SPILL VIDEO PREMIERE: CHRIS CONNELLY – “HOUSE OF 70’s”

CHRIS CONNELLY – “HOUSE OF 70’s”

A SPILL EXCLUSIVE VIDEO PREMIERE

There are artists who pay tribute to their influences, and then there are artists who disappear into them, rummage through the history, and emerge carrying something unmistakably their own. Chris Connelly belongs firmly in the latter camp. With “House of 70’s”, the first single from his forthcoming album Doo Wop In The Dark: A Portrait of Lou Reed, Connelly steps into the shadow of one of rock’s most volatile figures and brings Lou Reed’s New York back to life in neon, noise and nerves.

Connelly describes “House of 70’s” as “Lou Reed’s New York of the early- to mid-70s distilled into a rock song,” and the description feels exactly right. The 1960s counterculture dream has burned out, Altamont is in the rear-view mirror, and what remains is a harder, stranger urban landscape of late-night radios, chemically altered consciousness, damaged glamour and sharp-edged street poetry. The song doesn’t simply reference that world; it captures its restless energy.

On this album, Connelly contributes vocals, guitar, harmonium, bass, keyboards and glockenspiel. He his accompanied by Alan Berliant (guitar, keyboards, bass and programming) and Chris Bruce (guitar, programming, bass, keyboards and pedal steel guitar), with Jebin Bruni contributing additional keyboards on one track.

Musically, “House of 70’s” has a propulsion that keeps it moving while leaving plenty of room for atmosphere and texture. Connelly’s vocal is expressive and theatrical without becoming overstated, delivered with an intimacy that makes the song feel less like a distant portrait and more like a first-hand encounter. He finds his own voice within Reed’s world, bringing the material the authority of an artist who understands both its mythology and its darker realities.

Produced by Connelly and Alan Holden Berliant, the track draws on a rich instrumental palette. Berliant and Chris Bruce share mixing duties, working between Chicago and New York from 2023 to 2026, with James Scott handling mastering at Populist Recording & Mastering. This is a production team capable of preserving the grit and unpredictability of the material while giving it a cohesive contemporary sound.

The accompanying video translates that restless energy into an equally theatrical visual world. Produced by Someoddpilot Studios and directed and edited by Chris Eichenseer, it features dancers Kira Ledholm and Jay Drenkel, whose unpredictable physicality gives the film an added sense of movement and tension. Rather than becoming a literal recreation of 1970s New York, the video captures its swagger, alienation, sexuality and danger, allowing the song’s atmosphere to spill naturally into the visual medium.

That sensibility is hardly surprising given Connelly’s four-decade career, from Fini Tribe in Edinburgh through Ministry, the Revolting Cocks and Pigface to an extensive solo catalogue spanning industrial, alternative, experimental and singer-songwriter territory. He has consistently moved between styles and disciplines, making him particularly well suited to approaching an artist as restless and uncompromising as Reed.

Doo Wop In The Dark goes beyond a conventional covers album, combining Reed’s compositions with original songs by Connelly that explore Reed’s life and creative journey from his teenage years through to his death in 2013. Following Connelly’s 2022 “Eulogy to Christa: A Tribute to the Music & Mystique of Nico”, the project continues his fascination with artists whose work, lives and mythology resist easy categorisation.

There is also a deeply personal dimension to the album. It is dedicated to Connelly’s friend Zak Boerger, who died in 2025, as well as to the “wildfire, tempestuous spirit” of Lewis Allan Reed. That dedication gives the project an added emotional weight, turning the album into more than an exercise in musical archaeology. It becomes a reflection on influence, friendship, mortality and artistic legacy.

“House of 70’s” succeeds because Connelly understands that the most interesting tributes don’t simply preserve the past — they reactivate it. He takes the raw ingredients of Reed’s world and allows them to collide with his own musical history, creating a visceral, stylish and deeply felt tribute that sounds less like imitation than reincarnation.

For listeners drawn to Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, David Bowie and the darker edges of alternative rock, “House of 70’s” is an essential listen, with a video that extends its atmosphere without merely illustrating it. Connelly hasn’t produced a museum piece dressed in seventies clothing. He has taken a turbulent piece of musical history, thrown it back into the amplifier and discovered that it still has plenty of voltage left.

As of August 18th, “House of 70’s” is available everywhere digitally, including Apple Music, Spotify, Amazon and Bandcamp. On October 16th, Doo Wop In The Dark will be released digitally and as a limited edition two-CD set, with a selection of tracks also being made available on vinyl.

ALBUM CREDITS

Chris Connelly – vocals, guitar, harmonium, bass, keyboards, glockenspiel
Chris Bruce – guitar, programming, bass, keyboards, pedal steel guitar
Alan Holden Berliant – guitar, keyboards, bass, programming
Jebin Bruni – additional keyboards on ‘Bye Bye Johnny Viola’
Produced by Chris Connelly & Alan Holden Berliant,
except ‘Babyface’, “Bye Bye Johnny Viola”, ‘Doin’ The Things That We Want To’ and ‘One Too Many Mysteries’ produced by Chris Bruce
Mixed by Alan Holden Berliant & Chris Bruce in Chicago & New York (2023-2026)
Mastered by James Scott at Populist Recording & Mastering
Cover photography by Derick Smith
Cover layout by Kimberly Blessing
Released by Shipwrecked Industries LLC
Video produced by Someoddpilot Studios
Directed and edited by Chris Eichenseer
Dancers: Kira Ledholm, Jay Drenkel
Management: Kimberly Blessing at Shipwrecked Industries
Chris Connelly photos by Derick Smith
Publicity by Shauna McLarnon at Shameless Promotion PR

While you are here, enjoy Connelly’s earlier ‘Eulogy To Christa’ album:

Chris Connelly
[Single]
(Shipwreck Industries)
Release Date: July 18, 2026

Artist Links

Photo Credits: Derick Smith