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Death In VegasDirge
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 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. "Aisha" was a Top 10 hit in the UK and also featured in the Playstation 2 title Gran
Turismo 3: A-Spec. 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.,[3] 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. Death in Vegas set up their own label, Drone Records (not to be confused with the existing German label of the same name) and released their fourth album, Satan's Circus, in 2004. The melody of Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe
Express" is featured in the track "Zugaga". Unlike the previous two albums, Satan's Circus did not feature any guest vocalists.
The album was also released as a limited edition double pack including
a live CD, recorded on the Scorpio Rising tour at the Brixton Academy,
London. The band released their fifth studio album, Trans-Love Energies, on September 26, 2011 in the UK. In a 2008 interview, Richard Fearless claimed that: "I've recorded a new Death In Vegas album but it just needs to be mixed. I re-scored these psyche/surf films that were filmed at the Barbican a couple of years ago and worked on it in the studio for about 8 months. We rehearsed it and performed it a few times but as yet haven't actually released it. That's basically what the next Death In Vegas album will be. I just had to have a break from it - Death In Vegas is something I've been doing since I was a teenager." In a 2007 interview, Tim Holmes confirmed the
band had a potential un-released album: "We’ve got at least another album worth of music recorded and we just need to
mix it. It’s just not something that we want to push or stress
over. I guess that because we do not have the commercial constraints
that signed bands have we can please ourselves."[5] Trans-Love Energies does not contain a credit for Holmes, however; when asked
in a 2011 interview by the Australian music magazine Onion whether
Holmes was "part of the current line-up", Fearless replied: "No. No he's not". Outside of Death in Vegas Ian Button has produced various upcoming acts including Extradition Order, Char Johnson, the Beat Maras, David Cronenberg's Wife and Paul Hawkins. Button plays drums in Hawkins's backing band Thee Awkward Silences and also in D.I.V bassist Mat Flint's band Deep Cut, as well as playing guitar for Dot Allison. Button releases his own material under the name of the Anthony Anderson Project and is credited as Anthony Anderson on Dead Elvis. Keyboard player Terry Miles has also played with Bernard Butler, Denim and Go Kart Mozart (the latter both fronted by former Felt frontman Lawrence Hayward). Bass player Mat Flint sang and played guitar in
early 90s indie band Revolver, and is currently guitarist in Deep
Cut. In August 2011, a full scale live tour was announced. Dead Elvis (March 1997) [edit] Compilation albums Back to Mine Vol. 16 (January 2004) as part of
the Back to Mine series.
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