I'm Your Puppet b/w Now That You're Gone - The Raconteurs (video)

The Raconteurs recording Now That You're Gone and I'm Your Puppet.

Classic stuff even if Mr. No Head Keyboard Hands remains a mystery throughout. I assume it's Dean Fertita.

The beginning of Now That You're Gone is the same as the beginning of You Just Can't Win, isn't it? Not that I'm accusing anyone of plagiarism. It's just a classic guitarist noodle around some common chords. Jack's voice suits the smooth Northern Soul of I'm Your Puppet in a totally unexpected way.



While I'm at it, The Raconteurs' Blue Veins is a minor blues that tempts me every time into trying to add the words to Led Zeppelin's Since I've Been Loving You, a very similar song.

The Dead Weather's Horehound is ten years old

The Dead Weather are happy to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their first album Horehound today (Alison dressed in a full buffalo costume for the occasion). pic.twitter.com/1VAYHPhj6r

— Third Man Records (@thirdmanrecords) July 15, 2019

The Raconteurs live at Third Man Records' tenth anniversary bash, April 6th - Tour dates

The Raconteurs (Jack White, Brendan Benson, Patrick Keeler and Little Jack Lawrence) came out with a bang to celebrate Third Man Records' tenth birthday and the release of their first album in ten years.

The "ultra" tickets to the show were offered through the Third Man subscription service, the Vault, and needless to say although I joined the online queue in time, I didn't get any, being 1081st in line.  Pretty popular band. (Although I think the goodie bag, containing things like test pressings and other collectible tat also enticed a fair few of the sign ups. Along with the rare opportunity to see legendary bands like The Gories and The Soledad Brothers.)

Anyway, I wasn't there on April 6th, but surprisingly for a Jack White show, cameras were allowed, and so there are videos.

set list photo by Amanda

Youtube user VideoGremmie uploaded the videos below.

Consolers of the Lonely, with the Racs introduced by Jack's mum



Old Enough



Excellent version of the southern gothic tale Carolina Drama



The tour de force Blue Veins



A cover of the Go track, Trash, along with the Racs' new album cover of Donovan's Hey Gyp



There's at least one video of the whole set floating around and if it goes public, I'll put it here.

Meanwhile, tickets for the Raconteurs' north American shows go on sale tomorrow.

July 12: Masonic Temple Theatre – Detroit, MI

July 14: Eagles Ballroom – Milwaukee, WI

July 15: Armory – Minneapolis, MN

July 18: WaMu Theater at CenturyLink Field Events Center – Seattle, WA

July 19: Queen Elizabeth Theatre – Vancouver, BC

July 21: Edgefield – Troutdale, OR

July 23: Fox Theater – Oakland, CA

July 26: Greek Theatre – Los Angeles, CA

July 27: Santa Barbara Bowl – Santa Barbara, CA

July 28: Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theatre – San Diego, CA

August 11: Knoxville Civic Auditorium – Knoxville, TN

August 12: Egyptian Room at Old National Centre – Indianapolis, IN

August 13: Stage AE (Indoors) – Pittsburgh, PA

August 15: Agora Theatre – Cleveland, OH

August 17: The Anthem – Washington, DC

August 18: The Fillmore Charlotte – Charlotte, NC

August 20: Township Auditorium – Columbia, SC

August 21: Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA

August 22: Tabernacle – Atlanta, GA

August 29: Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN

August 30: Ryman Auditorium – Nashville, TN

September 3: Red Hat Amphitheater – Raleigh, NC

September 6: Hammerstein Ballroom – New York, NY

September 7: Kings Theatre – Brooklyn, NY

September 9: House of Blues – Boston, MA

September 12: Sony Centre for the Performing Arts – Toronto, ON

September 13: Express Live! Indoor Pavilion – Columbus, OH

October 12: The Criterion – Oklahoma City, OK

October 13: Cain’s Ballroom – Tulsa, OK

October 14: Cain’s Ballroom – Tulsa, OK

October 17: Arvest Bank Theatre at The Midland – Kansas City, MO

October 18: The Pageant – St. Louis, MO

Raconteurs recording new music, October 28th, 2018

Good news! From The Raconteurs' Facebook page:

Raconteurs recording in the studio in Nashville, October 28th, 2018.
Sign up for Third Man Records Vault Package 38, featuring their first NEW MUSIC in ten years, by Wednesday at midnight CT:thirdmanrecords.com/vault

If you have not previously been a member of the Vault, it's Jack White's subscription vinyl service. To get this package you would need to sign up in the next two days. Don't sign up too late because you won't get it. You'll be charged the same amount and get the NEXT package, which hasn't been announced yet and could be anything. Well, any Third Man Records thing worth around $60. 

Raconteurs in the studio, October 28 2018

The Dead Weather: Mile Markers and bass technique, Late Show performance (videos)

This week it's lucky Mojo who gets the exclusive on the Dead Weather video release and not only new, but a premiere performance of a song.

The song is Mile Markers, from the soon-to-be-released album Dodge and Burn, and and the 'technique' part of the film is handled by Little Jack Lawrence, who is all about that bass.  He demonstrates - oops, wrote demon states at first there - the use of his bass microsynth and the riff from Blue Blood Blues and Mile Markers.



I'm surprised Little Jack has such long glossy hair, because when he switched on that microsynth pedal, the sound blew mine right off, and I'm standing behind a monitor.


Added: for a bonus, here's the Dead Weather's performance of I Feel Love (Every Million Miles) on the Stephen Colbert Late Show:

The Raconteurs: Steady As She Goes 2015-01-28

As I mentioned earlier, Jack White reunited The Raconteurs on stage on January 28 this year. I posted a video of Salute Your Solution then. Here is the second song they played, Steady As She Goes, courtesy of uploader A Bal.




Outstanding. Jack's getting a little hoarse, though.

Here is A Bal's video of Salute Your Solution - it's different from the one I posted before.



Here's another view of SASG, by Randy Word:

The Raconteurs - Salute Your Solution, Nashville 2015-01-28

OK, here we go! Thank you Chuck Heeke, uploader, and whomever it was who dared to bootleg Jack White's ban on video, if that was someone else.



God, I miss the Raconteurs. Everyone I know seems to like Solo!Jack but I think he plays best when he's with other songwriters as strong as he is. Brendan Benson is one of the best collaborators, an awesome power pop songwriter who on his own lacks a bit of oomph, paired with Jack White, 100% pure pharmaceutical grade oomph who writes middling songs but plays the shit out of them. While the video above may not be the greatest ad for the Raconteurs - it sounds like they can't hear their voices on the monitor - it has all the energy and atmosphere you came to expect from them. Little Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita are reunited with the twosome, but unfortunately not Patrick Keeler. Daru Jones was demolishing his drumkit drumming for them.  They also played Steady as She Goes, and if video of that goes up, I'll post it here as well.

I hope they do something new together this year.

More here at the Tennessean.

Edit: Steady As She Goes video is here.

Jack White and Loretta Lynn - Portland Oregon and Whispering Sea 2015-01-28

Here's Jack and Loretta singing Portland, Oregon on 01/28/15. Yes, I posted about that yesterday, but this is a video from an uploader with a tele lens, so you can see everyone on stage - including Jack Lawrence and Brendan Benson. Still waiting for video of the Raconteurs songs!



Edited to add - uploader Chuck Heeke has put up a second video of Whispering Sea.

Dead Weather recording together this week

According to the caption on a photo in the Third Man's Vault, the Dead Weather - Jack White, Jack Lawrence, Alison Mosshart and Dean Fertita - are back in the studio recording new music this week.


There is a full-size uncropped picture at the Vault. (I'm never sure, when Third Man say things like, "We put up pictures so you don't have to take them," they mean they aren't asserting copyright. So I've ensmallened this one for fair use. But you can just go to the Vault and right click a full size copy if you like.)

The Dead Weather in Mexico, December 2012

Happy New Year!

The Dead Weather are together again. Of course they may not be playing music together, they could be just taking in local donkey shows, we don't know. But Third Man Records posted this picture to their instagram account.



It certainly seems to show Alison, Jack, LJ and Dean (as well as Lalo) hanging out in Mexico City and wishing us a happy new year.

I am *so* ready for some classic Dead Weather right now...

Dead Weather - Sesiones

Here is a YouTube recording of the full Dead Weather Sesiones broadcast.



47 minutes of pro-shot Jack White, Alison Mosshart, Little Jack Lawrence and Dean Fertita from Mexico City in 2009.

What did we do to make Jack White mad this time (baby)?

I haven't seen this news out there, in the Hi World! part of the world so here goes. Jack White has declared that none of his live recordings may be shared by fans.

On the 21^st May, one Jack White fan who was sharing live concerts via Mediafire received a Cease and Desist (C&D) letter. Not a DMCA Takedown notice, or a notice of violation of TOS, but a full-blown letter written by Jack White's lawyer Stacy Fass, and reading in part:

I represent Jack White. It has come to my attention that, in violation of multiple rights of my client's, as well as violation of the clearly posted rules of The Ryman Theater, you audio/visually recorded Jack White live performance on either or both May 15 and May 16, 2012, and have posted the same to the public.

It was addressed to a first name and username rather than a legal name, and used that odd phrase "posted to the public" but it was still very definitely a lawyer's letter, and the person involved took the files down immediately.

Let's take a step back.  Copying a piece of artwork, like a record, and selling it to the public is usually called piracy, and the folks who do it are chased down and prosecuted.  Taping a live recording, and making it available for free to other fans, although similar copyright regulations apply, is generally tolerated by bands.  These files are often called ROIO, recordings of independent origin, and the people who tape and upload are called bootleggers, in the old tradition, although most of them would call themselves simply tapers. Taping has been going on a long time – bands like the Grateful Dead have special areas in front of the stage where tapers can set up good equipment not be bothered by noisy fans during the recording.

Jack White has been cool with it too. Hundreds of recordings from the White Stripes days were circulating.  There was no discussion of whether Raconteurs or Dead Weather shows could or could not be taped, and so plenty of people taped or videoed those as well  –  and White said nothing. The current tour, though, has a posted no photographs, no taping policy in place. (I think – I've only seen no photography signs, but I'm told it was made clear Jack White did not want taping.)

So since there is a posted no taping, no photographs policy at the current live shows, was this C&D letter just a shot across the bows to show he really meant it?  Jack likes to be in control of every aspect of his image, and so to save us the bother and to provide the professional touch, he posts photographs of every concert taken by his house photographer to his website. Maybe, we thought, he's keeping the videos off the inadequate screen of YouTube-o-vision in preparation for a blistering live release later on?

Good thought, but no. For a start there have been several audio and video webcasts of this concert series all webcast on YouTube with Computer Speaker Sound, so it can't be the quality that's bugging him. And secondly, a day after the first letter (that I know about) was received, the popular filesharing site Dime received a request to put Jack White on the Not Allowed Bands list (NAB), along with the previously untroubling bands, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather.

The day after that, another fan of my acquaintance got a C&D letter to take Jack White recordings off Mediafire. (In amongst all of this, I got a DMCA Takedown to take a Jack White interview off Mediafire, but since it contained no music, I'm assuming this was coincidental. I deleted my Mediafire account anyway, just in case.) He means it.

The thing that's bothering the fans I know is White's silence in the matter.  Nothing has been said on the Vault, nothing on Third Man Records' blog, nothing on Jack White's website, and nothing on the fan message board where this first came up  – even though we know that various Third Man honchos trawl the messageboard whenever they feel like seeing what real-life people are doing.

What bugs folks

When the White Stripes broke up, White issued a statement that said in part:

"The White Stripes do not belong to Meg and Jack anymore. The White Stripes belong to you now and you can do with it whatever you want. The beauty of art and music is that it can last forever if people want it to. Thank you for sharing this experience. Your involvement will never be lost on us and we are truly grateful."

Quoting this tends to lead to derisive laughter from other parties and a sneery "Did you really think he meant he was putting his music in the public domain?" Well, no, but we thought he meant what he said, within the usual borders of artistic license – that fans have a part to play in the legacy of the White Stripes. Now, we are told, we apparently don't have a part to play – except to consume product – and Jack hasn't said why.

I'm sure someone will write and ask why I'm complaining that my entitlement has disappeared or why I felt this was ever okay to do. Good questions – but I'm not complaining, just wondering why there's a change in a laissez faire policy that's been in effect for more than ten years.   And I felt it was okay to share ROIO because I'm quite sure they never cost a sale.

On the contrary, folks who share files usually buy a lot of merchandise. I buy a rock bottom minimum of $240 a year from Third Man, since I'm a Vault member and that's what it costs. I buy official releases as they come out, t shirts, posters and the usual doodads. I have a Raconteurs stylophone! If that's not buying product, I don't know what is. And on the other hand, having access to the live files means we can interest new fans. I'm not big on the White Stripes myself, but I'm told those live shows are blistering, and a listen to those can turn waverers  into fans like a switch being thrown.

I'm equally sure that Brendan Benson, Little Jack Lawrence, Patrick Keeler and Dean Fertita were enjoying having these advertisements for their songwriting and playing and (in three of their cases) general rock and roll badassery being circulated by fans. No need to inveigle anyone to click on a photo of one weird tip here – people are actually seeking out these performances and listening to them and then going out and buying more – it's a marketer's dream. 

So what did we do to make you mad this time, baby?

***

The Dead Weather, Halloween 2009

Breathtaking video of their Shoreditch 2009 performance. No idea how this got onto the interwebs or whether there's more, but for all Jack White and Dead Weather fans, this performance of Treat Me Like Your Mother is a real big deal.

Mercy Lounge, Americana Music Festival 2010

Just back from an evening of watching Dale Watson, Wanda Jackson and the Dex Romweber Duo in Nashville. What an excellent time, particularly seeing a bunch of under-21's (judging by the magic marker on their hands) grooving to a rockabilly queen. You may recall my astonishment at the advanced age of the people we've seen so far on this trip - well, 73 year old Wanda attracted the exceptions.

Oh, there was one old timer boogeing by the side of the stage. Jack White was there. You know you've picked a decent dance club when someone like that turns up. (LJ was around as well, which proves the groove.)

More in the morning...oh, it is the morning. Well, more later, then.

The Dead Weather, Don Hill's, August 4 2010

I guess that wasn't the last ever Dead Weather show. For some reason they played to an invite-only crowd of 'hipsters' at Don Hills in New York on the 4th. Jackie Boy got pissed off at them acting like hipsters (one wonders what he expected) and produced another f-bomb rant that is all over the interwebs this morning. They're all getting it wrong, though - he doesn't say he'll pour their free drinks down their throats - that would be silly. He says they should pour their free drinks down their pants, which is much funnier. And the press has the timing of the ejection of the photographer wrong.

Because lo, even though Jack White is in a black mood with photographers, there's always someone out of his reach filming him, so here is the rant and the ejection in glorious blackandwhitenicolor. (NSFW)




The band looks completely exhausted. Well, except for Little Jack who I suspect isn't actually human, but some incarnation of a particularly R&B-inclined Hindu god.

The band have two major soap opera songs that I and a few friends watch to try to figure out the body language. One is the often violent I Can't Hear You, and one is the deeply intimate Will There Be Enough Water. Anyone who's seen a performance of the latter before can't miss the nuances in body language here, from the very first moment as Alison Mosshart looks at Jack's face to check his mood before she has to get close to him to get her drink.



A friend called that "painful to watch". Here's a much happier one. For Dead Weather values of "happy" which really don't match the ones in the dictionary.



This band is more fun than watching orcas at SeaWorld! But they really do need a rest. And anyway, that t shirt's worn out now, so I guess it's a good time to wrap it all up.

The Dead Weather, Hollywood Palladium, July 21st 2010

That was indeed a weird show. I enjoyed it, but I'm going to rate it as "differently enjoyable".

(Teaser post yesterday featuring drunk Jack attempting to stand up and sing here.)

The support band was Harlem. I'd seen them supporting the Dead Weather in San Diego two days before and I thought they were good. They have an energetic retro sound that reminds me a bit of The Ramones and a lot of The Jam, but with nice clear 60s punk and R&B vocals over the top. Today was a different story. They played about four similar songs, endlessly tuning and talking between them. The sound at the Palladium is bad, and I couldn't tell what they were talking about. Possibly others couldn't tell either, or maybe it was just boring banter because most of the crowd didn't respond to it either. Eventually, one of the singers said, "We should have brought airplane pillows for you guys to rest your heads on." Yep, when music falls flat blame the audience.

They played some other low-battery tunes and eventually one of them said, "Hey, Palladium, is it because we're a tiny little band that doesn't matter?" In front of me one woman was doing wrist stretches and another was looking at a gallery of baby pictures on her phone. Then they tried the never-fail opening band standby, "Is anybody here excited about the Dead Weather?" LA knows manipulative speech when it hears it and didn't respond. Then they had a prolonged sotto voce discussion about what they were going to play for the last song. One of them suggested rock and roll, which they debated for literally a minute, but another recommended "the opposite of rock and roll". So they finished on a slow number and left quietly, as in you could have heard a pin drop.



Jack introduces the band with the comment about how he's hoping "gentlemen admirers" contact him while he's in California. (I think that can be arranged, Jack. Do you bottom or top?)


Then behatted suited men arrived and started arranging familiar things around the stage. Jack's Sam Kay drum set, half a dozen gorgeous guitars, boot-scuffed monitors. Behind Jack's stool was a Jacob's Ladder, staple of Frankenstein films. The young men behind me hadn't ever seen one before, although when I briefly explained it, they immediately saw the similarity to a Tesla coil, so Jack is certainly helping improve the education in this country when it comes to Steampunk physics. On top of four of the lighting towers were blue-horned animal busts. I'm thinking they were wild sheep, goat, oryx and bongo, though the latter could have been an antelope. During the support act they were covered up. One of the roadies came to the front of the stage, took a bow, and took off the cover of each one in turn while the audience screamed. This struck me as really weird. I mean I've known people who invented religions - no, I really do know people who have invented religions- and that's a bit weird. But getting 4000 people to scream at a goat within two weeks of the introduction of the idol is pretty good going.

For the first time in the six or so shows I've seen, instead of going straight from Captain Beefheart to racket to 60 Feet Tall (or other chosen opener) they messed around. Jack walked to the front with his hat on, ostentatiously popped a champagne cork and arrogantly chucked it into the crowd. He then pouted his way over to Alison, handed her the bottle, got behind his kit and then the band went into 60 Feet Tall.

60 Feet Tall with intro. You can't really see Jack hurl the cork, but you can see him swearily hand over the champage bottle to Alison.

60 Feet Tall.
Jack attempting to remove a champagne cork while off his tree.

60 Feet Tall

Good shots of the goat or whatever it is

The crowd erupted like a BP deep-sea oil well with an inoperative blowout preventer, and immediately there was no chance to take notes, no chance to even stay on my feet. Between and during songs there were at least three rants from Jack. The sound was so bad I couldn't tell what they were about until I saw the videos on YouTube the next day. I asked the guy behind me about one, and he said, "Something about the governor and money". It turned out to be a tirade about a plan to put Ronald Reagan's mug on the $50 bill. The words "motherfucking" and "goddamn" featured prominently. For You Just Can't Win, Jack was helped to the front of the stage by a bearded guy dressed as a roadie and was held up swaying for a moment like James motherfucking Brown before singing the song straight, if rather drunkenly. (See yesterdays post for a video.)

I Cut Like A Buffalo

By the middle of the set, I had to get out of there. I'd ricked my knee two days before, dancing in San Diego to the sounds of um, that would be The Dead Weather, and had no strength to push away marauders. Two tall skinny young ladies managed to force their way that deep into the crowd, squashed the woman in front of me and stood there with their cameras. One held it with her hand against her shoulder when not in use so the lit white screen was covering my view of the stage and blinding me at the same time. The crowd was pushing so hard - not moshing, just pushing - that I was lifted off the floor and my ribs were getting crushed. The squashed girl in front of me bailed - and I'd promised her she was going to have a good time seeing this band, too. Another strong, fit-looking woman gave up then. I couldn't see, and I was close to being injured, so I also made my way to the back, limped up to the balcony and watched the band from a distance. The sound was poor there, but not as bad as in the auditorium. I still couldn't hear what Jack was saying. At least I could watch Alison, who had hair the size of a B1 bomber (and it stayed that way - she must have solved her "entire can of hairspray" problem).

I stood next to the mixing desk at one point and watched the lighting man. He had a mixer almost as big as the sound guy's, with lots of sliders and knobs and sequencers. His fingers danced to make the banks of lights complement the music and action and I really admired him - his instrument looked at least as difficult as the musicians' instruments. When the song I watched finished, he jumped back and shouted "Fuck yeah!" completely in the moment.

I can't hear you
I've only watched it once, but it appears Jack falls over twice and jumps off the stage once. Or maybe he just fell three times.

Hang You From the Heavens


Die By the Drop


On the way home down the lovely concrete delta of 101 to I5, my mp3 player shuffled up Grace Jones' My Jamaican Guy, followed it with something else - actually Marilyn Manson's Beautiful People - and then Kid 'n' Play's Undercover, which samples the main riff of My Jamaican Guy. Sometimes it's like it knows it's doing this.

Hussle and Cuss

I Cut Like a Buffalo
With tipsy dance at the beginning and bonus rant. He looks a bit like a very large leprechaun.

Eurockéennes -The Dead Weather

I thought I'd lay off the Dead Weather for a while, but they've forced me back into it. Here they are at Eurockéennes, Belfort city. It's a killer version of Will There Be Enough Water, which is a standout track any time, but here is a total motherfucker. As a bonus, Jack gets to insult a moron who climbs on the stage, Little Jack completely kills it with a Bonham-level assault on the drums at the end, and Jack (playfully) knocks Baby Ruthless over, once again. The Dead Weather are playing the sort of shows that haven't been seen for thirty years and might never be seen again. I'm going to see them twice this month because I do know what I got before it's gone, and it might be gone in a couple of months.

Blue Blood

However much I may blame the blue bloods for the (now inescapable) disasters overtaking the country, I have to put in a plug for The Dead Weather, and the video for their new single, Blue Blood Blues.



Can't argue with true groove, right?

Thrill of the chase

I spent most of yesterday evening chasing a Dead Weather video. It appeared online in the morning and was immediately taken down by Warner Bros. But video files are virtual and a copy went up elsewhere. I missed that too, missed the next one and eventually found it at fuckyeahalisonmosshart, home to many good things. They got the takedown notice eventually too. It's currently available on antiquiet, here. It will probably be gone by the time you read this, but it'll be back somewhere shortly.

Die by the Drop is a great song; I love it. It suggests good things about the new album, Sea of Cowards, due in May. It's taking me a bit longer to like the video, which has the production values of Ed Wood, minus the rubber octopus (despite being directed by Floria Sigismondi, of The Runaways fame). Everyone looks evil and sinister in it, which is cool, and Alison digs a grave with her bare hands, which is even cooler, and everybody is incredibly clean and well-behaved in that lovely American way. (It looks like they shower between every take and get new clothes as fast as tennis players get new balls.) I will work on willfully suspending my disbelief, because, friends, of course I saved the video. It was great fun chasing it down but I'm not going to spend all of tonight on it as well.



Alison and Jack look amazing in it, but due to time constraints (late for work again!) we have to make do with a screensnap of Dean and LJ. The latter appears to have grown a beard, which really doesn't work in real life, but looks suitably sinister in the video. Dean is a rock god. Oops, that just slipped out.

The Dead Weather in Auckland

The Dead Weather are touring again - in New Zealand and Australia. It's summer there. Perhaps they fancied a bit of sun? No, that can't be right - I have an interview with them at Glastonbury or somewhere blinking in the sunlight like naked mole rats and Jack White says, "Do we look like sun people to you?"

Videos are creeping in already, but so far I haven't seen anything on the new songs from the upcoming album Sea of Cowards, which is due out at the end of April. Please tape the new songs, Australian people! I'd love to see them. (I know Jack White doesn't want me to and would prefer me to wait, but hey, you go your way and I'll go mine.)

I see Alison is still wearing what a friend of mine calls The Amazing Disintegrating T Shirt. (I think she has a team of groupies who pick at it all night long while she sleeps; my friend thinks she does it herself. But where would she find the time?) Dean is looking good and Jack has a new picture on his drum head. Same backdrop, though. Can't actually see or hear what LJ is up to on this video but I'm sure he's his fierce self over there.

[Video link died]

Thanks, taper/uploader Pinksta who says, "This show is incredible and if you miss it you ll literally kick your self in the head!!!!"

Which I'd like to be able to do. Not actually do it, of course, but be flexible enough to do it.

Roll on April and Las Vegas.