Death In Vegas

Death In Vegas biography

Death in Vegas are a psychedelic rock and electronic rock band from the United Kingdom, comprising two permanent members: Richard Fearless (Richard Maguire) and Tim Holmes. Influenced by a wide range of musical genres including psychedelic rock, electronica, krautrock, dub and industrial, the band's sound is constantly changing, moving between live rock sounds, electronica and minimal techno. The band was formed in 1994 by Fearless and Steve Hellier and signed to Concrete Records under the name of "Dead Elvis". Objections from the Elvis Presley estate forced them to change their name, and Dead Elvis became the title of their first album instead.

History

Dead Elvis

The first album, Dead Elvis, was a mixture of many musical genres, although most of the tracks are predominantly based in electronica. Shortly after the release of the album, Hellier left the band and was replaced by Tim Holmes, who had already been involved with mixing and engineering tracks on Dead Elvis.

The Contino Sessions

The band's second album, The Contino Sessions (1999), marked a slight change in direction with more attention to live instrumentation than their first and the inclusion of guest vocalists (including Dot Allison, Bobby Gillespie, Iggy Pop, and Jim Reid). Although predominantly rock-influenced, the album still retained some electronic elements, in particular the opening track "Dirge" with its drum machine-based rhythm track. "Dirge", featuring a vocal chant by Allison, is perhaps one of the band's most recognisable tracks. "Dirge" was featured on a Levi's jeans commercial, as well as the second installment of the Blair Witch Project, and was used in the trailer for the 2006 film The Black Dahlia. The song was also used at the end of the 2009 remake of Last House On The Left, near the end of the Being Human episode "The Longest Day", and in the second episode of season two of Misfits. Along with "Aisha" (with vocals from Iggy Pop), "Dirge" helped the band gain more recognition, culminating in a Mercury Music Prize nomination in 2000. The song Dirge was subject of a lawsuit by the band Five or Six, as it it borrowed extensively from their song Another Reason. The matter was settled with Five or Six receiving writing credit for Dirge. "Aisha" was a Top 10 hit in the UK and also featured in the Playstation 2 title Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec.

Scorpio Rising

In September 2002, the band released its third album, Scorpio Rising, after almost a three-year gap. During their time off, the band had toured and briefly returned to their techno roots with the track "Scorpio", which, although not appearing on any album, was included as the B-side of "Hands Around My Throat", the first single from Scorpio Rising. Scorpio Rising takes its name from the cult avant-garde film of the same name by Kenneth Anger. The lyrics of the title track (featuring vocals from Liam Gallagher) reflected the controversial nature of Anger's film. It also continued to attract attention from advertisers and filmmakers with "Hands Around My Throat" being used in a Sony Ericsson advert and appearing on the soundtrack to The Animatrix, while the track "Girls" was used on the soundtracks to Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and Angela Robinson's D.E.B.S., as well as in an episode of the TV show Veronica Mars and a commercial for BBC's most recent production of Sense and Sensibility. This was their last studio album for Concrete Records. Concrete released a best-of album, entitled Milk It, in 2004.

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