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 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.

Brendan Benson and Dean Fertita

Bah. I saw BB on Sunday in San Diego on Sunday and he was great. But I missed out on the LA show a couple of days earlier, when Dean Fertita (of the Dead Weather) joined him onstage.



I loved my show but I love that more!

Brendan Benson: From 1930 to 2010 in one evening

I went to see Brendan Benson last night and had a great time.




BlackBerry photo more for purposes of proving I was there than
adding to the world's supply of Brendan Benson pictures.

I'm used to watching Benson on videos of the Raconteurs playing to 150,000 people jumping up and down at a festival. It was a touch cognitively dissonant to see him live for the first time playing to about 300 discriminating customers in a bar in San Diego - an agreeable place called the Belly Up.

The support act was Frank Fairfield, an amazingly accomplished folk-blues singer. He opened with a Robert Johnson number, in which his (Frank's) mumbled asides matched Robert Johnson's mumbed asides perfectly. He was instrumentally perfect on guitar, banjo and fiddle and came out with a great show that would have wowed anyone, white or black, any time in the 1930s and maybe 1940s too. He did make the mistake (in my eyes) of playing Cumberland Gap, which for any British people my age is owned by Lonnie Donnegan so any other rendition is a cover. (Odd that I don't feel that way about the Robert Johnson opener, but maybe some Americans can take that one on for me.) He had the stage presence of a sleepy three-toed sloth, but played like a maniac.

The place began to fill up during the intermission and Brendan Benson took the stage. I don't know all of his solo stuff, having only heard Lapalco and the recent My Old, Familiar Friend. I'd characterize his stuff as beautifully written, intelligent and lyrically outstanding, with a Beatles-like understanding of harmony and pop hooks. But with a little less...oomph...than I usually like. No worries tonight. Live, the oomph appears. I got up from behind my pile of loaded potato skins and went to the uncrowded dancefloor and stepped out. There wasn't exactly a mosh pit out there, I have to say.

Someone threw Benson a hand-made t shirt which read "Who the f#ck is Jack White?" which made him laugh, and then we were back to power pop. Brendan Benson live is definitely worth checking out.