Embedded above is the first music video ever produced for the legendary art rock band Sonic Youth, “Death Valley 69,” the eighth and final track on their 1985 album Bad Moon Rising. This is also the first music video that was co-directed by Richard Kern, one of the leading figures of the Cinema of Transgression movement. The song and the video are a perfect time capsule blend of audio and images from the raging punk scene coming out of NYC’s Lower East Side in the ’80s.
According to Jack Sargeant‘s definitive history of the Cinema of Transgression, Deathtripping, Judith Barry was originally hired to direct the video with Kern only hired to do the gore makeup special effects. However, Kern would end up co-directing along with Barry. (The video’s on-screen credits, listed in full below, also credit Sonic Youth as a co-director.)
The final video ends up being...
According to Jack Sargeant‘s definitive history of the Cinema of Transgression, Deathtripping, Judith Barry was originally hired to direct the video with Kern only hired to do the gore makeup special effects. However, Kern would end up co-directing along with Barry. (The video’s on-screen credits, listed in full below, also credit Sonic Youth as a co-director.)
The final video ends up being...
- 9/28/2012
- by Mike Everleth
- Underground Film Journal
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