na: lightning bolt
TMI alert: I met my girlfriend for the first time on our way to a Lightning Bolt show. I shoulda known from that moment that she was the one, eh?
Lightning Bolt puts on pretty much the best live show in the history of mankind. They play loud. They refuse to play on a stage (instead, they set up on the floor of the venue and start almost immediately after the previous band has finished). And their drummer wears a mask so that he can put a contact mic inside to take care of the band’s vocal duties. The first time that I saw them, the band picked up their gear in the middle of their final song (while continuing to play it, mind) and moved it across the room. Yes, this also included a full drumset.
For most bands, the live show to record divide is too much to bear. For my money, there’s nothing like seeing My Morning Jacket live. But their records leave me completely cold. And while LB’s first album was awful, they got it almost right with Ride the Skies (the epic “13 Monsters”…download it NOW) and exactly right with Hypermagic Mountain (”Riff Wraiths” ain’t a bad place to start here), but “Bizarro Zarro Land” isn’t far behind). If you like No Age, dirty punk rock, noise music, experimental music, Taekwondo, or Jell-O do yourself a favor and check out these guys. You won’t be disappointed.
“For my money, there’s nothing like seeing My Morning Jacket live. But their records leave me completely cold.”
I think I like Okonokos better than any of MMJ’s studio albums. Less reverb suits the songs well, and the live show has more dynamic drums, and more energy and verve.
wait, did todd just say there’s nothing like seeing mmj live? did someone hack into yr account???
Todd’s a closet rockist.
Hey so when this press release says “Columbia Records will release Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s ‘Magic Tour Highlights’ on July 15 via all digital download stores, including the iTunes Store” They mean “all digital download stores (except eMusic)” right? Yeah, thought so. Oh well.
I’ve said it elsewhere… “2 Towers” (from Wonderful Rainbow, conspicuously missing here) is near-transcendent. And aside from their excellent DVD, I have never had the privilege of seeing them live.
My wife (an accomplished flautist, in stark contrast to my utter non-musical-ability-ness) tolerates my eclectic taste in music most of the time, but draws the line at LB. “Nothing even remotely melodic here,” she says. She’s wrong, of course (the band has a hundred versions of the very melodic classic, “Frère Jacques”), but this story demonstrates the difficulty you might have selling Lightning Bolt to a certain crowd.
Personally, I love ‘em.
Wonderful Rainbow is coming, along with the rest of Load. It should all be up in the next week or two. And that one is my favorite, too.
WJPurdy: I would say that LB is not melodic at all, and that’s a key part of their charm. It is purified, and intensified rhythmic destruction.
Televiper: Though I’d agree LB’s a bit, um, rhythmically assaultive… and they’re sure as hell loud… nearly every track is built around a (typically) very basic melody played on Brian Gibson’s guitar-range bass tunings. I realize I am much more a consumer of music than a student of it, so I’m a bit outside my comfort zone here, but the presence of this very basic melody (I joke a bit about the “Frère Jacques,” but that is absolutely what it sounds like to me) is why I think of Lightning Bolt as more of a “noise-jazz” type outfit, as opposed to the more commonly used descriptor “noise-rock.” But, again, I am not a musician. The dudes in Lightning Bolt (as far as I am concerned) indisputably are.
Two Abe Vigoda albums arived today. Although I haven’t heard either AV or LB, I gather they attract similar fans, and I’ve been looking for both their stuff for a while.
awesome, though i’d kill an ivory billed woodpecker for a new album from these maniacs. i think when lightning bolt put out hypermagic mountain, i was still in diapers, which means i was about 18, so i guess on second thought it was only like 14 years ago. of course, emusic claims this was released in june of 2008, but we are used to the damn lies, such as the fact that this is “jazz.”
the first time i saw lightning bolt was in the old black cat in washington, dc, before they moved to the new spot down the block. there were christmas lights everywhere and people were stacked like jenga pieces to get a looksie. in the middle of their set, the tremendous bass palpitations caused the entire audience to lose their shirts and their bowels. it was ok.
WJPurdy: Good point about “noise jazz.” I used to think of LB as more of a punk-rock outfit, until my wife pointed out how jazzy their sound is. Turns out they fit really well alongside someone like Peter Brotzmann.