Video premiere: MANIAC, ‘City Lights’

Kevin Bronson on May 24th, 2018

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MANIAC’s second album, “Dead Dance Club” (out June 1) moves as fast as the city that spawned it — it’s a barrage of hook-heavy, punk-rock quick cuts covering the outlandishness, debauchery, heartbreak and occasional self-flagellation that often make Los Angeles less than beachy. The video for the opening track, “City Lights,” directed by guitarist Andrew Zappin, is a proper introduction.

The band calls it “a horrifying pastiche of LAPD archival crime footage and 1980s experimental scream therapy that begs the question: ‘Even if everyone can make a music video … should they?’” They add: “Rated M for Magnificent. File under Post Sleaze-Jazz Gelato Core.”

It’s post-wanting to relax in a hot bath, that’s for sure.

The band started in 2012, with Zappin and ex-Seattleite Zache Davis (The Girls, Cute Lepers) joining up with Justin Maurer (Clorox Girls, LA Drugz) and James Carman (Images, LA Drugz). All four contribute their songwriting talents to the band, and “City Lights” is the work of Davis, the bassist and lead singer. “[It’s] really about the annoying dudes on the boardwalk who try to sell you their CDs,” he says, adding that “most of the songs I wrote are about a failing relationship, loss and self-deprecation and realization, with some sprinkles of characters who play Frisbee golf and some who lost money on a prostitute.”

The album, recorded at Station House Studios in Echo Park by Mark Rains, is coming out via Green Noise Records.

||| Watch: The video for “City Lights”