Death In Vegas --- Ink Blot Magazine

LIVE DEATH
Live review by Jesse Fahnestock
Photos by Tricia Heath

What does Richard Fearless do? Play music? Nah, nothing that dull.

Tonight Death In Vegas's mastermind looks absurd and drunk in huge aviators and a homemade haircut. He's skinny as a wire, wrapped in a tight punk rock Johnny Cash iron-on T-Shirt. He occasionally tweaks a knob, triggers a sample, or adjusts a mixing console, but generally prefers to leave the instrumentation to the rest of the DIV squad. Fearless has more important stuff to do, namely pogoing, punching the air and making Ozzy signs with his hands. It's his job to make sure everyone gets as swept up by this experience as he is, to lead the jaded hipsters to the promised land of live rock 'n' roll. His enthusiasm for the task is frankly irresistible.

Like George Clinton and Bobby Gillespie and Sid Vicious, Fearless is the idea, the attitude. He is Death In Vegas, and if he's less musically involved in the live arena, his vision still drives the show. He's fashioned a new, ultra-heavy sound from rough electro edges and garage rock rawness, and it makes more sense live than it did on The Contino Sessions.

Opener "Dirge" swells to maximum volume, two guitars, Matt Flint's bass and Fearless's synth overwhelming any doubts about the presence of Rock. "Death Threat" is total Sabbath, an all-consuming throb, and it soon becomes clear that DIV have been mislabeled: This isn't the New Goth, it's the New Biker Rock. Fearless is clearly keen on collaborations (Iggy, Jim Reid, Bobby G.), so don't be surprised if you see Lemmy guesting on the next tour. Somewhat surprisingly, the audience of hipsters, clubbers and minor celebs (stand up, Hope Sandoval. Please.) appear to dig their Heavy Rock. Maybe there are snake tattoos hiding under some of those pairs of Capri pants.

"Aisha" is brutal: one chord, one neck-snapping snare and a truckload of menace. Iggy's presence is reduced to a sampled "the Gods all SUCK!" but his spirit is with us. "Lever St." and "Aladdin's Story" offer a sudden shift down in intensity, but up in mood. All major chords and gospel arrangements, they are beautiful compositions that lose some of their urgency live.

And here's the dilemma Death In Vegas face: fusing instrumental rock and digital music, they occasionally cry out for either a dancefloor focus or a lyrical presence. In other words, you can't dance to a song like "Flying," and you can't sing along either. Next to the high-impact openers, this song sounds like background music.

"Rekkit," on the other hand, is a pulsing electro monster, steroid body rock, and everyone dances like they just learned how. "Broken Little Sister" is aimless and almost wastes the regained momentum, but then The Moment comes. All great concerts have The Moment, when the band's big idea intersects the audience's big hopes, and everyone is caught off guard by the magic of live music. Into the fog of "Sister" Fearless drops a sudden, cut-up vocal sample and "Dirt" arrives like a Mack truck, everyone on stage picking up the main riff at the same time and everyone in the crowd jumping out of their shoes. Even the horn players go apeshit, putting down their weapons and leaping around the back of the stage like they just won the lottery.

They encore with "Neptune City," a lovely come down from an intense peak, and say good night. Fearless gives a few more drunken salutes on his way out, his vision vindicated by a dazed, giddy crowd. A victory, then: For biker rock, for dancefloor silliness, and for The Moment. Not a bad night's work.

Interview with DIV's Richard Fearless

How has America received you?

All the gigs seem to have gone down really well. But it’s been frustrating from our point of view, because certain sides seem to be letting the album down a bit. There doesn’t seem to be much promotion, really. We handed in a brilliant record and it got brilliant reviews all around the world, but in America there doesn’t seem to be any push on it at all, which is a bit disappointing.

The Contino Sessions material sounds great live. It’s almost as if you arranged it with live performance in mind. Is that the case?

Yeah, definitely...It was a pre-conceived thing. We wanted it to be really organic, like the Krautrock stuff or the psychedelic stuff. We didn’t want to go into a studio where there’s so much equipment and you end up skimming the surface of each bit of equipment. You get these records and they’re just so overproduced, so many unnecessary parts in them. We wanted to have that kind of raw soul…

It was a lot of fun to see the dolled up club girls dancing to things like "Death Threat." Are you aware of a culture clash between some of the fans you’ve attracted and the garage/punk/biker rock side of your sound?

No. That’s what I strive for, really. That’s what I want. Last night in Detroit was the first time we’ve had quite a mixed race audience, and considering how influential reggae and dub music has been on us, that’s something I’ve always found quite frustrating. I don’t want it to be one type of audience, I want it to be all types of people.

Do you feel like you’re out there on your own? Are there current bands that inspire you?

Bands like Primal Scream inspire me. They’re one of the few bands that I get excited about hearing their new material. Bands like the Chemical Brothers, what they do, they do best. I don’t think there’s really anyone on a par with that kind of sound, yet there are so many bands trying to emulate that. We locked ourselves in our own little world when we wrote this [album], really.

Do you have an idea of where you want to go next with your music?

The next record’s going to be as different as this one is to the last one. This album’s quite a rock album, the first one was quite electronic, I want to make the [next] one the kind of thing you’d listen to on a bed of pillows, looking at the stars. We want to work with one vocalist, I won’t say who it is, but it’s a female. We’re going to be recording it in India, which is quite exciting. And it’s got a bit of twist to it, which is going to be good.