Dream. Though playful on the surface, “Death Valley Boogie” digs deep into our eastern desert valleys,