Screaming at the Moon

Bulldog · 03-31-2010, 12:25 PM

It's quite bizarre how much I like the Border Song but nothing else Elton John's done at the same time. Maybe it's more a case of my not really being that fussed about his work, but anyway, I agree completely. Relatively bare-boned simplicity is what stands the test of time the best, in the sense that a fairly simple tune with the right kind of hook to it will be covered by generations of artists to come, or at least that's how I look at it. Jackie Wilson Said, Slow Down, Cry Me a River, Yesterday and Satisfaction are a few others like it I think of at the moment.

Perhaps predictably enough, this here's my personal favourite version of the said Border Song...

Kind of annoying how those guys never recorded a studio version. Oh well.

6underground · 03-31-2010, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TheBig3KilledMyRainDog

I'm always trying to understand music in a way that allows me to know it from all angles. There was a time, for example, that I saw songs as some sort of video game code you didn't so much as learn as you did memorize. While I've come along was from that point, songs like Border Song still hold tremendous power for me, because their simplicity will always remind me of what skeleton works best for these musical frameworks; saying it directly, and playing only what supports that simplicity, and just seeing where you come out on the other end.

This bit was well said, and explains a lot about your musical taste.

And I have to agree, I think it takes more talent to conquer simple musical structure and make it great, than to throw every technique you know into one giant frenzy and call it a song.

Great write-up, btw. And great song.

TheBig3 · 04-15-2010, 01:37 PM

Theres a coldness to music from the 90's, and while I think a good deal of it is ****, there are a few gems I still love. And I don't mean that I turn up the radio when they come on, I mean think they have given, to the overall musical canon, a great deal of advancement, or at least a sharpened guidence.

One of those songs that should have been dead and buried is the Wallflowers 1996 masterwork One Headlight. I say this in all sincerety, there should be a bigger deal made about these folks, and as Jakob Dylan releases a new album this month, I'm inspired to dig up everything he's touched.

But this is about the song. I think too much of the 90's was too concerned with being weird, showing that were exceptional in their strife and misery, and there wasn't so much a story as there was a laundry list of transgressions that had been leveled against the singer/narrator by a faceless "her" or an indescript "world."

While Dylan here doesn't sterr away from that he surrounds these plot points with a lush metaphorical landscape of a community, where the man is alone because of an enviornmental strife, not an emotional one. Emotion is important, but it was sullied in that decade because it was overused, to tag a line, the personal became political. To some degree One Headlight is a distant cousin to Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer"

And ultimatly, its married with a bit of Outlaw/frontier country that gives it the well-worn soul of old age, of someone who's suffered truely, and knows that like with shamble on. There is no death in heartbreak, and unlike his contemporaries who assumed there was, Dylan gives you the impression that the lack of death is the most terrible thing.

Quote:

Well this place is old
It feels just like a beat up truck
I turn the engine, but the engine doesn't turn
Well it smells of cheap wine & cigarettes
This place is always such a mess
Sometimes I think I'd like to watch it burn
I'm so alone, and I feel just like somebody else
Man, I ain't changed, but I know I ain't the same
But somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin' dreams
I think her death it must be killin' me

TheBig3 · 04-19-2010, 10:17 AM

For better or worse, when I'm feeling like I could jellify my body and slip through the cracks in the floor, I go take a walk through a graveyard near my house. There are tons of reasons why, but needless to say the iPod has to be a little more appropriate than if I were walking down the street.

Somewhere in there was "Nothin'", the Van Zant cover from Raising Sand which only has Robert Plant singing, and therefore, a mean fiddle by Alison Krauss. It fits a walk through the graveyard so i'd rewind (?) the song to my favorite parts and really sat with the song a lot longer than if it had come up randomly.

Later on came to Johnny Cash's version of "Wayfaring Stranger" (which has the best accordion you've ever heard and eventually a fiddle. Listening to it, I thought to myself "Jesus, is this Alison Krauss too?" It struck me then that economy has too much to do with the sounds of the lesser played instruments.

In a musical landscape dominated by electric guitars, they all get their own sound, and its intentionally different. I don't know **** about guitars but I know that musicians that play them are as picky about them as they are their cars, healthcare providers, and where they buy their porkchops.

So what does this do for the listener? Sadly, I feel as if it severly downgrades the amount of experimentation that could exist. At this point it seems the only folks coming up with different sounds (to any noticible degree) are those making their own, and so its got to come from someone that has an established presense and can get away with this sort of thing.

Roots music may have a DIY ethos thats impossible to get away from (i mean its generally played on porches) but in that down-to-earth, home-spun mentality, theres still a rigid discipline thats silently mandated. Standards that have existed for centuries are constantly reinvented, but theres always a strand of originality.

The bare-boned economics of it is that, no matter how ****ty you make a guitar, theres enough interest in it, and enough ways you can learn that as long as its cheap, someone will buy it. But Fiddle, trombone, bagpipe, or accordion, they all cost too much, are too scare, and vary so little that new companies aren't springing up due to the looming bankruptcy that would come from it.

In roots music, necessity if the mother of invention; accidents the catalyst of progression. But no one plays the Lute any more, and if the genre is going to get as weird as the people and places in its own stories, we need to get medevil again and start coating our wood casings with cat guts, and insect entrails, we need to start building the musical version of soapbox racers again, because Jack White and Tom Waits can't do it alone, because in a tradition born from the tribal origins of the worlds children, the progression of time has only resulted in a regression of sound.

TheBig3 · 06-07-2010, 05:23 PM

Musical Oracle, Madlib, has a fairly extensive project called "Sound Directions" modeled on his first release "Yesterdays New Quintet." If you've listened to anything in this family, Jazz being spun up like it was hip-hop, (Dan the Automator, Mark Farina) then this is probably already on your playlist. That or if you bought the Kill Bill soundtrack, you've probably heard what this genre is capable of.

Built like a soundtrack to a movie that never came, the musical soundscapes tend to make you paint your own picture. A selection from one of my favorite albums is below. If you're looking to get into more of this, I suggestion you check out...

(These are starter suggestions)

Kill Bill Soundtrack
Mushroom Jazz Volume 2 (or #4)
Music to make love to your old lady by

Enjoy!

TheBig3 · 06-08-2010, 06:49 PM

The crowning achievement of slapstick hip hop. MC Paul Barman and MF Doom throw down over a CCR respin. A track everyone can love and just in time for summer.

Rap has always had the ability to mix serious, hilarious, and vociferously political into one track. The master villain does it again.

greater than 4 stars, greater straight-A report cards, greater than poor sports in divorce courts or sports bars...

TheBig3 · 06-08-2010, 07:04 PM

I did this while bored. Forgive the mistakes. Debate the song selection...wait do my readers have decent enough taste to listen to the stripes????

1. Icky Thump

The new big hit, a song with a misplaced solo and (as Adidasss described it) Baltic organs emerged on the radio in early 2007 with the same ethos as Get Behind Me Satan with an electrified arena-ready seasoning that reminded the masses that the stripes could still throw down and reinforced fans theories that GBMS was a Cobain-mindful celebrity dodge endearing them more to White’s Rock God persona.

“Well Americans, what? Nothing better to do? Why don’t cha kick yourself out you’re an immigrant too…”

2. Seven Nation Army

The map making house hold name that made the most vicious of protesters grit their teeth in admiration. Titled after a misnomer given to the “salvation army” by a young jack white, seven nation army uses one chord, a little slide, and a five note hook to scorch the airwaves of 2004 and leave every other single that year in the dust. With an ominous bass line intro (played on the guitar) that was as foreboding as it was danceable the stripes had their first sing along played by no less than five other acts that very year. The detractors hit this one hard with arguments of simplicity, reminding everyone else that elaborate is for philosophy and art films. Long live rock and roll.

“I’m going to Wichita, far from this opera for evermore. I’m gunna work the straw and make the sweat drip out of every pore”

3. Denial Twist

The funkiest white boy jam since Beck released “where its at.” Simple piano chords and some meg white shuffle carried an entire CD designed to shake the hounds off their trail; the stripes roll out a pop song with lyrics still bleeding from the break up. Dig the break down in this one, Jack White testifies like the Godfather himself.

“so now your mans, denying the truth and its getting in the wisdom in the back of your tooth, ya need to spit it out in a telephone booth while ya call everyone that ya know”

4. Fell in Love with a Girl

Coming in the Strokes sweep up of anything sounding remotely retro, fell in love with a girl was shorter than your average song on the radio that year by a good two minutes. Coming in around just under two minutes, the stripes packed enough fuzz, fury, and incoherent lyrics to make even the old folks sing along.

“Red hair with a curl, mellow roll for the flavor and the eyes for peeping, can’t keep away from the girl, the two sides of my brain need to have a meeting”

5. Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground

If Fell in love with a girl helped them draft off of the Strokes surge of popularity, Dead Leaves established the Stripes as their own band, dragging the high speed rush of everyone looking for New York bite down to the delta blues. The song had enough force to dreg up countless bands from Detroit that would otherwise have no shot. A persevering sound, and establishment of style and a minor preparation for the elephant that was about to come.

“soft hair and a velvet tongue, I wanna give ya what you give to me and every breath that is in your lounges is a tiny little gift to me”

6. Broken Bricks

Out of key singing, chords so stiff you can hear the bounce, and is Meg White just jingling keys at certain points? Possibly, but who cares, the stripes show up with more swing than you can shake a stick at, and when meg was potentially playing with actual sticks. Jack channels his inner Springsteen and tells a tale of blue-collar revelry and the man crushing the souls of another family.

“broke into the window panes just a rusty colored rain that drives a man insane you try to jump over water but you land in oil climb the ladder up a broken crane. Don't go to the broken bricks girl it's not a place that you want to be think of the spot your father spent his life demolition calls it Building C”

7. Rag and Bone

“This place is like a mansion, its like a mansion, look at all this stuff!” And so is this song. The stripes go grifting and come up with enough jump to remind you that bands never used to have to harvest 80’s **** synth to come up with a song people could get down to. Its hard to determine here if the stripes sound more like hobos, carnies, or used car salesmen but the slime that’s all over them in this one is very much their own, which despite all the comparisons is more than you can say for Zeppelin. Who knows, maybe its some amalgamate of all four.

“Well can't you hear we're selling rag and bone? Bring out your junk and we'll give it a home a broken trumpet or a telephone”

8. Instinct Blues

An unfinished song from an unfinished disc. Too simple and too obvious for any real fan to appreciate, and any non-fan to get. The Beauty of this one lives in its tortured bends and non-sequetir breakdowns. You can feel the grime build on you after this ones over.

“And all the chickens get it and them singing canaries get it. Whoo! Even strawberries get it I want you to get with it”

9. Death Letter

If the Stripes style wasn’t enough of a clue, Jack White ****ing loves Son House, so much so that he covers this throwback gem with notes so distant you’d think it was coming from House himself. Jack always did have the fine fingered knowledge to have those amps throw as much pain as the electric would allow and here he doesn’t let up an inch. The guitar work here might be too beautiful to describe.

“I gat a letter this mornin’ what do you rekon it read, it said the girl you love is dead”

TheBig3 · 06-08-2010, 07:04 PM

10. Hotel Yorba

A simple country swing that will make you tap your foot while dreaming of rolling down the open roads of the Midwest. Yorba, given its prominence for allegedly once housing the Fab Four when they visited the blossoming metropolis of Detroit [sic], lets the words do all the fancy talking with Jack telling us the problems of modern life when you’re just trying to love your woman. And really, whats more country than that?

“I been thinking of a little place down by the lake they got a dirty little road leading up to the house I wonder how long it will take till we're alone sitting on the front porch of that home stomping our feet on the wooden boards never gonna worry about locking the door”

11. Jolene

Dolly Parton might have had it first, but she lacked the vicious lashes of distortion that express the torture of rolling in your bed wide awake at four in the morning with all the demons thrashing in your head, and your man whispering someone else’s name.

”he talks about you in his sleep and there is nothing I can do to keep from crying when he calls your name, Jolene”

12. Hello Operator

If the opening riff of this one doesn’t speak to you, you might lack a soul. With infections fills that mandate air guitar, and senseless stick clicking on megs behalf, its hard not to bob to this one.

“Find a canary a bird to bring my message home carry my obituary my coffin doesn’t have a phone”

13. Union Forever

Written while Jack tried learning a song in Citizen Cane, this brought the stripes into their first legal battle. But what might have been taken from the film is irrelevant, the haunting over drone that creeps in from behind will give you that “someones behind you” feeling on the neck every time.

“With wealth and fame, he's still the same I'll bet you five you're not alive If you don't know his name.”

14. Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise

Arguably the most overlooked Stripes song. It may not be the most elaborate, or the most sonically pleasing but its hard not to find the beauty in arpeggiated piano notes and lyrics like:

“you try to tell her what to do and all she does is stare at you, her stare is louder than your voice, cause truth doesn’t make a noise”

15. Catch Hell Blues

Like Instinct Blues, this one is all music and few words. While certainly more thought out, the power still comes from the non-lyrics, tons of slide, great runs, and parts that are so high on the register your dogs will be screaming.

“If you go looking for hot water, don’t be shocked when ya get burned a little bit”

16. Stop Breaking Down

For all the Stripes pretend to remain children, they have some filthy god damn lyrics. Taking this one from the king of the delta blues himself, Jack gives it the old White Stripes bounce that makes you dance in your car seat even as the song is miles away from anything dance oriented. Make the kids leave this room on this one, if you can make out the lyrics.

“The stuff I got is gonna bust your brains out Well, it'll make you lose your mind You saturday night women, you love to Ape and clown You won't do nothin' but tear a good man's reputation down - stop breakin' down!”

17. Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine

Buried deep on Elephant and overshadowed by song with bigger star power or more poignant topics, the stripes take aim at the entitled and the hypochondriacs with the nastiest riff this side of the 70’s.

“Well strip the bark right off a tree And just hand it this way Don’t even need a drink of water To make the headache go away Give me sugar pill And watch me just rattle Down the street”

18. Same Boy You’ve Always Known

Another track that I feel should have been more well received. Somewhere south of all the radio hits, Same Boy has more pain in jacks voice than is seen in most of the stripes catalogue, which takes some average level lyrics and gives them an amazing breath of fresh air.

“I hope you know a strong man who can lend you a hand lowering my casket I thought this is just today and soon you'd been returning the coldest blue ocean water cannot stop my heart and mind from burning”

19. Hand Springs

From the hot pinball rock CD, Jack tells the all to common tale of love lost at the bowling alley. In the aftermath of his loss to a smooth talking interloper with enough pinball’s skills to woo her away, Jack ponders old age and a potential loss of bowling skills. Alas, Lament my friend, lament.

“he's lookin' at her the way I did when I first met her I could see in his face white flowers and cups of coffee and love letters”

20. Ball and a Biscuit

You can’t play riffs like these with your grandma around. Coming it at over seven minutes, this one clocks in as the stripes longest song to date and what might be their filthiest. After covering enough delta blues men, Jack takes it on up to Chicago and takes a bath so he can “get clean” with his woman. If it wasn’t for euphemisms, the stripes would give Prince and 2 Live Crew a run for their money.

“You read it in the newspaper Ask your girlfriends and see if they know that my strength is ten fold girl and I'll let you see if you want to before you go”

TheBig3 · 06-15-2010, 08:04 PM

A: No they are pure rock fury.

Are the stripes metal? Depends on what you call metal. If you think of it as music, well then no - they probably aren't. But you don't think metal is just music do you? I mean you post on a forum for Christ's sake, I would hope you're smarter than that.

For too many years Metal, and its fans, were outcasts. Freaks banished to the outskirts of normal society and forever relegated to the painful label of pariah. But for their love and suffering they were given the free shots of confidence and bravado in every double-bass machine-gunning fire, and every red hot forked lightning-like solo. Metal made you an evangelical, a born-again preaching the good word of Chromatic scale and everything it could deliver.

To a keen ear, the seeds of metal lie everywhere, just waiting, and giving a sweet but short taste to any fertile mind just waiting to bask in the glory of bent, overdriven notes. Not just in the sound, but in the message, and the motive. Who has listened to Immigrant Song and didn't wanted to skull-**** a dragon? Who turned in horror to their first listen of Crazy Train and by songs end wasn't a converted zealot in the war on mediocrity in music and society together?

Metal is a fire in the soul, an adrenaline shot to the heart, a line of coke in the nostril. It gives you the game-changer to upset impossible odds.

So are the White Stripes metal? Sure, they have some obvious candidates like Little Cream Soda, but don't go for the obvious - you're better than that.

Do you remember where you were in 2003? Did a car roll by with decibel 11 thunder blowing out car speakers? Did some lit-up DJ bound into the microphone after some grunge piece of **** to announce he had the new White Stripes track? Or maybe it was your grandmother, who rose from her ancient grave, resurrected like Lazarus by the soul-shaking riff of jacks Airline?

I don't know where you heard it but I know you heard it. Deaf people behind Communists Iron curtain heard it. And while I can't say how or where, I can say what. What it did to you. How you felt. Because at the end of the day there are only three weapons any man really fears. Thor's Hammer, Deaths Scythe, and the 6-string of Mr. Jack White.

When those opening bass notes of 7 Nation Army, like the war knells of the coming apocalypse, come blazing from speakers, amplifiers, or headphones we all fancy ourselves invades. We're cutting off the heads of natives and showering in their blood. When that song comes on the animals run in fear and the women all becoming pregnant. So are the White Stripes metal? Is steel metal? Are flying V guitars metal? Is a leather-clad demon with a septum piercing, and a face of tattoos metal?

you god damn right they are.

TheBig3 · 06-16-2010, 08:08 PM

Just some things I think people should check out.

Sting - Driven to tears

can't hear a god damned word he's saying half the time but sting sounds like he's scream truth in a storm on this one. I really dig it. (taken from the concert for Haiti)

Clarence "Frogman" Henry - Ain't got a home

First heard this looking up strats for WoW and loved it. this 50's juke **** is the best party music ever made.

Reverend Gary Davis - Death don't have no Mercy (in this land)

There are no blues like the depression era blues. The soundtrack to your children dying slowly while you look for jobs that keep going over seas. The blackest level of hell they make shudders when hearing this song.

Cheeseburger - I'm coming Home

Another one I've posted before. This obviously isn't 50's juke-junk but its the offspring. Dreaming of the days with a hot sax solo was obligatory to stardom. Break out of jail? this song makes me want to do **** to get back in.

04-19-2010, 10:17 AM	#44 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	Musical Economy For better or worse, when I'm feeling like I could jellify my body and slip through the cracks in the floor, I go take a walk through a graveyard near my house. There are tons of reasons why, but needless to say the iPod has to be a little more appropriate than if I were walking down the street. Somewhere in there was "Nothin'", the Van Zant cover from Raising Sand which only has Robert Plant singing, and therefore, a mean fiddle by Alison Krauss. It fits a walk through the graveyard so i'd rewind (?) the song to my favorite parts and really sat with the song a lot longer than if it had come up randomly. Later on came to Johnny Cash's version of "Wayfaring Stranger" (which has the best accordion you've ever heard and eventually a fiddle. Listening to it, I thought to myself "Jesus, is this Alison Krauss too?" It struck me then that economy has too much to do with the sounds of the lesser played instruments. In a musical landscape dominated by electric guitars, they all get their own sound, and its intentionally different. I don't know ** about guitars but I know that musicians that play them are as picky about them as they are their cars, healthcare providers, and where they buy their porkchops. So what does this do for the listener? Sadly, I feel as if it severly downgrades the amount of experimentation that could exist. At this point it seems the only folks coming up with different sounds (to any noticible degree) are those making their own, and so its got to come from someone that has an established presense and can get away with this sort of thing. Roots music may have a DIY ethos thats impossible to get away from (i mean its generally played on porches) but in that down-to-earth, home-spun mentality, theres still a rigid discipline thats silently mandated. Standards that have existed for centuries are constantly reinvented, but theres always a strand of originality. The bare-boned economics of it is that, no matter how **ty you make a guitar, theres enough interest in it, and enough ways you can learn that as long as its cheap, someone will buy it. But Fiddle, trombone, bagpipe, or accordion, they all cost too much, are too scare, and vary so little that new companies aren't springing up due to the looming bankruptcy that would come from it. In roots music, necessity if the mother of invention; accidents the catalyst of progression. But no one plays the Lute any more, and if the genre is going to get as weird as the people and places in its own stories, we need to get medevil again and start coating our wood casings with cat guts, and insect entrails, we need to start building the musical version of soapbox racers again, because Jack White and Tom Waits can't do it alone, because in a tradition born from the tribal origins of the worlds children, the progression of time has only resulted in a regression of sound. __________________ I've moved to a new address

06-07-2010, 05:23 PM	#45 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	Bring in the Jazz, spread on the funk Musical Oracle, Madlib, has a fairly extensive project called "Sound Directions" modeled on his first release "Yesterdays New Quintet." If you've listened to anything in this family, Jazz being spun up like it was hip-hop, (Dan the Automator, Mark Farina) then this is probably already on your playlist. That or if you bought the Kill Bill soundtrack, you've probably heard what this genre is capable of. Built like a soundtrack to a movie that never came, the musical soundscapes tend to make you paint your own picture. A selection from one of my favorite albums is below. If you're looking to get into more of this, I suggestion you check out... (These are starter suggestions) Kill Bill Soundtrack Mushroom Jazz Volume 2 (or #4) Music to make love to your old lady by Enjoy! __________________ I've moved to a new address

06-08-2010, 06:49 PM	#46 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	The crowning achievement of slapstick hip hop. MC Paul Barman and MF Doom throw down over a CCR respin. A track everyone can love and just in time for summer. Rap has always had the ability to mix serious, hilarious, and vociferously political into one track. The master villain does it again. greater than 4 stars, greater straight-A report cards, greater than poor sports in divorce courts or sports bars... __________________ I've moved to a new address

06-08-2010, 07:04 PM	#47 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	For Cunning Stunt, a repost.... I did this while bored. Forgive the mistakes. Debate the song selection...wait do my readers have decent enough taste to listen to the stripes???? 1. Icky Thump The new big hit, a song with a misplaced solo and (as Adidasss described it) Baltic organs emerged on the radio in early 2007 with the same ethos as Get Behind Me Satan with an electrified arena-ready seasoning that reminded the masses that the stripes could still throw down and reinforced fans theories that GBMS was a Cobain-mindful celebrity dodge endearing them more to White’s Rock God persona. “Well Americans, what? Nothing better to do? Why don’t cha kick yourself out you’re an immigrant too…” 2. Seven Nation Army The map making house hold name that made the most vicious of protesters grit their teeth in admiration. Titled after a misnomer given to the “salvation army” by a young jack white, seven nation army uses one chord, a little slide, and a five note hook to scorch the airwaves of 2004 and leave every other single that year in the dust. With an ominous bass line intro (played on the guitar) that was as foreboding as it was danceable the stripes had their first sing along played by no less than five other acts that very year. The detractors hit this one hard with arguments of simplicity, reminding everyone else that elaborate is for philosophy and art films. Long live rock and roll. “I’m going to Wichita, far from this opera for evermore. I’m gunna work the straw and make the sweat drip out of every pore” 3. Denial Twist The funkiest white boy jam since Beck released “where its at.” Simple piano chords and some meg white shuffle carried an entire CD designed to shake the hounds off their trail; the stripes roll out a pop song with lyrics still bleeding from the break up. Dig the break down in this one, Jack White testifies like the Godfather himself. “so now your mans, denying the truth and its getting in the wisdom in the back of your tooth, ya need to spit it out in a telephone booth while ya call everyone that ya know” 4. Fell in Love with a Girl Coming in the Strokes sweep up of anything sounding remotely retro, fell in love with a girl was shorter than your average song on the radio that year by a good two minutes. Coming in around just under two minutes, the stripes packed enough fuzz, fury, and incoherent lyrics to make even the old folks sing along. “Red hair with a curl, mellow roll for the flavor and the eyes for peeping, can’t keep away from the girl, the two sides of my brain need to have a meeting” 5. Dead Leaves in the Dirty Ground If Fell in love with a girl helped them draft off of the Strokes surge of popularity, Dead Leaves established the Stripes as their own band, dragging the high speed rush of everyone looking for New York bite down to the delta blues. The song had enough force to dreg up countless bands from Detroit that would otherwise have no shot. A persevering sound, and establishment of style and a minor preparation for the elephant that was about to come. “soft hair and a velvet tongue, I wanna give ya what you give to me and every breath that is in your lounges is a tiny little gift to me” 6. Broken Bricks Out of key singing, chords so stiff you can hear the bounce, and is Meg White just jingling keys at certain points? Possibly, but who cares, the stripes show up with more swing than you can shake a stick at, and when meg was potentially playing with actual sticks. Jack channels his inner Springsteen and tells a tale of blue-collar revelry and the man crushing the souls of another family. “broke into the window panes just a rusty colored rain that drives a man insane you try to jump over water but you land in oil climb the ladder up a broken crane. Don't go to the broken bricks girl it's not a place that you want to be think of the spot your father spent his life demolition calls it Building C” 7. Rag and Bone “This place is like a mansion, its like a mansion, look at all this stuff!” And so is this song. The stripes go grifting and come up with enough jump to remind you that bands never used to have to harvest 80’s ** synth to come up with a song people could get down to. Its hard to determine here if the stripes sound more like hobos, carnies, or used car salesmen but the slime that’s all over them in this one is very much their own, which despite all the comparisons is more than you can say for Zeppelin. Who knows, maybe its some amalgamate of all four. “Well can't you hear we're selling rag and bone? Bring out your junk and we'll give it a home a broken trumpet or a telephone” 8. Instinct Blues An unfinished song from an unfinished disc. Too simple and too obvious for any real fan to appreciate, and any non-fan to get. The Beauty of this one lives in its tortured bends and non-sequetir breakdowns. You can feel the grime build on you after this ones over. “And all the chickens get it and them singing canaries get it. Whoo! Even strawberries get it I want you to get with it” 9. Death Letter If the Stripes style wasn’t enough of a clue, Jack White **ing loves Son House, so much so that he covers this throwback gem with notes so distant you’d think it was coming from House himself. Jack always did have the fine fingered knowledge to have those amps throw as much pain as the electric would allow and here he doesn’t let up an inch. The guitar work here might be too beautiful to describe. “I gat a letter this mornin’ what do you rekon it read, it said the girl you love is dead” __________________ I've moved to a new address

06-08-2010, 07:04 PM	#48 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	10. Hotel Yorba A simple country swing that will make you tap your foot while dreaming of rolling down the open roads of the Midwest. Yorba, given its prominence for allegedly once housing the Fab Four when they visited the blossoming metropolis of Detroit [sic], lets the words do all the fancy talking with Jack telling us the problems of modern life when you’re just trying to love your woman. And really, whats more country than that? “I been thinking of a little place down by the lake they got a dirty little road leading up to the house I wonder how long it will take till we're alone sitting on the front porch of that home stomping our feet on the wooden boards never gonna worry about locking the door” 11. Jolene Dolly Parton might have had it first, but she lacked the vicious lashes of distortion that express the torture of rolling in your bed wide awake at four in the morning with all the demons thrashing in your head, and your man whispering someone else’s name. ”he talks about you in his sleep and there is nothing I can do to keep from crying when he calls your name, Jolene” 12. Hello Operator If the opening riff of this one doesn’t speak to you, you might lack a soul. With infections fills that mandate air guitar, and senseless stick clicking on megs behalf, its hard not to bob to this one. “Find a canary a bird to bring my message home carry my obituary my coffin doesn’t have a phone” 13. Union Forever Written while Jack tried learning a song in Citizen Cane, this brought the stripes into their first legal battle. But what might have been taken from the film is irrelevant, the haunting over drone that creeps in from behind will give you that “someones behind you” feeling on the neck every time. “With wealth and fame, he's still the same I'll bet you five you're not alive If you don't know his name.” 14. Truth Doesn’t Make a Noise Arguably the most overlooked Stripes song. It may not be the most elaborate, or the most sonically pleasing but its hard not to find the beauty in arpeggiated piano notes and lyrics like: “you try to tell her what to do and all she does is stare at you, her stare is louder than your voice, cause truth doesn’t make a noise” 15. Catch Hell Blues Like Instinct Blues, this one is all music and few words. While certainly more thought out, the power still comes from the non-lyrics, tons of slide, great runs, and parts that are so high on the register your dogs will be screaming. “If you go looking for hot water, don’t be shocked when ya get burned a little bit” 16. Stop Breaking Down For all the Stripes pretend to remain children, they have some filthy god damn lyrics. Taking this one from the king of the delta blues himself, Jack gives it the old White Stripes bounce that makes you dance in your car seat even as the song is miles away from anything dance oriented. Make the kids leave this room on this one, if you can make out the lyrics. “The stuff I got is gonna bust your brains out Well, it'll make you lose your mind You saturday night women, you love to Ape and clown You won't do nothin' but tear a good man's reputation down - stop breakin' down!” 17. Girl You Have No Faith in Medicine Buried deep on Elephant and overshadowed by song with bigger star power or more poignant topics, the stripes take aim at the entitled and the hypochondriacs with the nastiest riff this side of the 70’s. “Well strip the bark right off a tree And just hand it this way Don’t even need a drink of water To make the headache go away Give me sugar pill And watch me just rattle Down the street” 18. Same Boy You’ve Always Known Another track that I feel should have been more well received. Somewhere south of all the radio hits, Same Boy has more pain in jacks voice than is seen in most of the stripes catalogue, which takes some average level lyrics and gives them an amazing breath of fresh air. “I hope you know a strong man who can lend you a hand lowering my casket I thought this is just today and soon you'd been returning the coldest blue ocean water cannot stop my heart and mind from burning” 19. Hand Springs From the hot pinball rock CD, Jack tells the all to common tale of love lost at the bowling alley. In the aftermath of his loss to a smooth talking interloper with enough pinball’s skills to woo her away, Jack ponders old age and a potential loss of bowling skills. Alas, Lament my friend, lament. “he's lookin' at her the way I did when I first met her I could see in his face white flowers and cups of coffee and love letters” 20. Ball and a Biscuit You can’t play riffs like these with your grandma around. Coming it at over seven minutes, this one clocks in as the stripes longest song to date and what might be their filthiest. After covering enough delta blues men, Jack takes it on up to Chicago and takes a bath so he can “get clean” with his woman. If it wasn’t for euphemisms, the stripes would give Prince and 2 Live Crew a run for their money. “You read it in the newspaper Ask your girlfriends and see if they know that my strength is ten fold girl and I'll let you see if you want to before you go” __________________ I've moved to a new address

03-31-2010, 12:25 PM	#41 (permalink)
Bulldog why bother? Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: UK Posts: 4,840	It's quite bizarre how much I like the Border Song but nothing else Elton John's done at the same time. Maybe it's more a case of my not really being that fussed about his work, but anyway, I agree completely. Relatively bare-boned simplicity is what stands the test of time the best, in the sense that a fairly simple tune with the right kind of hook to it will be covered by generations of artists to come, or at least that's how I look at it. Jackie Wilson Said, Slow Down, Cry Me a River, Yesterday and Satisfaction are a few others like it I think of at the moment. Perhaps predictably enough, this here's my personal favourite version of the said Border Song... Kind of annoying how those guys never recorded a studio version. Oh well.

06-15-2010, 08:04 PM	#49 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	Q: Are the White Stripes Metal? A: No they are pure rock fury. Are the stripes metal? Depends on what you call metal. If you think of it as music, well then no - they probably aren't. But you don't think metal is just music do you? I mean you post on a forum for Christ's sake, I would hope you're smarter than that. For too many years Metal, and its fans, were outcasts. Freaks banished to the outskirts of normal society and forever relegated to the painful label of pariah. But for their love and suffering they were given the free shots of confidence and bravado in every double-bass machine-gunning fire, and every red hot forked lightning-like solo. Metal made you an evangelical, a born-again preaching the good word of Chromatic scale and everything it could deliver. To a keen ear, the seeds of metal lie everywhere, just waiting, and giving a sweet but short taste to any fertile mind just waiting to bask in the glory of bent, overdriven notes. Not just in the sound, but in the message, and the motive. Who has listened to Immigrant Song and didn't wanted to skull-** a dragon? Who turned in horror to their first listen of Crazy Train and by songs end wasn't a converted zealot in the war on mediocrity in music and society together? Metal is a fire in the soul, an adrenaline shot to the heart, a line of coke in the nostril. It gives you the game-changer to upset impossible odds. So are the White Stripes metal? Sure, they have some obvious candidates like Little Cream Soda, but don't go for the obvious - you're better than that. Do you remember where you were in 2003? Did a car roll by with decibel 11 thunder blowing out car speakers? Did some lit-up DJ bound into the microphone after some grunge piece of ** to announce he had the new White Stripes track? Or maybe it was your grandmother, who rose from her ancient grave, resurrected like Lazarus by the soul-shaking riff of jacks Airline? I don't know where you heard it but I know you heard it. Deaf people behind Communists Iron curtain heard it. And while I can't say how or where, I can say what. What it did to you. How you felt. Because at the end of the day there are only three weapons any man really fears. Thor's Hammer, Deaths Scythe, and the 6-string of Mr. Jack White. When those opening bass notes of 7 Nation Army, like the war knells of the coming apocalypse, come blazing from speakers, amplifiers, or headphones we all fancy ourselves invades. We're cutting off the heads of natives and showering in their blood. When that song comes on the animals run in fear and the women all becoming pregnant. So are the White Stripes metal? Is steel metal? Are flying V guitars metal? Is a leather-clad demon with a septum piercing, and a face of tattoos metal? you god damn right they are. __________________ I've moved to a new address

06-16-2010, 08:08 PM	#50 (permalink)
TheBig3 killedmyraindog Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Boston, Massachusetts Posts: 11,172	Just some things I think people should check out. Sting - Driven to tears can't hear a god damned word he's saying half the time but sting sounds like he's scream truth in a storm on this one. I really dig it. (taken from the concert for Haiti) Clarence "Frogman" Henry - Ain't got a home First heard this looking up strats for WoW and loved it. this 50's juke ** is the best party music ever made. Reverend Gary Davis** - Death don't have no Mercy (in this land) There are no blues like the depression era blues. The soundtrack to your children dying slowly while you look for jobs that keep going over seas. The blackest level of hell they make shudders when hearing this song. Cheeseburger - I'm coming Home Another one I've posted before. This obviously isn't 50's juke-junk but its the offspring. Dreaming of the days with a hot sax solo was obligatory to stardom. Break out of jail? this song makes me want to do **** to get back in. __________________ I've moved to a new address