I am currently obsessed with John Frusciante's "Will to Death" and everything by Lightning Bolt, especially their most recent two albums "Ride the Skies" and "Wonderful Rainbow". John Frusciante and Lightning Bolt (who would have been more accurately named Laser Beast) create totally different kinds of music and probably wouldn't get along if you had them over together for tea, but they have this in common: they are geniuses who are also bat-shit crazy. If you don't believe that they're crazy, look at their websites. How about the 3 page (1, 2, 3) handwritten letter from John Frusciante that is the bio for Will to Death. Lightning Bolt's website is misleading as the drawings could be interpreted as cute. But go to the band photos page for completely chaotic shows, or better yet, read some of drummer/singer Brian Chippendale's comics for total insanity. And if you don't believe their music is genius, you'll just have to listen to it.
But don't let all this talk of derangement deter your from listening to their music. Frusciante is very experimental within the traditional area. It's very accessible. He was in the Chili Peppers, for crying out loud. He also has some of the best lyrics I've heard in a long time. He's singing about life and death, but avoiding cliche and managing to really express interesting feelings and ideas. It's a very raw album with very simple production but definitely great. Last night I heard some of the other albums he's done recently and they were very interesting. I'm excited to hear more.
Lightning Bolt is definitely more... out there, experimenting in the realm of pure noise, but their sound is thick like stew. But more like gumbo because it is spicy. There's so many layers to listen to even though it's just a bass and drums and vocals that bring new meaning to the term distorted. Brian showed me some of the DVD they made of a tour they did and it's incredible. I am hopefully going to see one of their shows soon and I don't know if I'm going to survive it. I think they're going to rock so hard that it will liquefy all of my internal organs.
As an exercise in masochism, I looked up what Pitchfork had to say about these albums. They rated Pinback, The Game, Jay-Z and Interpol higher than or equal to all of these albums. Now, I'm not saying that Pitchfork generally has their head so far up their kitsch-obsessed asses, they listen to music with $500 yuppie headphones strapped to their buttcheeks, but, well... Actually that's exactly what I'm saying. Why would you rate regurgitated pop nonsense so high? Why give an unusually high 8.5 to Interpol, a band dedicated to sounding EXACTLY like Joy Division? I guess I'm just still upset that they put two of Jay-Z's albums and Interpol's first album on their best of the first half of the decade list yet completely ignore Mum's "Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today is Ok" as well as most electronic music in general. Their top ten list: #1 - Radiohead - Kid A -- Ok. #2 - Jay-Z - The Blueprint -- ??. #3 - Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights -- ?!?!?!!!. (The punctucation indicates my bewilderment and disbelief at their jackassery.) Thank god we have the independent media to help us recognize corporate America's blatant attempts to shove untalented bands down our throats by having their names and albums in every venue possible.
