A Most Desultory Phillipic

A couple blocks from my workplace is Civic Center Park, the hub of Denver's thriving open-air drug commerce. My new favorite pastime during the lunching hour is to walk over to the Denver Public Library, about four blocks away via Civic Center Park, and see how long it takes before either a) I witness a drug deal in broad daylight, or b) I am offered drugs. Being offered drugs is strangely flattering to me, as it indicates that I must not look like too much of a square. And though I always decline the offer, I have a fantasy of someday responding like, "Ahem! Good day to you, sir. I would like one heroin, please. To go. And do you happen to have gift wrapping available?"

It's odd enough to me that the open-air drug bazaar takes place in such a conspicuous place, and one which, by the way, has the Colorado capitol building on one side and the city hall on the other, both of which are teeming with security types and tourists and various officials at all times. Supposedly Denver proper has its own drug laws which permit possession of marijuana, but the last I heard, the state and federal authorities were choosing to override the Denver laws and enforce their respective laws, which forbid possession of any amount, except for medicinal use. So I guess the outcome of any given drug arrest would depend on who's doing the arresting.

Anyway, it's so interesting to me to watch the whole tableau, as even when I was a die-hard pot smoker and routinely consorted with drug salespeople, I would never have had the cojones to be seen with someone brazenly peddling their goods in such a conspicuous place. Good for them, though. I'm all in favor of us as a country getting past the whole drug hysteria thing, which seems like such a lame Reagan-era artifact and seems to have had no appreciable benefit.

=====================================================================

Lightning Bolt! I dig those cats' licks! As usual, I'm way late to the game, but you must understand that I was given plenty of opportunities to get into them back in the 2000-2001 epoch when my peer group was fawning over them full time. But I blithely wrote 'em off, having been spurned by so many bass-drums volume-fetish outfits before (cf. Godheadsilo, et. al), and far too ensconced in a debilitating ALL-worship phase to really come to grips with the LB aesthetic at the time.

Another reason I couldn't bring myself to get behind the Lightning Bolt thing, as I recall it, was a steadfast anti-Providence bias on my part. For much of the 90s it seemed that Providence (whose scene is traditionally peopled predominantly by Rhode Island School of Design students) was doing its level best to establish as its trademark a sort of superficial revival of the late-70s New York No Wave thing. And not only did I have zero appreciation for most of that shit, it seemed to me that No Wave, in particular, was a zeitgeist-specific thing, and that any attempt to rejuvenate it asynchronously would be pretty stupid and disingenuous. This was my position back then, you understand. Presently I got way better shit to worry about than the perceived disingenuousness of a given artistic movement.

Then also there was the matter of their purported use of unholy volume levels. So many times in the past I've been burned by bands whose distinguishing feature is the gratuitous use of volume, particularly bass-drum duos. Godheadsilo (or however the fuck you're supposed to spell it) springs instantly to mind, once again. Back in the mid-90s everyone in my peer group was all a-twitter about these Fargo jackoffs. Fuck man, they're gonna blow your fuckin' head off!!!!! The drummer uses a kick drum for a floor tom!!!!! But dudes, volume in and of itself is not an accomplishment or a cogent selling point for a band. Anyone can buy a bunch of pawn-shop amps and daisy-chain six distortion pedals together.

So thus I was predisposed to dislike Lightning Bolt. But it turns out that volume per se is not the primary arrow in their quiver, nor is No Wave mimicry part of their stated mission! They got some other thing going which I can't really get a fix on, and this is almost always a good sign. One thing that's pretty evident is that they're obviously into dedicating a lot of energy to the band, as opposed to making it some two-week jag-off art project. But the thing I have the most trouble wrapping my head around is the bass player. For one thing, he plays finger-style, which is pretty remarkable for the sounds he's getting out of that thing. For another thing, in any photo you'll ever see of the guy, he looks like he's about ready to fall asleep! This is pretty amazing not only for the fact that he's playing very aggressive and intense stuff, but also for the fact that almost all of their shows are guerilla-style, i.e. right on the floor, crowd-level. It's confounding, in a good way.

=====================================================================

Oh, and dude? The jury is still out on the latest Bad Brains album. Cursory listenings have revealed a possible preponderance of reggae tunes, which isn't de facto a bad thing. So far the only thing I can definitively say is that it bears no discernible resemblance to the execrable "Black Dots". Other external factors include the all-original line-up (no HR imposters) and the Adam Yauch producer credit, which doesn't have the "whoa, that's fucked up" factor that the Ric Ocasek thing did, for better or worse.

COMMENTS

HIDE