mr.arrison wrote:this seems like such a strange poll, but anyways..
Lightning Bolt don't seem to be making passionate, artful music that is going to age well. That's just my opinion though. The gnarly grotesque, ironic & distorted, Urban Outfitter, Brooklyn hipster-quotient of that band makes me predict they are all but a footnote in this dreary decade of music.
I can't sit here and not be completely flabbergasted by these comments.
I can't see any "irony" in LB's music or presentation. "Urban Outfitter"? Have you seen the clothes that Chippendale wears? He makes them himself; he's also an internationally renowned comic artist. How can you not think that they're at least "artful" and "passionate"...I'd say it takes a lot of passion to build a huge art studio/playpen right in the heart of downtown Providence, only to have the cops bulldoze it. It takes a lot of passion to play a gig on the back of a truck, or right next to a 7-11, just asking for the cops to break it up. I've heard stories of their early gigs which were so heavy that people were cutting themselves to the noise and having intense emotional reactions to the music. They were heavily influenced by Throbbing Gristle; hardly "ironic".
It's so bizarre how they became popular amongst hipsters at one point, because when I think of LB, I think of a band like Flipper or the early Butthole Surfers, just completely going for the most bizarre, in-your-face, fuck-you performance they could think of.
Somewhere along the line, Lightning Bolt became popular with a whole different type of crowd, and now the two Brians are being associated with those people. That's the only way I can explain this type of reaction.[/i]