Musical Genius.

A couple months ago I purchased an album by a band called Lightning Bolt. When I first listened to it I came away with the impression that it was crap. I wanted my money back.

However a couple weeks ago I actually listened to it, gave it a fair chance, and my opinion of the band has changed drastically...drastically in that they rank up there with my other favourite bands now.

When you first listen to their songs all you hear is a bunch of LOUD noise, but if you listen and give it a chance, you realize how fucking brilliant it is. Loud and noisy, yes, but brilliant and technical on a lot of levels.

Also, I read that all this sound comes from two members, a bass player and a drummer. My jaw dropped, and I was even more intrigued so I read their Wikipedia entry and read this:

"The band's heavily distorted sound consists of Brian Chippendale's unusual approach of eschewing a microphone stand and instead holding the microphone in his mouth, running the signal through an effects processor to further alter the sound, with Brian Gibson's oddly strung bass guitar (tuned to cello standard tuning (fifths) with a banjo string for the high A) going through several pedals, including two overdrive pedals, an octaver and a bass whammy pedal (pitch shifter). They have also been heard using a percussion synthisiser, triggered by the bass drum."

I love creativity and experimentation with music, so reading that makes me giddy and I find it insanely inspiring.

BRILLIANT.

Now, for the other band I wanted to Rant about.

They are the Advantage. I'd heard about them for a long, long time, but never really bothered to listen like I should have.

The killer deal here is that these guys play songs and music from video games on the old NES....and it's awesome.

I got two albums and the first time I listened to them was at work last night on my ipod. I cannot count the number of times I vaguely recognized a tune, and had to pull the ipod out of my pocket to see if I was right.

Hearing Castlevania and Mega man tunes done with some bitchin' guitar work ranks up pretty high on my list of FUCKING AWESOME. They also do Contra, Batman, Zelda and so many more games I forgot even existed.

They even do music from fucking marble madness! who covers marble madness!? the Advantage, that's who! and it's fricken great!

sure, they aren't the first band to play and be serious about game music, but they sure are awesome. Dorky? I don't give a flying fuck. It's brilliant.

Very reccomended.

So there you have it, two bands I love and had to tell you all about for no real reason.