There's an interesting interview with Jack White up at Pitchfork. The introduction lists rules that interviewers must follow according to Jack's management. This might seem arrogant on Jack's part, but imagine the number of interviews that guy gives, and who he's giving the interviews to. Interview #5613 with Joe Asshole from Asshole Rock Quarterly probably gets a bit tedious. I don't blame him at all, and he comes across as a good guy in every interview I've ever read.
I've heard people with otherwise decent taste say that the White Stripes are overrated. If anything, I'd argue the opposite. They are the only mainstream act that has consistently exceeded my expectations and I have a great time listening to their music. It makes me feel like dancing while screaming, "Fuck you universe, I love you anyway!", whatever that means. I haven't listened to Icky Thump yet, but I look forward to it.
Didn't you say they sucked live?
ReplyDeleteThey weren't as exciting as I thought they'd be, but Jack was recovering from an arm injury and was performing his first concert in a while.
ReplyDeleteFair enough.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Jack saved me some blogging time by sharing the exact same viewpoint as me in regards to these two questions:
Pitchfork: Do you think that bands who take months and months-- or years and years in the case of Axl Rose-- have just lost the plot?
White: I think there's too much opportunity. In general, opportunity tends to kill creativity. I think people don't realize that. A painter goes into an art supplies store and sees all these different colours and supplies and thinks, "Oh, goody! This is going to make me a better painter." Of course it's not. It's just going to make it harder to decide what not to use and what not to do. That's what happens with a group of 20-year-old kids who walk into a studio with ProTools and a computer and they can record 400 tracks if they want to. Maybe now with the state of the music industry they'll start spending less on albums and people will go back to reality. They should put up a plaque in every studio that says, "The Beatles recorded Revolver and Sgt. Pepper on four tracks." That'll clear everyone's head.
Pitchfork: Because of the way you work and think, do you think that you're a bit of a man out of time? Do you ever wish you could have been around in the 1950s or 60s?
White: I don't know about that. I do know that whenever a thing is made, like a guitar or an amplifier or a reel-to-reel tape machine, there comes a point where that's as good as it's going to get and they're not going to make it any better. And that's the case with the Fender twin reverb amplifier and the Fender Telecaster or the four-track tape recorder. They didn't become better when they became 24 tracks, you know? They just became easier to use. And ease of use doesn't necessarily mean better, you know? That's where the romance gets lost. But I don't want my records to sound like they were made in 1956. I think that's a misconception of our band. I despise the words "retro" and "reissue" and "replica." To try to imitate and replicate something is just a death.