Text by Matthew Nestel
For his annual show at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), Brian Chippendale, madman drummer of the two-piece Lightning Bolt, stagedhimself on a second-story rooftop, tossing candy to onlookers below. Soon he pulled out a heavy inventory of road-kill and gave it the heave-ho. When it hit, even the crystallized sugar of the candy adopted a rancid consistency. If a crowd remained anywhere closer than binocular-distance, it would have witnessed Chippendale in rubber coveralls ridding the academic landscape of the unwanted carcasses. Chances for a dean or chancellor to give Chippendale his remaining credits for commencement might be far-fetched at this point. But who needs art school credentials when you have Lightning Bolt?
In 1994, the Providence-based noise and rock band formed as a threesome. They had a drummer in Chippendale, an experimental bassist in Brian Gibson and a vocalist in Hisham Bharoocha. When the noise band Black Dice formed, Bharoocha fled and Gibson divvied his time to both Dice and Bolt before letting Dice go its own way, and thus Lightning Bolt became the epic duo it is today. The minimal number is misleading because Lightning Bolt packs more than just a sucker fist as you try and sip some of its punch. They are a full-frontal, jaw-cracking blast of chaos controlled. As far as noise is concerned, their tunes are quite accessible and melodic. Lightning Bolt concocts a very intricate recipe that involves the listener’s head being slammed repeatedly between a station wagon door. Still, the listener’s bandaged and rearranged psyche returns for more.
So who’s been responsible for spreading the Lightning Bolt joy? Wicked wizard of the east Ben McOsker took his Library Science degree 13 years ago and formed Load Records, who houses LB among other great noise bands, out of his three-story home along with his crime-partner Laura Mullen and their Australian shepherd Gus. Momentum took off after the first 240 seven-inch records sold. The music then scurried away from rock to something less linear. Serving up the grindings and tossing the coffee and the pot back into the sink, McOsker developed under his label a certain tone. The various acts sting a bit, but they hurt so good. “I am not trying to be a diverse label,” states McOsker. “I have an aesthetic. Some other labels have alternative sound. But with Load you are expecting a certain amount of tone. Yeah it’s noisy. There is a sense of humor with Load. That’s what you get: a guarantee. It’s probably going to be strange and well put together. That’s what I wanted.”
The town of Providence revels in being a secret utopia where run-off MFA idealists maintain their state of peculiar. Or at least it used to – McOsker sees the decline already. “Providence is a livable town. Harder to find a raw unused space to do art. Used to be able to melt a car into a puddle. Not what it used to be,” he says.
In the mid-’90s when Lightning Bolt first took to the stage, few folks showed up. Ask McOsker about the early days and he will tell you that bribing people to see noise would have been certain failure. After Ride The Skies was released, the shows yielded crowd-surfing space only. McOsker recalls when Lightning Bolt headlined Brooklyn’s Polish National Hall (now known as the more chic Warsaw), fewer people were expected to come out. Of course, thousands did. “It was a critical mass in Brooklyn for a venue that size,” he explains. “When there is a thousand people in a small club you have to figure, ‘How did everybody get in?’” But Lightning Bolt accommodated the crowd by altogether foregoing the stage – the duo tend to stay in the center of the crowd while beehives of folks swarm them to get close to the dizzying display. As McOsker puts it, “That is part of what Lightning Bolt is as a band. The crowd is just as important. Playing on a stage doesn’t happen. The dividing line for a band and crowd is not there.”
Those not yet hip to experiencing a show in the flesh should rush to get The Power of Salad, Lightning Bolt’s visual lyric to its tour and mixed-bag constituency. In this documentary, the dreadlocked, shirtless, convulsing, Jesus-like fans are all shot extra-tight through fisheye close-ups as Chippendale’s sticks blaze and Gibson’s bass mauls the notes. Like surf and skate films, you can see how rambunctious the packed-to-the-gills crowd can get. Going every direction but still, the film depicts Chippendale’s ritualistic masks (fit with mom’s leftover stockings and spoiled girdle) in between meditative shots of the Brians standing in a lake and staring into the lands far beyond. Also, good screen time is dedicated to a bouncy ball. All superfluous. All necessary.
Gibson is debuting an “apocalyptic” side-project titled Wizardzz, borrowing Rich Porter from the band Bug Sized Mind. Gibson sets the bass down in this project to play the drums and Porter will tend to keyboard and mixer duties. McOsker does a fine job of confusing folks as to just what Wizardzz is about on the Load website. “While for many this is going to be a side project of Brian Gibson, this dashboard messiah is a fuckin’ keeper. Rich Porter (he of Bug Sized Mind), adds some melody muscle to stuff some tissue into the training bra of this submarine racer.
Nothing like LB, this is more a creamsicle journey through car commercial jangletastic sound forgery.” In plainspeak? “Sort of Tangerine Dream,” says McOsker. “It has a weird song-based logic to it.” Chippendale is keeping busy by making illustration/silkscreen art works in collaboration with fellow artist Jung Hong. Sheets with arms, legs, people, thought-balloons. Minimally styled prints with finite shapes are twisted with superheroes, which leaves little wonder as to who grips the crayons on the Bolt’s loud album covers. Chippendale, AKA King Sun Sun, also has a side-project called Mindflayer that teams him with Forcefield’s electro-musician Meerk Puffy. Mindflayer will be “a multi-tiered manifesto to why the Miami Dade cheer squad danced to Luke Skywalker jamz in 1987 seen through cable scramble.”
Side projects aside, Lightning Bolt is amassing a following that is going to be hard to herd. Small venues can barely hold the two-man group and it’s scary to postulate what they would do in the middle of thousands. Not long ago, Warner Brothers knocked on Load’s door and wanted a copy of Lightning Bolt’s latest. McOsker never heard back. “They must think, ‘How can we get them to do some of the Rage Against the Machine magic again?’” he jests.
Mercury Records took a shot and Brian Chippendale gave the okay under the condition that they open up an office in Providence. It’s a family entity that McOsker nourishes, with Chippendale and Gibson as house chefs and Internet access providers. At Load, trust and the natural elements are somewhat superior to just making music, and as a result McOsker has had to eat a few in his time: his house is supported by the overstock Power of Salad VHS dubs.
At this point, McOsker’s relationship with Lightning Bolt is downright intuitive. “They enjoy the relationship and I enjoy working with them. They know the process they will use. They come with an idea of what it should look like and how it should sound.” The lust for loud is very much alive and all about upping the decibels and forcing the knob to turn infinitely clockwise. All you need is a tap of the drum and a flick of the strings.
