Apparently we at RVA Mag are a bit off our YouTube game, because this Dead Fame video has been out for two months and we just discovered it. But better late than never, I suppose, and those of you who’ve also missed out need to see it.
Apparently we at RVA Mag are a bit off our YouTube game, because this Dead Fame video has been out for two months and we just discovered it. But better late than never, I suppose, and those of you who’ve also missed out need to see it. “Joan Crawford” is the opening track on Dead Fame’s latest EP, Vicious Design, which came out on vinyl back in April and is still available from Dead Fame’s Bandcamp page. As with a lot of Dead Fame material, this song has a resemblance to the early work of New Order, when they still hadn’t quite moved on from the dark atmospheres of Joy Division. But Dead Fame bring a lot more to it than just that one influence, with some reverb-drenched guitar leads and Michael Means’s strong vocal lines being standout elements.
The video has an atmosphere of the forbidden about it, with the band members appearing at the beginning to be breaking into a disused warehouse in order to perform. This is emphasized by guitarist KC Byrnes wearing a mask throughout the video, and spraypainting the song’s title on a wall at one point during the video. Also, while it’s not really relevant to the point I’m making here, it should be mentioned that leather-jacketed bassist Sadie Powers looks like a total badass in this video. To my mind, though, the most interesting thing going on in this video is the scattered shots throughout the video of old-school punk types hanging out and dancing. Any eagle-eyed viewer as familiar with gore films of bygone decades as I am will recognize these shots as being taken from Abel Ferrara’s infamous 1979 slasher film Driller Killer. One of the film’s subplots revolves around a (kind of crappy) punk band called The Roosters, and all of the scenes of old-school punks in this video are taken from that film.
Driller Killer was notoriously filmed for very little money, and on 16mm film, so the use of scenes from it in this video is fitting, as director Dave O’Dell has made many of the cuts between scenes look like static disruptions on an old analog TV signal. The video itself also features a lot of apparently analog artifacts (vertical black lines on the screen, etc) which may indicate a use of 16mm film to capture this video, or a post-production effect used to replicate the quality of 16mm prints. Honestly, it’s probably the latter–as opposed to the late 70s, when it was the cheapest filming process you could use, these days it’s pretty expensive to use film instead of recording digitally.
OK, I’ll stop geeking out now. “Joan Crawford” is a good song with a rad video that you should totally watch. Meanwhile, those of you with weaker stomachs should probably confine your viewing of Driller Killer to the amount of it you can catch within this video. (Ye of stronger constitutions are welcome to watch the whole thing on YouTube, but this film is graphically violent. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) As previously mentioned, Dead Fame’s Vicious Design is still available for purchase on vinyl and mp3. The band also just announced that they’ll be opening for Merchandise when they come to Strange Matter on October 23, but that’s a while away yet. Don’t worry, we’ll remind you.
By Andrew Necci; live photos by Wes McQuillen, Driller Killer screencap courtesy Tenebrous Kate