Lightning Bolt – Hypermagic Mountain & Wonderful Rainbow

Do you like to yell?

Hands down the best live show I saw in 2006 in terms of intensity and insanity was Lightning Bolt opening for Boredoms. They stole the show from the dance floor of Webster Hall and drove my wife from the room. (Apparently earplugs make her dizzy; according to the internet this is a somewhat common phenomenon.) She wasn’t the only female making an exit – a number of what one might term “snotty chicks from Williamsburg” types shoved their way to the front of the circle surrounding the band, only to retreat en masse about three minutes into the set when people started pogoing.

Sometimes you just can’t fake the funk, ladies.

Vashti Bunyan – Just Another Diamond Day and Lookaftering

There’s a lot of things to say about Vashti Bunyan, but most of all I’d like to say she’s a swell lady, a great performer and I really wish she were my mother-in-law. How sweet would it be to have someone who ran around Ireland and Scotland teaching music, living like a hippie, having babies and making these short, ultra-twee and very remarkable folk songs as your wife’s mother? I cannot even begin to imagine the sweetness that would result.

Not that there’s be any formal marriage thing anyway, probably; maybe out in a glen somewhere with some gypsies. Regardless, Vashti Bunyan has a high and clear voice that rings over everything like a wetnurse for your heart, and all you can do is hang on to her apron until the rain stops. She’s not even human, but a twinkle fairy from, uh, well I’m going to avoid the soft racism and hard cliche-ism of going into some wank about Sidhe but suffice it to say that I find it difficult to describe a woman who gives a concert and nearly starts crying from happy embarassment between sets.

Akron/Family – Meek Warrior

Akron/Family is one of those bands that lived in my backyard for some time, but I never quite got around to paying attention to them. Which sort of sucks, because it would have been nice to see them in small Brooklyn venues rather than medium-small Manhattan venues. I slept, and slept deeply.

RAW

Bob Wilson needs your support. Do what you can.

Sleep – Volume One and Dopesmoker

By all rights, I should hate these guys. Potheads* are, by and large, usually about as interesting as moss. (*By this I mean people for whom marijuana consumption is a part of their identity rather than something they do, otherwise I’d have to burn my record collection).

Current 93 – Black Ships Ate The Sky (with bonus dhex 7″ – “Pitchfork Needs Homework”)

So Black Ships Ate The Sky is going to be Current 93‘s breakthrough album. That’s my prediction and I’m sticking with it. Hell, I got a bunch of emails last week from various folk saying “Hey, have you heard of this Current 93 band? I think you’d like them.” Now, I’ve been pushing these guys on people for about a decade now, give or take, but I realize that part of the price of being ahead of your time (i.e. too weird and pushy) is being ignored until the time is ripe and the zeitgeist can chill with it.