The Dead Weather, Rome, The Raconteurs, The White Stripes. As music fans I’m not going to tell you what music to like or dislike, but if you have never heard of any of the bands/ projects I just noted you need to check yourself. Jack White has been making music as a member of these entities for at least a decade. Most recently he has formed a new band, well actually two and put out his first solo offering called ‘Blunderbuss’. I’m sure most of you have this record already, but for those who do not it’s time to go to music church with one of the best artists making music today.
This record makes a lot of sense. I guess that’s a weird thing to say about Jack White and his music, but it does. He has explored the realm of rock duo shredding on drums and guitar with the White Stripes. He has formed a great blues/ rock and roll band in the Raconteurs and tried his hand at drums in The Dead Weather. He even created a film score to a film that doesn’t exist with Danger Mouse. With this new solo record a lot of it sounds like how Jack himself has wanted to sound for a while. A record all his own that sounds like it was one part written in his studio while experimenting with awesome sounds and one part written on his porch in Nashville, TN.
Jack is currently on tour with two bands. What? At his recent Webster Hall show which was streamed live on youtube (say thank you, because I worked my ass off on it) he played his first set with an all female band called The Peacocks and then closed out the show with an all male band called Los Buzzardos. I don’t think anyone has ever done that before and I’m sure there will be some skeptics, but having watched the show I think it worked perfectly. He weaved in and out of covers from his past bands and crushed the new material like he’d been playing it for years. My favorite song on the new record is called ‘Sixteen Saltines’ it is by far the most rocking compared to a tune like ‘Blunderbuss’.
He opened the show with my favorite White Stripes song called ‘Dead Leaves and The Dirty Ground’.
In my opinion it was the best way to open when was about to be a two hour marathon of hits. His catalog is so complex and has so much depth with any different styles of music playing a piano tune and then rocking out to say ‘Seven Nation Army’ to close the show made total sense. The songs work and as a whole the album “Blunderbuss” makes so much musical sense to me. One track that stands out for me that I can’t get out of my head is called ‘Love Interruption’. On first listen I thought it was a simple, bubbly love song while instead it actually an incredibly dark and deep love song. It’s a stand out for me because melodically I think the song is genius and lyrically is on the level with some of Jack’s best material.
As I said before Jack closed the show with the punch of The Raconteurs ‘Carolina Drama’, ‘Seven Nation Army’, and a Leadbelly cover called ‘Goodnight Irene’. It was awesome to see that he still acknowledges the music that has got him to this point in his amazing career. Jack is currently touring with both The Peacocks and Los Buzzardos although each band is not playing every night of the tour. He is going to be at the Wiltern for two nights in LA at the end of this month. I’m pretty sure it sold out faster than it took me to write this sentence, but if you’re lucky enough to have tickets (I do, tee hee hee) then I’ll see you there. Tour dates are here if you want to have a look at where else you might be able to catch a glimpse of one of the truest troubadours of the 21st century. The set list below is what Jack has been playing most nights of the tour or at least an abbreviation of that. This set is from the Webster Hall show. He doesn’t play with a set list so its hard to tell what you are going to get. He hasn’t played many dates yet but this set list should give you an idea of why you should pay big money to see this live.
Set 1: The Peacocks
Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
(The White Stripes song)
Missing Pieces
Freedom At 21
Love Interruption
Hotel Yorba
(The White Stripes song)
Two Against One
(Rome cover)
Top Yourself
(The Raconteurs song)
I’m Slowly Turning Into You
(The White Stripes song)
Blue Blood Blues
(The Dead Weather song) (With “Screwdriver” Riff Intro)
10. Take Me With You When You Go
Set 2: Los Buzzardos
Sixteen Saltines
I Cut Like A Buffalo
(The Dead Weather song)
Weep Themselves to Sleep
Trash Tongue Talker
You Know That I Know
(Hank Williams cover)
We’re Going to Be Friends
(The White Stripes song)
Hypocritical Kiss
Hello Operator
(The White Stripes song)
Carolina Drama
(The Raconteurs song)
Seven Nation Army
(The White Stripes song) (With Catch Hell Blues Intro)
Goodnight Irene
(Leadbelly cover)
As always here is the last track from Jack Whites most recent solo release. It’s incredible.
For more on all things music check me out on twitter @stevewithmwl. I’ll be heading to more music festivals and events this summer and I want to meet some of the music without labels readers so hit me up!
Carina Round released her new album Tigermending on her own label, Dehisce, yesterday! We made it to the release show at The Casbah and snagged a few questions with the UK native before her set! Carina is raw, sexy and has just enough edge to keep you wanting more. Check out the album on her official website.
Phone rings. Radiohead/ Rolling Stone pool party? Yes. What do you even say to a question like that as you wake up after 2 days of complete drunken haze and lack of sleep with your legs ready to kick your own ass for making yourself stand for hours on end. You go. You carry on, chug a warm beer by your bedside and go. A quick mid-day dip in the now 90 degree pool, cool by the 111 degree temp on the outside. I paid for a hotel room for the sheer fact that it had a shower and I don’t think it was until day 3 when I actually took advantage of this magical invention. Knowing the day ahead may or may not be epic we popped a bottle of very expensive beer imported from Boston. Threw on my jorts and flip flops and ran out the door. Off to downtown Palm Springs about 17 miles away from Coachella and the lovely town of Indio for the Rolling Stone/ Radiohead party.
What a friggin maze that hotel was and honestly I don’t even remember the name but the banner with the Rolling Stone logo led me to believe I was at least close. After 20 minutes of walking around this joint and asking about 11 people where the party was we finally wrapped around the back of the hotel to the secondary pool area. Who knew? Ping pong tables, free beer, a photo booth, a full band’s worth of instruments set up, free beer, a place to make your own sandals and t-shirts and coozies for your, you guessed it, free beer. I guess there is one good and bad thing about Coachella. The corporate nature and rampant corporate advertising in and around the festival is out there in the open slapping you in the face but if they hand me a free delicious New Belgium Fat Tire Beer (in stores now :)) after they slap me, my face is going to be very red. I sauntered here and perused there. I tried to look somewhat like I belonged. It was pretty quiet and had just begun. My bud and I started fooling around with the instruments and got our picture taken way to many times in the photo booth. There was a guy painting a new VW beetle, you know standard party activities.
Looking around I was clearly out of my element, but taking it all in and enjoying myself I sat back and relaxed. A familiar face walked by. Brian Bell from the band Weezer. Now I have a pretty good relation ship with Weezer, my band covers ‘the Blue Album in its entirety so in my mind we are basically best friends and I think it’s safe to say I’m a pretty big fan. Living in LA I have seen and met some celebs, but they can all take a hike compared to any member of Weezer. I think if Coachella stopped at this point and I was forced to go home I would have gladly done so. Meeting Brain Bell was definitely a highlight, icing on the cake. Maybe not quite as cool as when Radiohead showed up to the same party and band members started taking turns DJing. I did not have the balls to approach any of the Radiohead guys. Thom Yorke is notorious for acting weird around fans and fan appreciation. Why? I have no idea, but when Saylor approached him to let him know we enjoyed the show the night before he looked like he was scared out of his mind. He almost called the Karma Police on us. OHHHHHHH…. stupid.
We left. There was music to listen to and a 90′s West Coast rapper to resurrect.
If you’ve been following along with my Coachella blogs parking at Coachella sucks. They lock you in and it’s at least a 30 minute walk to any stage. We hustled and failed to get there before Fitz and The Tantrum’s played the final chords of their hit “Money-Grabber.” We walked back stage for a cold water. Hydration was not very high on the list for the first half of the day. Beer was cheaper. By this time it was almost 6 pm. Time flies when you have no sense of it what so ever and your phone is dead, go figure. We made our way to the Sahara tent to see Gotye. If you haven’t heard that damn song “Somebody That I Used To Know” you live under a rock. It’s catchy and unavoidable. We scouted spots up front in the guest/ VIP pit. Just a bad idea in general to go to a show in a tent that needed to be on a main stage just for the sheer fact that he easily out drew his tent by about double the capacity.
The normally half empty VIP pit was bursting. We had to get out there for sanity sake and health reason. We moved backstage. Terrible view, terrible sound, but at least we could breathe. He played through just about everything I wanted to hear. There are better songs on his new record “Making Mirrors” than that hit. He sounds unreal and exactly like the record and his band was really tight. I thoroughly enjoyed his show and I’m sad now that I hadn’t found about him sooner to avoid being labeled a band wagoner because of one song that is loved by the masses. I really want to see him again when he comes back to LA for a proper indoor show or even up at the Greek. That would be awesome.
There is one part of the Coachella experience that everyone needs at least 10 minutes of. I’m speaking of course about the DJ tent. Famous DJs gather and spin the best dance music fancy samplers and electronics can fart out. I for one don’t understand how watching someone stand behind a table and press buttons is entertaining (maybe it’s the drugs these young kids are on), but this tent is easily the most consistently crowded tent in all of Coachella. I had to see what it was all about. Calvin Harris was up so we headed next door after Gotye was finished. I dug my way through the crowd. In the 20 minutes we were in there these are my thoughts for this blog as noted in my iphone from almost two weeks ago:
Loud, Cool Lights, high? nope annoyed, Crowded, Same song played 4 times in a row?, smells like farts?, sweat, shoot me…
I don’t really know my thought process at that moment but from the looks of it it wasn’t pleasant. After the sheer relief to feel actual oxygen in my lungs again outside the tent we made our way across the festival stopping in and viewing some of the art exhibits missed over the course of the weekend.
We stopped by the rave/ burning man/how many drugs are these people on? mini stage and quickly exited almost faster than we did Calvin Harris. It was time for At The Drive In, a band I wasn’t familiar with. We sat back. They sounded great after all these years apart. Omar Rodriguez-Lopez was a treat to see since I am an avid Mars Volta fan and you can definitely hear those early influences he brought to At the Drive In Come Through in Mars Volta.
Your all going to hate me for what comes next. When the time came for Snoop and Dre. I couldn’t do it any more. I couldn’t take the crowds, the heat, the bros. I am somewhat responsible in my personal and work life and I had to work the next day. My friends and I opted out of the guest/ VIP pit for a more distant viewing of the last set of the weekend. I have no pictures, because that’s how far away we were. I have never seen more people gathered and focused on one event in my whole life. This is after attending headlining sets at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Coachella in years past, Phish festivals, and giant arena shows. Never have I seen a sea of people like the one massed for Dr. Dre and Snoop. Snoop and Dre took the stage to a “powered by Beats by Dr. Dre” advertisement. Really? You couldn’t spare us one night without having the damn $300 headphones that aren’t worth $300 shoved in our faces. They look cool yes, they sound like shit on a stick flying through the air. Go buy Sony MDR 7506′s if you want to hear the good stuff, trust me. Deep breaths and strike one against Mr. Dre. At 10:40 they took the stage to my surprise, right on time. They ripped into what was one of the best, hit filled sets of the entire weekend. So good in fact I immediately forgave the Dr. for opening his set with an advertisement. Here is the set list complete with special guests.
The Next Episode
Kush
Gin N Juice
Deep Cover
Nuthin’ But A “G” Thang
Ain’t No Fun (If The Homies Can’t Have None) (Nate Dogg Tribute)
I Wanna Rock
Jump Around (House of Pain cover)
Drop It Like It’s Hot
In The Air of The Night (Phil Collins cover)
Young Wild And Free (with Wiz Khalifa)
The Recipe (with Kendrick Lamar)
What Up Gangsta (with 50 Cent)
P.I.M.P (with 50 Cent)
In The Club (with 50 Cent)
Xxplosive (Snippet)
Lady Luck
California Love
Hail Mary/2 Of Amerikaz Most Wanted (Tupac Hologram)
I Need a Doctor (with Eminem)
Forgot About Dre (with Eminem)
‘Till I Collapse (with Eminem)
Who Am I? (What’s My Name?)
Still D.R.E.
Before I touch on the hologram I have to say that 50 Cent was terrible. He didn’t belong within a mile of that stage. I get the relationship with Eminem and co. but for him to come out and do his three terrible hits during a set filled with some of hip hops greatest songs was just stupid and a waste of time. No one gave a shit. It was a waste of time and I would have rather just left the stage empty for ten minutes as they prepared the hologram. People have been asking what the hologram looked like. It was creepy. It was appropriate and awe inspiring as well. I really liked how they did it. It was essentially a projection on a thin clear sheet of glass when looked at from the front it looked 3-d and relatively real. I think it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen at a concert. The only thing that irked me was no one said RIP or acknowledged that Tupac was even dead. They just said “Give it up for Tupac!”. That was weird.
We split after the hologram. The last thing I wanted was to sit in an hour of parking lot traffic before making the two hour drive back to LA starting at 1am. We ran out during Eminem. Jetting out of the parking lot without another car in sight was a festival highlight for me. Everyone was still parked with all eyes focused to see what Dr. Dre and Snoop would do next to end the festival I was relieved and happy to avoid the masses I heard ‘Gin and Juice’, ‘The Next Episode’ and ‘California Love’ I was happy.
Driving through the night I kept asking myself the same questions over and over. What just happened? Would I do it again? The only two answers I could come up with were, I have no idea and in a heartbeat.
The Dead Weather, Rome, The Raconteurs, The White Stripes. As music fans I’m not going to tell you what music to like or dislike, but if you have never heard of any of the bands/ projects I just noted you need to check yourself. Jack White has been making music as a member of these entities for at least a decade. Most recently he has formed a new band, well actually two and put out his first solo offering called ‘Blunderbuss’. I’m sure most of you have this record already, but for those who do not it’s time to go to music church with one of the best artists making music today.
