I just love this video that L-Train discovered the other night featuring music by Lightning Bolt. It’s beautiful through and through. The short sorta reminds me of The New Radicals video for “You Get What You Give,” except with a fun-loving monster bro, less bucket hat, and better jammage. Enjoy.

Can Lightning Bolt even make a bad album? Well, I suppose if they, I dunno, started sporting J Crew, ripped off Paul Simon’s whiteboy Afrobeat, and wrote a concept album about how rad their dad’s Cape Cod estate is, sure, that would be relatively gnarly. But worry not, this is Providence-reared, Load-loyal Lightning Bolt – ADHD rhythmic, skull-crushing low-end fuzz purveying, ski mask doning, intestinal fortitude testing, Frances Bacon meets fridge art shit on their album covers makin’, inclined toward all that is guerrilla style, quite possibly spawned from the primordial ooze Lightning Bolt. A veritable Rush for the noise kids; everything the two Brians touch is aces. And with their forthcoming Earthly Delights, Lightning Bolt comes correct… uh-gain… with an effort every bit as strong as Hypermagic Mountain and with an even more adventurous spirit to boot.

Though I wanted to hold off a bit after first hearing the jam hive before publishing my thoughts in narrative form, I did post some quips on the blog’s Twitter a couple of weeks ago. I think I said something to the effect of “Earthly Delights is Lightning Bolt’s Meet the Beatles’ and ‘I could get my folks into this record.’ Well, none of that is exactly true, but there’s a very odd, visceral melodicism running underneath the album. I noticed this on the first track I listened to, “Nation of Boar.” I chose to listen to this particular canticle first since it’s called “Nation of Boar.” The song exits with a rather gorgeous, mystic progression that makes me feel like returning to nature. Weird, right? Well, while LB hasn’t exactly gone verse-chorus-verse on us just yet, the more concise songs (half the album features songs under five minutes) yield less dissonance and fuckin’ around, replacing the new space with extremely structured, simple, almost hummable compositions. That is not to say that LB has lost any edge, but simply that Earthly Delights throws a little Occam’s Razor into the mix. The group’s opting to keep their disposition a bit simpler and less freeform. Hence the hyperbolic comparison to Meet the Beatles. I have to say that I like the results.

“Colossus” bring a slow-burning, nasty stoner metal groove to the forefront, and acts as one of LB’s most driving songs since Wonderful Rainbow’s “Assassins.” But don’t think the Brians are ever looking behind, because “Funny Farm” comes at you out of no-fucking-where. It’s a country song. That’s right, B Gibs does Buck Owens-style western licks through his grody bass distortion. Shit you not. “Funny Farm” is outta control ridiculous. “S.O.S.” then takes you through East London for a little oi punk call-response at machine gun speed. Again, awesome. After four years, you’d have to expect something insane to end up on the new record, especially with these bros.

As with all Lightning Bolt releases, there is one real ultimate epic trek through Middle Earth jam. Hypermagic Mountain’s was “Dead Cowboy,” Wonderful Rainbow’s was “The Two Towers” (interestingly enough, huh?), and with Earthly Delights, they save the big guns for last with closing track “Transmissionary.” The 12-and-a-half minute flight is definitely the closest that Lightning Bolt has brushed against psychedelia-leaning prog, and I mean that with all due respect and good vibes. If The Moody Blues cut the foreplay after Seventh Sojourn and just fuckin’ rawked, they may have gotten close to “Transmissionary.” The cut showcases an almost orchestral approach – organic, resplendent, and soaring to climax. It’s a sumptuous journey that leaves you refreshed, enlightened, but upset that Earthly Delights just ended real cold-like. Oh well… just gotta hit repeat on that sucka and get lifted again.

Earthly Delights solidifies once again that Lightning Bolt unequivocally remains one of the most relevant bands today. I hope they tour crazy on this record, and as soon I get some some dates sent to me, I’ll definitely let you all in the loop. In the interim, go buy Earthly Delights at your favorite record dealer when it drops October 13. Or preoder it soon from Load. Do it, poopypants!

Fagen-Becker Quality Rating

MP3 :::
Lightning Bolt – Nation of Boar
Lightning Bolt – S.O.S.

I don’t mind being wrong on this one. We’ll all be privileged to hear the latest from Lightning Bolt, Earthly Delights, one month earlier than what I posted on Friday. It drops October 13, thanks to Load. Prasie be to Allah.

That, indeed, is the cover up there. It’s like fridge art, except with a Frances Bacon spin. And here’s a new jam below. Methinks LB just discovered jazz drumming, which is utterly insane.

MP3 :::
Lightning Bolt – Colossus

It’s about goddamn time, too! I mean, I know the Bolt Bros have been busy keepin’ it trill – what, with Black Pus and Wizardzz and a collaboration list that expands exponentially like pi. But it’s been four years since the near-flawless Hypermagic Mountain dropped and made thousands of kids realize their capacity for both love and hate.

Lightning Bolt will drop their load on Load on November 13, and it’s called Earthly Delights. I will buy this record when it comes out. I will partake in some earthly delights whilst the long player plays long on my ghetto blaster. I will turn my phone off. I am not to be disturbed.

And of course, new album means that LB will probably build another great play-on-the-floor-kumbaya tour. When I know, you’ll know.

Tracklist:
1. Sound Guardians
2. Nation of Boar
3. Colossus
4. The Sublime Freak
5. Flooded Chamber
6. Funny Farm
7. Rain on Lake I’m Swimming In
8. S.O.S.
9. Transmissionary

Can’t wait to hear the second track… cuz it’s called “NATION OF BOAR,” you see.

MP3 :::
Lightning Bolt – Birdy

Perhaps one reason we haven’t heard a whole lot from the monolithic Lightning Bolt since 2005’s flawless Wonderful Rainbow is the myriad of undoubtedly time-consuming side projects. Black Pus is one of them, featuring Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale. While Chippendale maintains the holy spastic drumming, interdental vox, and ADHD garage prog vibe that christens the church of Lightning Bolt, he seems to utilize Black Pus as a vehicle to branch out into other songwriting styles, including movements that are almost, zounds!, poppy. Have a look and listen to “Land of the Lost,” a highly hummable tune (the melody almost sounds like the chorus to INXS’ “The One Thing”… almost) with an excellent visual brain rape akin to Paper Rad:

Black Pus just released 0: Ultimate Beat Off on Armageddon. I have yet to hear all of Ultimate Beat Off, but I bet it rules, and Forest Gospel has a review better than anything I could’ve written.

MP3 :::
Black Pus – River That Ran Too Far

Words do no justice to the awesomeness of above illustration. As reported earlier, the noise community has stopped tinkering with feedback loops for a moment or two in the name of civic engagement. Noise for Obama, with a most triumphant Wonderful Rainbow-themed background, launched roughly two weeks ago and now has some artist statements up with pledging of support and general thumbs-upness for Obama.

Some highlights for me include Lightning Bolt’s Brian Chippendale on voting:

“So I’ll wander into whatever school gym or apartment complex lobby I’m assigned too and say “chippendale” and the volunteers will all giggle and I’ll make a joke about my rich stripper uncle or something like that. Then I’ll vote, we will all smile and I’ll get my “I voted” sticker and walk out happy that I shared a moment with a few new people from some other walk of life. All of us participating in this grand democratic experiment.”

Nick Hayden from Friends Forever sums up thoughts that I wish we’d hear pundits say more, and in this exact diction:

With Obama we know that there is no great evil, a ” terrorist” is an asshole brain washed by idiotic mislead Muslim radicals and nothing more (on a side note we have a ton of neo-conservative brain washed Evangelical assholes that fuck up our country daily but that’s another story). With Obama we know these mislead Muslim radical assholes can’t be stopped by killing dictators and taking over countries. With Obama we know the lower and middle class will not be forgotten. With Obama we hear no more fear inside us. With Obama we feel we have a part in our future, and see ourselves becoming a nation again. With Obama the focus is on me and you finding the ability and strength within to overcome things that piss us off. Also with Obama we know he’ll have a Vice President that is maybe even more passionate regarding some of the issues that are dribbling into my life without my consent and stealing my time and money.

Greg from Deerhoof:

When most politicians start talking in detail on a technical topic, my eyes glaze over almost instantly. I know I’m just a drummer so that’s probably par for the course, but I firmly believe this is intentional on their part, to create the impression that they are know-it-alls and that us citizens needn’t concern ourselves with the finer points.

Which brings me back to my not-so-fine point, that an Obama presidency would encourage the real and potential agents of positive change. An “understandable” president would be a real danger to the status quo because the citizens might tune in rather than tune out. They would start to develop the expectation that their leaders make sense. They would feel that they are being included in the discussion and that it is their responsibility to be educated about what is being discussed. With an engaged population who knows what might happen?

Head on over to read more statements from the likes of No Age, Russian Circles, Sunken Landscapes, and more.

Not related to Obama, but related to noise, I love Paper Rad’s video for for the Bolt’s “13 Monsters.” Czech it below. Also, Lightning Bolt’s ATP performance is riiiight here.

MP3 :::
Lightning Bolt – 30,000 Monkeys
No Age – Boy Void
Wolf Eyes – Noise Not Music

Hey you, plaid shirt starin’ at your feet! Why are your arms crossed? You’re in the sacred inner circle of Lightning Bolt’s Church of Noizze… you don’t just stand around, wenis! The F is wrong with you? You can get away with that at the Low show, but not in the Church. Anyway, I feel very fortunate to be able to grip a recording of Lightning Bolt’s entire monolithic, late Friday night set via WFMU’s weekend broadcast! And it’s so evil. They brought out my favorite LB jam, “Dead Cowboy,” and I will never be able to sleep soundly again after hearing it.

In a truly unfortunately turn of events, I’ve not yet had the opportunity to witness LB’s decimation first hand, though I have had Gibson’s side project Wizardzz rape my brain. The fact that they can succinctly toggle between tempos like a sampler would is beyond my compositional understanding.

The sound quality of this bootleg is as good as you need it to be. You can hear the stream drop in and out occasionally, probably from rebuffering, but very little audience interference. This bootleg (with more to come) are from a reader/commenter named “woj.” I don’t know who you are, but you are the hero. So to “woj”:

In other news, Brian Gibson and I have the same trousers, as evidence in the picture above, and Brian Chippendale only uses bass strings manufactured by Aleister Crowley’s estate. Treated.

MP3 :::
Lightning Bolt – Live @ ATP, 9.20.08

A lot of small, relevant snippets of information have been appearing on my newsdesk in the past couple of hours, so I figured, why not dump everything in my action items box into one convenient, slammin’ post. So here’s all the news fit to print, in one post. It will help augment my lack of posting over the weekend, as I will be out of town. The timing was a little bad considering…

Ariel Pink Hits the Bottle This Weekend… Hard

Ariel Pink, on his 2008 “Thanks Mom, I’m Dead” tour, is now bringin’ it proper with a lush, full band. I’m interested to hear this, considering the last time I saw Ariel’s twisted AM radio golden pop was his opening spot for Animal Collective during the Sung Tongs tour. They sounded (sonically, not compostionally) like shit, just like on album. I wonder if this same interpretation will happen full band (featuring members of Indian Jewelry, Lilys and Beachwood Sparks). Philadelphia’s singing-at-the-bottom-of-a-well siren Tickley Feather opens the New York, Philly, and Baltimore shows. I know nothing about Tickley Feather’s live show, but the recorded material is sick! As for local action, Ariel Pink hits the Empty Bottle in Chicago this Saturday (totally feelin’ sad panda for missing this). Please see it for me – take photos!

7/19 San Francisco, CA Cell Space
7/21 Salt Lake City, UT Kilby Court
7/22 Denver, CO Larimer Lounge
7/24 Omaha, NE Slowdown
7/25 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry
7/26 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle
7/27 Toronto, ONT TBA
7/28 Montreal, QC Zoobizarre
7/29 Boston, MA TT The Bears
7/30 New York, NY Knitting Factory
7/31 New Haven, CT People’s Center
8/1 Philadelphia, PA M Room
8/2 Baltimore, MD Sonar
8/4 Atlanta, GA Eyedrum
8/5 Tallahassee, FL Beta Bar
8/6 Baton Rouge, LA Spanish Moon
8/7 Houston, TX Walter’s on Washington
8/8 Denton, TX Hailey’s
8/9 Austin, TX Mohawk
8/11 Tucson, AZ Plush
8/12 Los Angeles, CA Echo

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Grafitti – Inmates of Heartache
Tickley Feather – Natural

Lightning Bolt and Wooden Shjips Do ATP’s Release the Bats

Halloween is the only holiday I really celebrate, and if I can locate a few extra thousand dollars (plus exchange rate fund) lying aruond, I may just take a hajj to London’s Forum on October 31 for ATP’s Release the Bats. No, I probably won’t make it, but you Britons should take the trip to see Lightning Bolt and Wooden Shjips, then tell me how it was. Lightning Bolt, who refuse to play on a stage, is worth traveling any distance to see, for their energy, face melting performance, and sheer unadulterated volume. Wooden Shjips will be fun to see live, as well, since they will be testing lots of new material for the follow up to their airborne self-titled. ATP is encouraging people to dress spooky. Considering LB is booked – shouldn’t be a problem.

Lightning Bolt – Duel in the Deep
Wooden Shjips – Lousin’ Time

Watch Anton Newcombe Woo His Peers and Neighbors in DIG!

DIG is an amazing documentary by Ondi Timoner outlining the seven year trajectory of two very aesthetically different groups, starting from the same place, but creating two vastly incongruent story arcs (with the Brian Jonestown Massacre acting as the undeniable central force, the immovable object, like the Joker in the Dark Knight). Totally fascinating – sometimes you just can’t make this stuff up. Of course, a lot has been written and discussed concerning the general insanity provoked by Anton and company (which I think is kinda cool in a psychotic way). What really matters is the music, ultimately, and this film holds true to this ideal.

Now, thanks to SnagFilm, you can watch this riveting piece of human drama – for free. Way rad. Czech out DIG here, or go on and watch it all up in that lil’ widget dude above! Technology is fucking aces.

Personally, I love every Brian Jonestown Massacre record. But even if you’re not into the music, the movie is more than entertaining. If you do love the BJM, there’s tons of great music throughout. You should definitely buy the DVD if you like the flick, since the DVD is packed with tons of great deleted footage, extras, and BJM performances. In a later post, I have quite a story concerning my epic run-in with Mr. Newcombe. Look out for that, but in the meantime, enjoy a lil’ guy from the We are the Radio EP.

Brian Jonestown Massacre – Seer

I mean, just look at their ballistic visual interp of Lightning Bolt’s “13 Monsters”!

Czech the video, and you will be converted. Hightail a hajj over to their nearest rockshow, longhair. You won’t regret it. Plus, most of the spot they’re playing are art galleries or small, non-profit co-op venues, so they should all be all ages and really cheap. Don’t sleep on this.

7.24: Carnegie Museum of Art — Pittsburgh, Pa
7.26: Silent Barn — New York, NY
7.27: Secret Project Robot — New York, NY
7.30: The Rendezvous — Turners Falls, MA
8.1: Pageant Gallery — Philadelphia, PA
8.2: The Bank — Baltimore, MD
8.4: Nightlife — Carborro, NC
8.6: Gypsy Hut Bar — Cincinnati, OH
8.7: The Herrot — Muncie, IN
8.8: Enemy — Chicago, IL
8.9: Borg Ward — Milwaukee, WI
8.10: The Eagle — Detroit, MI

Extreme Animals on MySpace
Fortress of Amplitude on MySpace

From Time: “In recent days, Chicago has endured baby tsunamis and threats of tornadoes. Just last week, the authorities pulled a prickly five-foot-long alligator from the Chicago River. In April, police fatally shot a 150-lb. cougar in an alley of a leafy neighborhood in this city’s heart. America’s third-largest city is becoming some kind of remote Amazonian outpost. Now come The Birds.”

Second post in a row featuring a picture of a winged beast.

So I’ve heard over the past few weeks that these Hitchcockesque black-bodied, red-winged birds are swopping down and attacking people, usually about the dome area, and regardless if you’re wearing some headgear or not. It’s some chin-scratching stuff. Well, this morning, I finally saw one screeching down Columbus Avenue in the Loop, which makes sense as it’s only two blocks from the lakeshore (the killer birds’ habitat). I emerge unscathed, thank you for asking.

“Experts say it appears urban red wings are more aggressive than their rural counterparts, partly because the city birds are particularly sensitive to (or fed up with) excessive human encroachment on their turf… local and federal officials have advised citizens confronted head-on by a red wing to simply stare back into its eyes.”

Sounds like good advice to me. I like staring down animals, as well as other humans.

So in honor of our newest form of domestic terrorism, here are some evil jams about evil birds:

MP3 :::
Indian Jewelry – Bird is Broke (Won’t Sing)
Comets on Fire – Jaybird
Lightning Bolt – Birdy