Band: DEATH VALLEY GIRLS Who: Garage rock fury from Los Angeles, led by
vocalist/guitarist/organist and charismatic voodoo
doll Bonnie Bloomgarden, fabricating Californian
doom boogie.
Active since 2013 / 4 albums (so far),
with Under The Spell Of Joy (2020)
as their most recent.
The awesome garage rockers from the City of Angels,
led by the drop-dead gorgeuous Bonnie Bloomgarden
are ready to hit the road to Northern America and Canada.
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS – Botanique Club, Brussels – 20 February 2023
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS, the garage-punk rock fury from Los Angeles, led by vocalist/guitarist/organist and charismatic voodoo doll Bonnie Bloomgarden,
release their new – 5th – album, baptized ISLANDS IN THE SKY this Friday,
on 24 February. Order info here.
The three shared singles predict another triumph (and thanks to his secret sources
Turn Up The Volume‘s ears can confirm that for a fact) for the girls that glow in the dark.
Check them out and get hooked.
– WHAT ARE THE ODDS –
– MAGIC POWERS –
– SUNDAY –
And last night we heard these three stunners for the first time live as DVG landed
in Brussels for a 60-minute fuzz and buzz concert that started with the ominous psych snake Abre Camino (from 2018 album Darkness Rains), followed by rattling renditions of Street Justice and More Dead (from the same LP). By then everybody, young and old, was already under the spell of Bonnie Bloomgarden‘s genuine joy radiation, her big rock ‘n’ roll heart and the band’s dashing drive.
Their flaming gloom and doom gems Disco, DVG Boogie and Disaster turned up the heat of the sonic seance even more and increased the sweat factor in the packed club instantly. And these seasoned musicians know all the right tricks and push all the right buttons to keep the steamy sauna show going. Hail hail. Rawk and roll.
The three new singles were received as euphorically as the older firecrackers were. Yes, only devoted fans in the house, so Bonnie decided to meet them up close for a finale of selfies, smiles, and hugs while she kept on singing her lungs out to the Jimi Hendrix‘s infused jam Electric High (bonus track on the Deluxe Edition of 2014 debut album Street Venom). Magic powers in motion.
We all screamed for an encore and got one to close a gig where LOVE was in the air throughout. I only saw ecstatic faces and ecstatic fans thanks to an ecstatic band.
Everybody was under the spell of DVG joy and it felt really, really, really good.
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS – 4AD Club, Diksmuide, Belgium – 23 February 2019
After following this red-hot Los Angeles garage gang since their 2014 debut LP Street Venom hit me in the face and having interviewed them at the end of 2017 I finally got
to see DEATH VALLEY GIRLS explode on stage, for the very first time, yesterday. Are they that special I hear you ask. Absolutely. This crazed quartet combines The Stooges‘ raw power, The Cramps‘ rockabilly lunacy, Black Sabbath‘s metallic insanity and they inject their sonic havoc with a cool, dark sense of humor. Oh, and one more thing: they love cemeteries. As expected the band’s ringleader Bonnie Bloomgarden led the rollicking troops last night. Intoxicating opener Abre Camino from new stirring album Darkness Rains set the heated tone of a stormy set instantly, with blazing bangers Death Valley Boogie, Disco, Electric High and the already classic stormer Disaster (Is What Were’ After) being the tumultuous highlights of a thunderous show…
… in between, ambiguous groove Gettin Hard, infectious poppy chant Pink Radiation
and organ injected swagger Wear Black showed their versatile songwriting caliber while Bonnie was wandering all over the place and hugged cracking bass player Pickle a couple
of times. She’s the charismatic eyecatcher of a hell-raising foursome that spoiled us all with a psych-o-delic Halloween experience in February. HAIL HAIL DEATH VALLEY GIRLS!
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS, the garage rock fury from Los Angeles, led by vocalist/guitarist/organist and charismatic voodoo doll Bonnie Bloomgarden,
who love to doom boogie while glowing in the dark, have their new – 5th – album,
baptized ISLANDS IN THE SKY out on 24 February 2023. Pre-order info here.
The first single, titled WHAT ARE THE ODDS is a ridiculously sticky juiced-up power-pop chant triggering your limbs to get up and move. And when the under the spell of joy choir joins Bonnie Bloomgarden on the elated chorus you just know that the odds are huge for the Californian über alles girls having another top album are huge.
We are living in a simulated world
And we are simulated girls!
DEATH VALLEY GIRLS, the garage rock fury from Los Angeles, led by vocalist/guitarist/organist and charismatic voodoo doll Bonnie Bloomgarden,
who love to doom boogie while glowing in the dark, have their new – 5th – album,
baptized ISLANDS IN THE SKY out on 24 February 2023. Pre-order info here.
Along with the great news, DVG spoil our ears with the first single WHAT ARE THE ODDS.
It’s a ridiculously sticky juiced-up power-pop chant triggering your limbs to get up and move. And when the under the spell of joy choir joins Bonnie Bloomgarden on the elated chorus you just feel that the odds are huge for the simulated Californian girls having another top album are huge. Fact!
We are living in a simulated world
And we are simulated girls!
Last February Los Angeles’ psychedelic garage pop/rock darlings DEATH VALLEY GIRLS released their 5th longplayer Islands In The Sky.
Their best ever to Turn Up The Volume‘s greedy ears.
And driving-force, voice, face and songwriter Bonnie Bloomgarden
and her DV girls are back with a brand new track, named I AM A WAVE.
Bloomgarden: “This song is for anyone that has had a hard time making decisions or following their gut! I linger in indecision and get stuck in the muck of options, weighing every single dynamic except “how does this make me feel.” Sometimes it’s from fear of imperfection, but always it’s from self-doubt, not trusting my instinct, or letting my intuition be my guide. I’ve learned a lot from spiritual people lately. Pagans and witches, calling in the elements. I imagine it’s similar to asking Jesus, a saint, an ancestor, to help for guidance. For me, this song is like a meditation or a prayer. To become a wave. To not want to turn in, quit, and become small or unseen, but to flow and grow. Become part of the flow!!”
TUTV: I Am A Wave is a haunting mid-tempo psych jam, a sonic torch in the dark. The combination of the characteristically high-pitched Bloomgarden vocals, her 60s-sounding Hammond organ, the weeping guitars, the howling backing vocals, the steady drum beat and the glowing finale is just riveting and engrossing.
This is not a Mexican wave, it’s Bonnie‘s wave.
Follow her flow, she’s really kind of amazing.
STREAM
. BUY
. Euro Tour Dates (damn, Belgium is not included)
10/8 – PT – Porto – SONIC BLAST 13/8 – SW – Martigny – PALP festival 15/8 – NL – Nijmegen – Merleyn Nijmegen 16/8 – DE – Berlin – Kantine Am Berghain 17/8 – DE – Hamburg – Molotow 20/8 – FR – Charleville-Mézières, Cabaret Vert 22/8 – FR – Bordeaux – Square Dom Bedos 💀 23/8 – FR – Biarritz – Atabal 💀 25/8 – FR – Dijon – Lalalib
Band: DEATH VALLEY GIRLS Who: Garage rock fury from Los Angeles, led by
vocalist/guitarist/organist and charismatic voodoo
doll Bonnie Bloomgarden, fabricating Californian
doom boogie. Active since 2013 / 4 albums so far
Debut album STREET VENOM – released in 2014, only on
a small run of cassettes – comes back 30th July, for the first
time on vinyl, courtesy of Suicide Squeeze Records.
This deluxe edition is a fully remixed and remastered version
of Street Venom plus two bonus tracks. The initial vinyl pressing
is limited to 2000 copies—1,500 on Satan’s Fingerprint (retail only),
300 on Full Moon Fever, and 200 on Eye of the Beholder (both available
only direct from the label store and Bandcamp). A digital issue is
also obtainable. More info right HERE.
I still love you, Bonnie (photo by Turn Up The Volume)
To get in the right mood, the band shared a psychedelia-colored
video clip for Sanitarium Blues, one of the album’s highlights.
Bonnie Bloomgarden about the song…
“When I was a kid, I ended up in a mental institution after trying to finish my life!
I eventually found out that I am bipolar and extremely empathetic. Life just got too intense/scary to know how to deal with alone! I didn’t know how to get help or that
help would work… This song is about my stay at the institution! The combination of
stuff I do that is currently keeping me alive/balanced is taking antidepressants,
walking a lot, meditating, therapy, plant medicine, space from humans, and my dog.”
Last October the fabtatsic garage rock hellcats DEATH VALLEY GIRLS returned from
their Los Angeles graves for their flabbergasting, third, album UNDER THE SPELL OF JOY. Sonically a different beast than the previous two longplayers. To Turn Up The Volume‘s hungry ears the DVG’s best and boldest work (so far).
To remind the world of this big LP, Death Valley Girls disclosed a new video for one of
the highlights Little Things. To remind the world of all three previous clips I decided
to show them all together, right here, starting with the fresh one, of course.
Dim the lights, take a big bucket of popcorn, and
let your eyes and ears have a spell-binding time …
Band: DEATH VALLEY GIRLS Who: Garage rock fury from Los Angeles, led by
vocalist/guitarist/organist and charismatic voodoo
doll Bonnie Bloomgarden, fabricating Californian
doom boogie. Active since 2013 / 4 albums so far
Bonnie Bloomgarden (main Valley Girl): “Being in a body, experiencing reality as a human, is endlessly challenging. There’s so much darkness, suffering, sorrow, and division, it’s hard to get past. Sometimes, and often for too long, I just stay in the darkness, forgetting there’s anything else. And then sometimes, my guides remind me to look around, sometimes, just look around, at this Earth, at its infinite beauty and intricacy, and simplicity, and sometimes I can feel it, that it’s all really kind of amazing.”
Turn Up The Volume: After the band’s fabtastic 2020 album Under The Spell Of Joy
(one of Turn Up The Volume’s top 5 LPs last year) the amazeballs girls from the City
of Death Valley Angels continue to spread a positive vibe.
But songwriter/singer Bonnie Bloomgarden knows damn well (from experience) that
eternal joy is a utopian dream but when you use all of your senses, you can see, hear,
feel and smell heartwarming things coming.
After the pandemic darkness, there’s a lot of hope that the light at the end of the tunnel is real. I guess that’s what Bonnie expresses here with this sweet, catchy lullaby tune. It’s not the end of the world as we know it and it feels fine.
