Listen to this song. You can thank me later. It’s part of a larger tribute to U2′s seminal 1991 album Actung Baby called AHK-toong BAY-bi Covered, and also features the likes of Patti Smith, The Killers, Depeche Mode, and Nine Inch Nails. Read the rest of the deets here.
Brett Warner at musicology said of the track, “Will I be listening to Jack White’s ‘Love Is Blindness’on a constant loop until I drown in a sea of my own tears? You know it,” and I have to agree. I first clicked “play” while riding public transportation and had to fight the need to crumple and sob. I had had a perfectly lovely day, but there was something in his voice, the slow buildup, the tormented guitar work, the barrage of other sounds muddling the mixture, and most importantly, that first chorus, the shock of that raw shrieking at 1:21….
And those vocals. He must have done some serious exercises before recording. I’ve never heard his voice this mature or in full form, hitting high notes without strain. It doesn’t make me cringe like “Conquest”. It’s pure, it’s raw, it’s, dare I say? Bono-esque, with a little added grit and Delta blues.
Chills. Each and every time I hear it. And it’s not a bad thing.We spend so much of our days trying not to feel anything in order to avoid feeling pain. Mr. White, as he’s always done, brings it front and center and forces you to look at it, experience it with him. And we’re better human beings for it.
It’s easy to take what White has gone through in the last year (the official breakup of The White Stripes, the breakup of his marriage,) and project it on to this song, but the truth is, he’s always been an expert charlatan. He can bring deveastating emotion to a nightly live performance with ease.
The White Stripes-”Jolene” (Dolly Parton cover)
The Raconteurs- “Bang Bang” (Nancy Sinatra cover)
The Dead Weather-”You Just Can’t Win” (Them/Van Morrison cover)
(Honestly, I picked this last video because I was at that particular show… that may be my shrieking you’re hearing.)
White shines in It is in these types of cover songs, where he is allowed to take on the “character’s” emotions.
The other day, a long blog post formed itself in my brain as I rode the train in a morning caffeine haze. I scribbled down the notes and realized I had multiple paragraphs and no visuals. That’s ok. That’s what WordPress is here for. Will you come back to read, dear readers? I’ll post tidbits on Tumblr when I find them, but I think this is my home here.
So. On to that post…
Bob Seger. The name conjures an image. My dad making fun of me for digging his “Best of the Silver Bullet Band” cds: “What are you, a 55-year-old white man from Detroit?”
Whatever. There’s something so pure, so innocent about “Hollywood Nights”, “Night Moves”, “Old Time Rock n’ Roll”, “Like a Rock”…..
Sure, it’s commercial. Sure, he wrote the songs as radio hits in the dead zone of Rock ‘n Roll: the late seventies. Sometimes, what is popular isn’t always bad…or, it just takes an acquired taste to love it. Mr. Seger is on my List of Awesome Musicians from Detroit (I think the whole Rockford- depressed- rust- belt- connection might have something to do with it) despite his lack of irony or maybe, because of it.
With the exception of two friends who share my non satirical love for Seger, I keep my appreciation to myself. Until this:
What was meant to be a subtle Colbert joke (Ask the current king of rock about a lame 70s AM radio hit machine! Hysterical!) Mr. White surprised and answered the question earnestly (not to be confused with the “Better Know a District” Congressmen who don’t get jokes. Jack gave Stephen a run for his money later on in the “Catholic Throwdown” video definitely worth watching). Real and not real at the same time, typical White.
“Two Plus Two is pretty good,” White said, in the middle of Stephen’s rapid-fire song title questions.
In seconds, I was on Google. How could my idol have listed a Seger song I didn’t know about? How is it that my idol even listens to Seger?? Earth. Shattering. This search led me to download the “Never Mind the Bullets” bootleg mp3 collection I had read about in the Chicago Reader some months past but forgotten to search. There it was, track number three: “2+2=?”
The first listen of the song blew my mind, this stuff is good, the best of 60s chameleon rock rhythm and blues before you needed to be ironic to be successful. “2 +2=?” is a Vietnam rant that gives me chills (even though it was hardly a new topic in the late 60s when it was made). Seger was writing and performing constantly in Detroit at this time and wrote some of his best material. It’s ironic, then, that he became famous for some of his weakest. Why was this not a radio hit? It’s ten times more evocative than “Fortunate Son”.
It’s not hard to see why Jack White would choose this track. It opens with a simple syncopated bass line, then two measures in, a jangly ripping guitar riff rife with feedback, building intensity until searing high pitched vocals break loose with crashing symbols. Sound familiar? Everyone thinks Jack White developed that riff in a vacuum in 2002. Not true, he was simply using dusty source material everyone else had forgotten in the “New Milennium”.
The lyrics are more direct and clean-cut than “Seven Nation Army”, but so were the time and the enemy the singer is fighting. Seger on this compilation adapts to all styles traditional and does it fleetingly and well, just like The White Stripes.
We are only getting this mp3 collection now, but I feel like White had the original vinyl years ago. Both men draw from Bob Dyaln. At times, Segre contradicts himself on the issue of the Vietnam war. “2 +2=?” is anti-war, while “Balland of the Yellow Beret”, written some years earlier, ridicules his peers who are too “yellow” to accept their draft number. Champion of the peace movement he’s not. A musician first, he goes politically wherever the music takes him.
The emotion in “2+2=” (and the whole collection) is what attracts me to both artists’ music. I feel it when I listen to them, I need to capture that myself, I believe in this music. With The White Stripes now gone, who will do it now? Indie rock these days is not Rock ‘n Roll. I like Bon Iver and Fleet Foxes as much as the next twenty-something, but that stuff doesn’t make me feel alive. We need another savior.
Let’s just hope Jack White does not follow Bob Seger too closely by turning the boys’ club band The Raconteurs (who are slated to play some shows this fall) into the next Silver Bullet Band, leaving his best work behind him.
I will have much more to say on this, and am having difficulty managing my thoughts right now, but I figured I would write what I can.
What’s funny is that during the crazy, apocalyptic “thundersnow” of last night, I sat in my room with the lights off, watching the storm and listening to “Elephant” on vinyl. I had been stressed earlier in the day about things beyond my control, let alone the massive storm which made even walking from the El station a surmountable difficulty. As “Ball and Biscuit” drifted through my headphones, I found myself accepting the familiar and entering an almost meditative state. I was able to look at my thoughts from an objective perspective, compartmentalize them, and move forward with a renewed perspective. This is something I had only previously experienced in yoga class. Listening to The White Stripes as therapy had never occurred to me before, but then it hit me: that is what their music has been to me all along.
I won’t go into my entire history with them (beginning in late 2005); you can read that in the archives of this blog, but in the last five years, they have helped me accept loss, experience joy, take risks, pick up an instrument, buy a record player (before they were available at your neighborhood Urban Outiffters), be creative with limited materials, learn how to take analog photos, dig deep into the history of the American blues, and to slow down and absorb the beauty in the non-technological and the simple. They have been my teachers, my mentors, and musical companions.
So as the band said in their statement, they would like us, the fans, to take their art and run with it. I intend to do just that. Dusty plans to take more photos and sign up for guitar lessons are now a top priority. Some good friends of mine (the very people who introduced me to the band) are gathering for a “memorial tribute concert” soon. If you’re a distressed fan or just like good music, come and join us for a sing along (guitar and drums, and distortion pedal provided, but you must wear red & white).
They have stirred me emotionally, yes, helped me to cope with my own sadness, most definitely. But all of this time I have consumed what they’ve produced, felt so close to inspiration but never have been able to do my own work or create my own art. “When things happen that you don’t expect, push yourself harder,” Jack would say. This is my (our) turn, it’s time to wipe the tears and get to work.
I already have every available White Stripes title in a full-length LP (the UK imports via XL records), each obtained after years of careful hunting (and one cross-Atlantic Internet purchase) but this stuff is on 180 gram, straight from the analog tape….I’m drooling. I’ve no choice but to to re-buy it.
Damn you, Jack White. You’re a marketing genius: giving people exactly what they want.
That said, anyone want to buy some British imports?
You might think that after three shows, I’d have nothing else to say about The Dead Weather. You might think that I would get tired of them. You’d also think that after four years of constant rotation, I’d get tired of listening to The White Stripes’ “Elephant”. You would be wrong.
I did buy these tickets before the free show last May was announced, though had it been the other way, I would still have attended. I was a little less ecstatic, however. What could they possibly do differently?
This time, I managed to convince (er, coerce) one Alan Rodriguez to go with me (this is the man, folks, who first introduced me to The White Stripes in 2005, thus forever altering the course of my life). He hadn’t seen Jack White live since the “Elephant” tour in 2003…I felt it was his duty to experience this show with me. He did, in fact, thank me later.
When we arrived at The Congress Theater (albeit, late by my usual standards. I didn’t win the early entry contest on The Vault this year) the line was snaking at least a block north on Milwaukee Avenue. The marquee read a lazy “Dead Weather Tonight” as if it were forecasting an impending thunderstorm. In a way, it was.
When we finally made it inside we were treated to NO AIR CONDITIONING. This wouldn’t normally be a problem except when 1,000+ bodies are crammed into a contained space on a summer evening in close proximity to one another, the result is HOT. Nary a ceiling fan in sight. “This is why you never come to shows here,” my body said. I wanted to complain, until reason won out: Rock and roll is not pretty, it is not comfortable. If our ancestors at Woodstock could live without water or even toilets in the middle of the field, we could endure a crumbling, dive of a theater with inconsistent plumbing. You want clean restrooms? Go see Train at the House of Blues. A quality rock show is worth the lack of amenities. Cigarette (and other types) of smoke clouded the air (apparently the Congress is above the Illinois indoor smoking ban? Or at least hires lax security.)
Eventually, and uneventfully, the opener Harlem took the stage. I’d describe them as shoddy garage-punk, and the muddy acoustics of the Congress did them no favors. The crowd was even more restless by the time they’d finished their quick and unmemorable 45 minute set. We weren’t getting any cooler.
An hour later ( I was glad I had Alan there for company), roadies appeared carrying large, pieces of taxidermy, strategically placed on top of amplifiers (think Get Behind Me Satan stage decor). The Dead Weather have historically eschewed stage ornamentation, but somehow these animal heads let us know that we were in for something new, that this show would be a sonic and visual experience, something to get lost in.
Finally , the band appeared kicking, starting with the breakneck pace of “No Horse”, White rattling off his rapid-fire drumming. The set did not slow down. Mosshart’s hair looked to be a cross between my grandmother’s bouffant and a rat’s nest, indicative of her on-stage persona. White, to my delight, was wearing a strange hat with feathers in it. I’ve seen umpteen photos of him in weird get-ups, but my first three times seeing him on stage he’s worn nothing but black Levis and t-shirt. I hoped that the odd costume touch would be an indicator of the innovation to follow. It turns out he was also wearing white spat-like shoes that added to his subtle moonwalk moves during “You Just Can’t Win”, the third song and White’s first vocal solo. He was in the mood for theatrics, tipping his hat brim like an English gentleman. It was nothing short of a treat.
“You Just Can’t Win”: (through 1:35)
(Via YouTube user hotmetaldobermans)
What else was different? Guitarist Dean Fertita actually soloed! Songs were longer, more expansive, less like their album counterparts. This is a band finally comfortable enough with their material to expand upon it. For the first time, I felt like I’d gotten more than I’d paid for at a Dead Weather show (yes, the last one I saw was free.)
“60 Feet Tall”:
“Blue Blood Blues”:
(Via YouTube user mikem1337)
If you follow a band like I follow White’s projects, you’re aware that some nights the members are more “on” than others. I had yet to feel like I’d witnessed one of these epic performances. White’s never disappointed, mind you, but I had never seen something like this, the aptly named “Jack White Flips Out” Bonnaroo 2008 video. No mic stands were destroyed at this show, but the set closer “Will There Be Enough Water” included several more solo choruses than usual. White was “on”. As he appeared with his guitar, white light and smoke behind him, I understood the reason for the fedora: here was the ghost of Stevie Ray Vaughan in front of us. It was an eerie effect, but the solo was sweeping and graceful, gritty and emotional. White embodies the meaning of a weeping guitar. As the sound of a weeping guitar floated into the high center dome of the Congress, above the hundreds of sweaty souls, it became apparent that it’s player had something profound to tell us that he could only say through his guitar. If no one else present understood, at least I did: that life is painful but there is some odd sort of perfect beauty to be found in that pain, if only you can stand up and face it. White faces it each and every night he’s on tour, and for that reason he is my rock hero.
“Will There Be Enough Water?”:
(Via YouTube user erikciccarelli, who calls this “12 Minutes in Heaven”. Amen, indeed.)
After the 1:15 set, I was ready to leave, a permanent grin on my face from the beauty I’d just witnessed, but there was still the encore, a generous four songs. I bounced up and down and shouted during the M-A-N-I-P-U-LATE chorus of “Treat Me Like Your Mother”, and screamed as White picked up the guitar again for a seedy version of “I Can’t Hear You”.
(Via YouTube user blueorchid38).
As White took off his hat and linked arms with his band members, who after nearly two hours of serious blues rock became goofy and jubilant, falling over each other. White actually smiled and lingered on stage for a few minutes longer than usual. This show would register in his mind as a good one.
In my review last summer I mentioned that the set never took off, it smoldered rather than exploded. This was a full-out nuclear bomb. The music was as hot as the venue, and no one escaped unscathed.
