I was wrong!

[www.avclub.com]

The Onion managed to not name Yankee Hotel Foxtrot the #1 album of the decade. Considering that they were gaga over the band for the entire decade right up until the last few months, I can only assume Wilco (The Album) took the bloom of the Wilco rose for them.



Post Edited (11-19-09 14:03)

So The White Stripes are their number 1. What am I missing with those guys? Aren't they just the poor man's Gun Club? I don't even hate the White Stripes, they're all right. But Jeffrey Lee Pierce had more passion in his pinkie fingernail.

I like some of Jack White's work with the Stripes and the Raconteurs, but I don't seem him as the savior of rock & roll he's been painted as, either. But when it comes to non-corporate rock & roll, most tastemakers have limited experience, especially to love the guitars/bass/drums formula is to be hopelessly out of touch and "rockist." Thus someone with modest but genuine talent and a boatload of charisma like White comes along and his work becomes the new Rosetta Stone of rock & roll. whether he deserves it - or even wants it - or not.

I have to admit: I saw the Stripes in a tiny club in Austin during SXSW one year (lured there by the BellRays, who had told me the day before to get there early to see them) and in that context, with only two albums out, when they were still primarily a blues band, they were pretty terrific, even if I thought the 'Rays were better. So I can see the appeal, especially for folks who don't normally listen to much "real" rock & roll.

I think there's also the Norah Jones factor, that a certain age and class of critic were desperate to find someone or something to offset all that weird indie rock that they were too old to understand. Just as Norah resolidified the virtues of quiet, tasteful singer/songwriter pop, the Stripes relegitamized the Led Zeppelin blues/hard rock formula in their eyes.

I have to say, though, a comparison to the Gun Club would've never occurred to me.

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I have to say, though, a comparison to the Gun Club would've never occurred to me.

Because (and please pardon me) ... it isn't especially apt.

The White Stripes and The Gun Club are/were both driving blues-based vehicles, but the two bands are/were driving them through substantially different neighborhoods. In fact, I can't remember ever listening to Pierce and Co. and arriving at a Zeppelin comparison. Jeffrey Lee Pierce's stuff seemed much more attuned (limited?) to an older blues tradition.

Of course, that didn't stop him from casually dropping the "N" word into his songs on occasion. I guess he figured no one was expecting good manners from a punk rocker?

Can you imagine Robert Plant EVER doing that?

You'll NEVER hear "Black Train" or "For The Love Of Ivy" on NPR - and you can carve that in stone.

...

I've compared The Gun Club to The Pixies on occasion. Listen to "Fire Spirit" and tell me it doesn't remind you of Black Francis and his band. I used to plop tracks by the two bands back to back on mix tapes.

"Fire Spirit" to "Cactus" to something by X. Or maybe "Death Valley '69?"

...

Pierce also wasn't anywhere close to being the guitarist that Jack Stripes is, although he was getting better there at the end. There are parts on that last live album and Lucky Jim that are pretty amazing compared to his earlier efforts. Jack White sounds like he knew every Jimmy Page lick in the books by the time he was ... seven.

My two favorite Gun Club records are Fire of Love and Lucky Jim, the first and the last. Yeah, the difference in the guitar playing is striking. The latter is as close to conventional as he'd ever come, and it's still remarkable.

besides brian wilson & mission of burmas return to the real world, kings of leon (& dont forget MT's Austin City Limits!) did more for rock the last decade than anyone.

you silly wabbits.

Why, thank you, sir. We try.

Though I couldn't disagree with you more on the Kings of Leon, who I can't stand. I've tried, I really have, and I attended their ACL taping a few years ago...and I don't get it anymore than I get the Strokes. Ah, well. Different...well, you know.

And speaking of Kings of Leon and ACL, their episode (paired with Roky Erickson) will repeat on December 19 so's you can judge for yourself.

I guess I'm "hopelessly out of touch and rockist" then, because I dig the Raconteurs and The Dead Weather (both bands that include bass players) a lot more than I ever liked the White Stripes.

I myself am hopelessly, proudly, out of touch and rockist.

My only problem with the Raconteurs is that the focus has always been on Jack White, when I think the true talent is Brendan Benson. But I was a fan of his solo stuff before I'd ever heard of the Stripes.

I saw the Dead Weather at ACL Fest this year. I have to say, I thougt it was terribly affected and posed. It sounded like a slicked-up, toned-down Royal Trux to me. Maybe the record is better.

"Pierce also wasn't anywhere close to being the guitarist that Jack Stripes is"
Didn't matter when I saw them, they had Kid Congo and Spencer P Jones aboard. One of my favourite gigs EVER.

And Death Party's the disc for me (even though it's not a full album)

Spencer P. Jones was in the Gun Club at one point? I didn't know that. I think he's amazing. Is he on Death Party?

christgau called jack white a "sonic architect" (in his rolling stone review of 'elephant' i think)... not entirely sure what that means (or how much people 'round these parts value the opinions of 'the dean')... but i do know that i don't think of jimmy page or jeffrey lee pierce in that way...

Re: Spencer P. Jones.

I t was a one-off tour. Apparently two members had visa problems and never left the US.
The story as I heard it was that their management told Spencer and drummer
Billy Pommer Jr. that The Gun Club wanted them to tour with them.
Apparently they are Spencer’s favourite ever band and he thought it was some kind of pratical joke until he was finally convinced pretty close to their first rehearsal.

They were both in The Johnnys so it was the first time I’d seen them sans cowboys outfits, not counting the couple of time I saw Spencer’s perivous incarnation, psychedlic supremos North 2 Alaskans.

Patricia Morrison rounded out the line-up on bass and Hoodoo Gurus were the support band

These types of lists are arbitrary, but I think this one's pretty decent. I concur with about half of the releases, if not their placement.

With regard to The White Stripes, I get what other people dig about them, and I actually enjoy their stuff when I hear it, but I've never felt compelled to really listen to them. I've always had the same reaction to the aforementioned Led Zeppelin, so maybe there's a correlation.

Intellectually, I get it. But I don't feel it. As Gertrude Stein would say, "There's no there there."

I drew the comparison because Jack White does - he says the White Stripes were inspired into existence by the Gun Club (swear I read that somewhere). I guess that sounds cooler then saying Led Zeppelin. And, in his defense, they are more stripped down and punk-ish then the widescreen bombast of Zep.

Glad to see "Death Party" gets a nod here - always one of my faves, never agreed with the TP review.

Just listened to White Blood Cells again. The White Stripes is 33-50% there. Can't wait until the rest of the group shows up. Until then those are some really great demos they're recorded.

Nile wrote:

> Just listened to White Blood Cells again. The White Stripes is
> 33-50% there. Can't wait until the rest of the group shows up.
> Until then those are some really great demos they're recorded.
>



You'll love Redd Blood Cells!

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In the summer of 2002, Steven McDonald, bassist for seminal rock group Redd Kross, was so taken by Jack and Meg’s recent explosion onto the mainstream music scene, that he took it upon himself to become the fully fledged, third member of The White Stripes. Well, at least on record.

In an art experiment that came to be known as Redd Blood Cells, McDonald dropped his surname and transformed into Steven White: the fictitious and uninvited bassist for the usually bass-less band. The project, originally restricted to two songs from White Blood Cells, caught the attention of the press and took off. Eventually, with permission from the band, McDonald added bass-lines for the entire album, and even threw in some backing vocals for good measure, and posted the whole thing online.

McDonald didn’t butcher the original songs, but respectfully and subtlety, ‘became’ a member of a band he adored, resulting in one of the more innovative musical mash-ups in recent times. Here’s the entire project, for your listening pleasure. See if you can pick out each of the song’s differences – like the dirty fuzz bass on “Little Room”, and the extra layer of sound McDonald brings to quiet “We’re Going To Be Friends”. Was McDonald’s experiment an improvement to the original record? Or a crazy, fan-fuelled obsession gone astray?

[www.twelvemajorchords.com]

[www.reddkross.com]