Kevin Bronson on June 15th, 2017

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You’ve heard multitudes of cover songs, of course. Here’s a cover video — director Dan Samiljan’s romp through Los Angeles for “Big Waste,” the new song from Crash. The source material is Randy Newman’s legendary video for “I Love L.A.,” which still brings a smile to the face after almost 35 years as it trumpets SoCal as the Promised Land. Crash — aka Christopher Richard, of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros and formerly frontman of the Deadly Syndrome — is not so Chamber-of-Commerce in his song. “Big Waste” is the title track from a new EP he made with Ben Cassorla, and Crash has some whimsical complaints about our so-called paradise: you can’t surf with your gun; helicopter rides don’t allow pets; and getting a boner at the beach can be devastating. Such is life. Many of video’s landmarks are the same three-plus decades later — although in place of Newman’s fetching redhead, Crash tools around L.A. in a convertible with a redheaded mannequin. “Is everything I do just one big waste?,” Crash wonders. No, not at all.

||| Watch: The video for “Big Waste”