The White Stripes - "Icky Thump" era (June 19)

[busyboy]

Aww, poor Electra, but she really should have leaked a 192kbps herself...

I got it just to give it a preview (I've already preordered it: June 15 around here!) and it sounds good to me, after just one listen.

[roentgenizdat]

Rolling Stone: 15 Can't-Miss Summer Tours

The White Stripes
June 17th-July 31st
Tickets: $30-$50

Singer-guitarist Jack White and drummer Meg White are heading way off the beaten track on the White Stripes' first tour in two years. They will play shows in the far north of Canada as well as at Bonnaroo, Madison Square Garden and a blues festival -- a first for the Stripes -- in Ottawa. "A lot of people don't know that we have anything to do with the blues," says Jack. "But every time we sing or play a note, that's the root of it -- the blues."

After the Raconteurs, how does it feel going back to the power of two?

The Raconteurs are more of a conventional band. I play a guitar solo, and the other guys keep going behind it. In the White Stripes, I play rhythm and lead at the same time. I constantly keep the show going. And there is an intensity between Meg and I that I can't comprehend at times. I know it pushes me to do better, to do more than I would. I've got that vibe in my brain: "I got to keep it going."

How will you arrange songs from Icky Thump for the stage? In "I'm Slowly Turning Into You," there's organ and glam guitar. Which will you play live?

Some nights I'll play it on organ, some nights on guitar. Or some nights I'll play one with one hand and one with the other [laughs]. The good thing about the White Stripes is we get to decide when and where to break our own rules.

The tour includes unusual stops like Montana and Alaska -- and the Yukon Territory, which is way uptown.

We're playing the last sixteen states we haven't been to yet, and we're playing every province and territory in Canada. We've never done a tour of Canada, even after all these years.

And the White Stripes are headlining at the Garden for the first time.

I don't even know what the Garden looks like -- I'm not from New York [laughs]. I never imagined the White Stripes, a two-piece band, could play that place. It's unbelievable.

[busyboy]

"Effect And Cause" live on Later With Jools Holland

[roentgenizdat]

The White Stripes' new 7-inch single free in NME this week!

Vinyl pressers overseas worked round the clock to bring you the most historic covermount in over a decade - our seven-inch vinyl copy of the new White Stripes single.

Pressed onto red vinyl with a special etching designed exclusively by Jack White, this unique record release of 'Rag & Bone', the band's first from forthcoming album 'Icky Thump', forced French based manufacturers Moulages Plastiques de l'Ouest to employ extra manpower to cope with capacity demand.

Covermount sales manager Andy Higgins told NME that over 120,000 copies have been pressed for the exclusive release - the biggest vinyl order the company has dealt with in over 15 years.

"When I told our workers how many copies needed pressing, they thought I was talking about a yearly capacity because normally, the vinyl industry isn't geared up for this kind of order," he explained. "CDs are geared up for high volumes but the vinyl industry is only geared for up to 4,000 copies in any one order. So they couldn't believe their ears when they realised it was for one order alone."

Production has been based at MPO's main vinyl pressing plant in France along with an outer branch in the Czech Republic.

Formed out a family business by Monique et Pierre de Poix in 1957, the company has previously pressed vinyl over the years for the likes of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Of the pressing process, Higgins said: "(Legendary indie label and home to The White Stripes) Beggars Banquet handed us the artwork for the cover and the special etching on the 7" and we produced a stamper for both of them. In this case we had to produce quite a lot of stampers because they normally wear out after two or three thousand pressings every time. We've gone through a lot of them I can tell you that.

"In terms of the vinyl itself we were given a colour match which we tried to get as close to the colour the record company requested as we could. Basically the process starts off with the vinyl looking clear and then we just put a red pigment in to cover the vinyl itself."

The exclusive seven-inch comes in special gatefold packaging, which not only features more exclusive artwork from the band, but also contains space for The White Stripes' official seven-inch comeback single 'Icky Thump', out on June 11.

That track will also feature a special etching, so that when the two are combined they will become an essential part of The White Stripes' history.

"It's been a very tough challenge but it's been great fun to get involved with something like this because we normally only ever do CD cover mounts. To work on a seven-inch cover mount is fantastic and just goes to show that vinyl is still very much alive and kicking," Higgins concluded.

[busyboy]

Leaked for good this time.

[busyboy]

Here are the Icky Thump Apple Lossless Format USB drives. How cool are they?

[reception]

Jun 13, 11:03 AM EDT
The White Stripes Play for British Vets

LONDON (AP) -- The White Stripes won some new fans during an intimate and unusual gig at a home for elderly British military veterans.

The Detroit duo, dressed in their customary red and white, played for some 20 scarlet-clad Chelsea Pensioners on Tuesday. The retired servicemen, residents of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, wore red tunics and black tricorn hats modeled on the uniforms of 17th-century soldiers.

Jack and Meg White played an acoustic set in the hospital's oak-paneled state apartments, where Mozart once performed.

In contrast to many of the rock band's shows, the audience sat quietly in rows of chairs during the six-song set, which included the White Stripes' hit "Hotel Yorba" and the traditional "St. James Infirmary Blues."

"Fantastic!" said retiree Paddy Fox. "Normally we only get the odd carol service in here."

The White Stripes are playing British dates to promote their new album, "Icky Thump," which will be released next Tuesday by Warner Bros.

They plan to donate proceeds from another show in London this week to help fund a new infirmary at the Chelsea hospital.

The hospital, founded in 1692, houses elderly veterans on army pensions and those who have been wounded in battle. It is being redeveloped as it prepares to admit women for the first time.

[oscillations.]

holy fucking shet you guys

I'm going to their album launch party in NYC! Only 500 tickets were available to the public, the rest are all for the press. My brother (henceforth, called "Hero") braved the early dawn hour & waited (im)patiently until like 1pm, when FINALLY, FINALLY he got our 2 passes. It took a small miracle to get tickets, but for once, luck/fate was on my side.

[busyboy]

^ That's cool! If only I could call my brother a hero too...

"Icky Thump" shots to #2 thanks to the physical release in the UK, best charting single to date there!

[busyboy]

The White Stripes
Icky Thump
[Warner Bros.; 2007]
Rating: 8.0

For all intents and purposes, the White Stripes appeared to be a deceased act in 2006, put on hiatus while Jack White gallivanted the globe with his Midwestern buddies the Raconteurs. The previous year's Get Behind Me Satan, commercial success that it was, sounded in retrospect like a man frustrated with his duo's limited options, fiddling with more keyboards and pedals than previous Stripes LPs. Coupled with White's perceptible glee at the Raconteurs' expanded sonic palette and shared frontman duties-- not to mention the more diverse wardrobe options-- some believed it unlikely he'd don the red-and-white again any time soon.

Icky Thump, then, is a bit of a resurrection: Reuniting with Meg gives Jack the opportunity to slip back into sister-lover character, get his weird clothes out of attic, and return to basement blues. After the straightforward radio-rock trappings of the Raconteurs, Icky Thump packs an unexpected freshness, even given its back-to-basics premise; had it come immediately after Satan, it could have seemed like a cynical, regressive gift to the core fanbase, but following Broken Boy Soldiers, it recaptures a sense of goofy fun and a caustic edge that the duo haven't possessed since White Blood Cells launched them to the A-list.

Paradoxically recorded over what qualifies as a marathon session for the Stripes (a whole three weeks), Icky Thump re-assembles most of the scrap-heap elements that characterized the White Stripes' pre-fame trilogy-- grimy garage-blues, a left-field cover, bizarre spoken-word bits, shameless Zeppelin and Dylan cues. The most obvious concession to progression is White's instrument sound, with tones so aggressively tweaked one can often no longer tell if he's playing a guitar sounding like a keyboard or a keyboard being played like a guitar (prediction for the next White Stripes album gimmick: keytar).

The leadoff title track declares this territory nicely, alternating an overdriven, tortured organ with savage guitar jabs, already proving a better integration of keys and frets than Satan's marimba experiments, while "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" blends Wurlitzer verses with fuzz-guitar choruses almost seamlessly. Later, "St. Andrew (The Battle Is in the Air)" finds White facing off against bagpipes (yes, bagpipes) with chainsaw seizures, and "Conquest" sees him trading shrieking Casio tones with a trumpeter.

Yet, Icky Thump also treats us to a band that once again seems comfortable in its older sounds, be it the reverb-thud hammer of "Little Cream Soda", the British Invasion 12-bar of "300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues", or the back-porch ditty of "Effect & Cause". Perennially dismissed, Meg White once again puts the lie to the theory that John Bonham like totally made Led Zeppelin bro, squeezing the most from her shallow repertoire and unsteady tempo when locking in with Jack on classic Stripes-stomp breakdowns like the one in "You Don't What Love Is", where raw talent takes a backseat to chemistry. The duo's effortless dynamic on "Bone Broke" flippantly dismisses the garage-rock trend starting to tiresomely re-bubble yet again amongst the indie dregs, showing that world tours haven't taken them too far away from sweaty suburban Detroit house-parties.

But unlike most other 10th-time-around Nuggets revivalists, the Stripes don't settle for endlessly rewriting "96 Tears", as the record's two weirdest (and maybe best) cuts prove. "Conquest", with its theatrical vocal and faux-mariachi fanfares, teases a promising revved-up early Scott Walker direction, until you realize that it's a meticulous recreation of the Patti Page original. "Rag & Bone" with its spoken-word verses, might appear to be novelty skit-song, but is practically a thesis statement for a band that loves to write songs about itself, casting Jack and Meg as junk collectors with a way-creepy relationship, prone to amphetamine rambles and big, chunky rock choruses.

If there's a complaint to be registered about Icky Thump, it's that certain aspects of the Stripes' early character appear to have been annexed off: The sweet pop of "You're Pretty Good Lookin' (For a Girl)" is apparently Raconteurs property nowadays, and White's country dalliances (i.e. "Hotel Yorba") are totally absent. Revisiting old territory also carries with it the hazard of backward comparison, and the highest highs of Icky can't quite reach the altitude of the band's breakthrough singles, but some of that inadequacy is tempered by the group's more robust sound-- De Stijl now feels anorexic in a side-by-side taste-test. Whether it was remembering their own advice from "Little Room", or the act of semi-faking the Stripes death, White's strategy appears to have worked its rejuvenating magic, allowing them to roll back the stone on Icky Thump.

-Rob Mitchum, June 18, 2007

[roentgenizdat]

The White Stripes score biggest-selling vinyl single

The White Stripes have scored the biggest-selling vinyl single in the UK with 'Icky Thump'.

The track which went in at Number Two in yesterday's (June 17) chart managed to break the 10,000 sales barrier for the seven-inch version of the single in just two days last week (June 11-16).

According to Music Week, Wet Wet Wet's 'Love Is All Around' was the last single to sell more than 50,000 vinyl singles, but that was over 15 weeks, and only sold 4,770 seven-inches in its biggest sales week.

The success of the single has been partly credited to the band's decision to give away a free companion seven-inch single 'Rag And Bone' with issues of NME earlier in the month.

'Rag And Bone' was given away on red vinyl and came with packaging that left space for the white seven-inch of 'Icky Thump'

"With this collaboration with NME, we felt that it could work on one or two levels," explained XL Recordings chairman and CEO Richard Russell. "It gives consumers something amazing and it has the attention to detail that The White Stripes always apply to everything they do."

[oscillations.]

www.metacritic.com/music/artists/whitestripes/ickythump


This is before the less-than-expected 3.5 star review from Rolling Stone (I got it in the mail today). For a band that has scored 4.5 and FIVE STAR reviews at this publication, I was taken aback this time around. I haven't listened to the album yet, but it seemed the main complaint was not the music itself, but the band's image & function/role in pop culture. The writer claims that Jack White's stock in trade is disingenuity - which I think is a.) false (oblique? self-mythologizing? ambiguous? f**k yeah, their overall package is all of these, but isn't that a large part of what makes this band special, iconic, & mysterious?) B.) NOT to the detriment of the music. C.) improper criteria with which to judge the product (here, an album) 's merits/weaknesses (FOR AN ALBUM REVIEW, focus on the music itself, not the artist!). The intentionality behind the output isn't really all that important (although, this topic continues wage bloodshed in the art theory community...Francis Bacon's paintings come to mind, and I flip-flop on the issue myself...it's a very difficult & maybe insolvable issue). But for now, and with relative confidence, I posit that it's not WHAT the artist says that's relevant, but HOW the music says it, and HOW WELL the artist uses their medium to express it. [Of course, under this formalist approach, one could find artistic (if not ideological) merit in neo-Nazi music, if the aesthetics allowed for it...I've considered this, and I don't know how I would review such a release. But extreme exceptions can't determine the general standard].

Anyway...I can't wait for tomorrow!

[busyboy]

Out today in the US!

[reception]

Reviewed by Edna Gundersen
USA Today

The White Stripes, Icky Thump: * * * (out of four) Thumps up

The title tweaks the British phrase “ecky thump,” an expression of surprise, and though unexpected jolts indeed abound on the latest effort by indie-rock duo Jack and Meg White, not every twist is a treat. Meg’s minimalist drumming remains the rickety foundation for Jack’s scalding guitars and tasty snarl on the continuation of a noisy, ramshackle roots revival shot with razor wit and speed-freak energy. This eccentric comfort zone yields raw primal rockers and caustic blues, as well as such imaginative hybrids as the surf-metallic Little Cream Soda, a brilliant basher. The Stripes also deliver the aggro-goods in the Southern-drawled Catch Hell Blues and blues-rocking You Don’t Know What Love Is (You Just Do as You’re Told), a clever tango between snide lyrics and blissed-out guitar. Jack’s gift for deft wordplay shines throughout, particularly in humorous spoken-word track Rag and Bone and Lolita-like ballad A Martyr for My Love for You.

Thump, recorded in three weeks at Nashville’s Blackbird Studio, turns icky when Jack stops weighing whims and simply surrenders to them. Then, cynical rants cross a line into sermonizing, and playful experiments stretch into annoying novelties. How else to explain the grating bagpipe on Scottish romp Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn? The mariachi-bolstered Conquest, a Corky Robbins tune dug up from the 1950s, comes across as a neo-flamenco From Dusk Till Dawn outtake. Next time, hold the queso.

[oscillations.]

The show was phenomenal. It took a lot out of me, so I don't really have the memory or creative stamina to write about it now. But I took some (probably eyewateringly s**te) photos & I'll try to post some kind of account later about it. I got a special collector's shirt - made just for the NYC show, for FIVE f**kING BUCKS. Amazing.

I met Karen Elson, Jack's wife. She's one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen.
It was an honor to be in her presence.

P.S. I totally ran into Jessica Stam in the bathroom. And I didn't even realize it until today, because I was really focused on brushing my hair. I briefly glanced at this person who smiled at me and I smiled back, without really paying much attention to her. But I noticed she was talking to her friend about the guest list, and how nice it was for Jack to put her on it, and about how fast he & his wife work on making babies, etc. I thought she looked a bit familiar, but again, somehow it didn't click. But today it did. And she was spotted by others, too.

Celebs spotted (from a blog):
Macaulay Culkin, The Raveonettes, The Kills, Jim Jarmush, Elena Chistensen, Michael Sheen (also know as The guy who played
Tony Blair on The Queen), Ryan Gentles, Josh Harnett, Angella Lindval, Drea de Matteo, Brendan Benson, Michael Fox, Rufus
Wainwright, Danny Masterson, Jessica Stam (You know the usual suspects...)

[Love Plastic Love]

busyboy said:

Here are the Icky Thump Apple Lossless Format USB drives. How cool are they?

OMG WANT!!!

[davidsask]

I never hated this band but now love them just for opening their tour in obcure less played venues around Canada, including my city

[busyboy]

White Stripes Frontman Says Icky Thump Leak Angered Him As A Label Exec
'Jack White the singer and songwriter isn't reacting to you; it's the president of Third Man Records,' he says of heated phone call to Chicago radio station.

By James Montgomery

MANCHESTER, Tennessee — White Stripes mastermind Jack White has some explaining to do about "Icky Thump," the first single and title track from the band's just-released sixth album.

"That song is about people using other people," White said from the just-wrapped Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival (see "Bonnaroo Recap: White Stripes, Police, Lily Allen Bring Heat To Already Scorching Fest"). "The theme is 'Who's using who?' ... But one moment of it felt like, I didn't want people to confuse this character, who seems to be using this prostitute across the border. I wanted it to be taken as a metaphor for other things, so it seemed like a good time to talk about immigration. People think it's a thing that's come up in the last year or something, but it's been a ridiculous thing that's bothered people throughout U.S. history. I think when things get crazy in America's history, people turn to issues like immigration to throw people off the scent a little bit."

It's probably the first bit of sociopolitical commentary in the duo's decade-long career, and while the issue White's singing about is a timeless one, it's the bit about "people using other people" that makes it seem like he could've written the song last week.

See, ever since Chicago radio station Q101 made the decision to play a leaked version of Icky Thump in its entirety late last month (see "White Stripes Frontman Thumps Radio Station For Playing Leaked LP") — a decision that prompted White to phone the station while the Stripes were on tour in Spain — he's felt a little used.

But up until now, he hasn't really done much talking about it.

"When you're famous, you're not allowed to have any kind of reaction unless it's completely positive and saying, 'I love rainbows and stars,' on Entertainment Weekly or 'Entertainment Tonight' or whatever those shows are called," White said. "But this radio station — in this instance — I was having a private conversation with somebody, and they wanted to exploit it and try to make even more press out of the situation. But that's what usually happens nowadays. ... Jack White the singer and songwriter isn't reacting to you; it's the president of Third Man Records — our record label — calling you and asking for an explanation. I'm not screaming and yelling at anybody. I'm just saying, 'Who did it? Tell me why you did it.' [They reacted] like I called up and threatened to burn down the building or something. For God's sake."

(Watch Jack White open up about the radio-station incident right here.)

And though he's plenty ticked about the situation, White is willing to chalk it up to "the times we live in." Which — for a guy who seems to draw inspiration from a different era entirely — is a pretty big step. Still, he'd be lying if he said he didn't pine for the days when people, well, waited for things.

"I think it's a shame for generations coming up that everything is 'now, now, now' and that they're getting everything from a mouse click. We have people who get upset that you can only buy a T-shirt at our shows," he laughed. "That's upsetting to people. So it's kinda hard in this age where you get everything instantly to tell people that they have to wait. Let alone if it's the rules. People can't help but rebel against any kind of rules.

"I think everyone is like, 'Big deal, it's not my fault. Everyone's doing it. Everyone's downloading,' but it's about the rules and who chooses to follow them," he continued. "We're all in the business together — record labels and musicians and songwriters and radio stations and MTV — everyone's in that together. And if they don't all respect each other, the foundation crumbles. It's obvious."

[reception]

Jun 21, 12:41 PM EDT
White Stripes Back to Hard-Rocking Blues

By SANDY COHEN
AP Entertainment Writer

White Stripes, "Icky Thump" (Warner Bros.)

Maybe it's too much to say that the White Stripes saved rock 'n' roll, but the Detroit duo certainly energized it with their daring, blues-drenched sound.

Since their 1999 straight-from-the-garage debut, Jack and Meg White have upped the intensity and creativity on each of their five albums. The pseudo-siblings deliver again on the sixth, "Icky Thump" - a raucous, foot-stomping record that makes a satisfying follow-up to 2005's folk-tinged "Get Behind Me Satan."

Where "Satan" was subdued, "Thump" stands up and demands attention.

The slide guitar is snarly and unforgiving on "Catch Hell Blues." "Little Cream Soda" is fueled by a driving bassline and heavy-metal riffs. The playful "Rag and Bone" is good ol' rocking blues, and "Bone Broke" is so stripped down, it could have been on the band's first album.

The Stripes always inject their music with a shot of unpredictability: they change tempo mid-song, punctuate acoustic tracks with episodes of heavy distortion and fearlessly sample from a range of influences and instruments.

They turn to tango trumpets for a Latin-flavored cover of Patti Page's "Conquest" and weave bagpipes and mandolin through the Celtic-inspired "A Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn."

Jack White shows his Zeppelin roots on "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" and "You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told)," channeling Jimmy Page and Robert Plant on chops and vocals.

But he keeps on reaching for something fresh, making new Stripes' music - and, by extension, rock 'n' roll - something to be excited about.

CHECK THIS OUT: The title track gives a taste of what the album is about: hard rock with thumping drums and slithery guitar solos, with a defiant Jack White getting down.

[roentgenizdat]

White Stripes Celebrate New Album With Club Show

June 20, 2007, 10:30 AM ET
Michael D. Ayers, N.Y.

Fresh off a scorching Bonnaroo performance on Sunday night, the White Stripes played a two-hour, 26 song set at the intimate Fillmore at Irving Plaza last night (Jun. 19) in New York. The show coincided with the release of their new album, "Icky Thump," but featured a host of songs from the Stripes' back catalog.

Jack White was in good spirits, offering up guitar solos when he could, aborting a couple of songs before they got going and even encouraging the crowd to sing the verses to "Apple Blossom" while he and drummer Meg White played the music.

White didn't say hello until about 20 minutes in, when he abandoned the Dolly Parton-penned "Jolene" after one verse. As the crowd erupted, the Stripes launched into a raucous "Hotel Yorba" that eventually segued into the opening chords of "I Think I Smell a Rat." White then proceeded to tease numerous songs at length, including "Jack the Ripper," "Astro" and the Dick Dale tune "Misirlou," before kicking in the vocals.

White is augmenting numerous songs with a keyboard (presumably brought along to help with the "Icky Thump" tunes) but he isn't limiting its use to new material. "In the Cold, Cold Night" and "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" both benefited from what appeared to be improvised keyboard arrangements.

Of the new songs, lead single "Icky Thump" sounded best in the small venue, with Meg's bass drum pounding especially loud, and White taking his vocals in a much different direction than on the record. A drawn-out, bluesy "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" also convinced the audience the new songs can hold their own.

The White Stripes will play Los Angeles tonight at the now defunct flagship Tower Records store in Hollywood. The band's official summer tour gets underway on June 24 in British Columbia.

[busyboy]

#1 album in the UK! Holla at ya boyz!

[Love Plastic Love]

I loooooove them

[busyboy]

Interview: The White Stripes

by Barry Divola

Before you get to talk to Jack White, you're sent a list of "guidelines." There are to be no questions where he has to list favorite records, guitarists, colors, or anything else. No problem. I'm color blind anyway.

There are to be no "silly" questions. The band has preferred photographers. And there are to be no inquiries into his personal life-- "this includes brother/sister, husband/wife questions." This was a bit rich coming from a duo who insisted they were brother and sister to everyone's faces (including mine) back in their early days, only for it to emerge that they used to be married. Jack also famously dated Cold Mountain co-star Renee Zellweger, and two years ago he married English model Karen Elson, reportedly in a canoe on the Amazon (they have a one-year-old daughter Scarlett and are expecting another child this year). All of this was off-limits. "Let's keep it about the music," ordered the management's missive.

Jack now lives in Nashville, where he moved 18 months ago from his hometown of Detroit. Sometimes you can play by the rules but still get what you want-- Jack proved less intimidating than his management, and spoke about smoking, "The Simpsons", haggis, red-headed women, upholstery, and how hard it is to find a guy who plays bagpipes in the key of D. All this came in relation to the new White Stripes album, which has the quite silly title Icky Thump.

Pitchfork: How's the Nashville skyline tonight?

Jack White: Looking real good.

Pitchfork: Enjoying living there?

White: Very much. The best thing I ever did.

Pitchfork: You don't miss Detroit?

White: Not really. There's some really nice buildings in Detroit, and I miss some of those.

Pitchfork: Was it always going to be Nashville?

White: I wanted to be somewhere down in the south. I looked around Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and it just felt right in Nashville. It kept calling out to me for some reason, so I didn't fight it.

Pitchfork: You played the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville recently, and it was the first White Stripes show since December 2005. Was it like getting back on a horse or were you a bit rusty?

White: It was a little of everything. Some things came completely natural and some things I had to think, "How did we do this again?" We just needed to get out there and do one. We'd been rehearsing with a new crew and new gear and all these new songs, of course. So we said, "Let's just play a show and get this out of our system." It's a lot different to rehearsing where you stop to get a drink of water or go to the bathroom. We needed an actual show to jolt us into being where we're used to being.

Pitchfork: Was the reason for the 18-month gap because of personal stuff and working with the Raconteurs?

White: It's pretty tough to tour with both of the bands at the same time. It's not tough to walk on stage with Meg, and walk on stage with the Raconteurs. It's more the crew and the equipment and all that jazz. That's what keeps it from happening. We're trying out new ways to get around that and we're going to get better at it. This is not something everyone does, being in two fully functioning bands at the same time. It's a new thing and we're seeing how it pans out.

We finished the White Stripes album and I just took three weeks off to start work on the new Raconteurs album. We've recorded half the album now. I'm not supposed to be doing that. I'm supposed to be doing press for this new White Stripes record and making videos. But when the songs are coming out you've got to get 'em down, you know? We're going to come back later in the year and get back to work again on the new Raconteurs record, but it's coming out strong.

Pitchfork: Does the fact that you and Meg no longer live in the same city change the dynamic of the White Stripes?

White: Not really. We haven't really lived in the same town for the last couple of albums anyway. Once you start going out on the road for a while and most of your time is spent out there, you come home and it doesn't really feel like home anyway. It's a strange environment.

Pitchfork: Your vocal range seems to be stronger on Icky Thump. Is it true you gave up smoking?

White: Yeah, I gave it up because of my voice. That was almost two years ago now.

Pitchfork: I remember when I last interviewed you when you were touring Australia in 2003, you were basically chain-smoking American Spirits the whole time we talked. So giving up couldn't have been easy, I imagine.

White: Actually, I quit in one day. I've got a pretty strong will. I quit cold turkey and never looked back. Sometimes that's the best thing to do.

Pitchfork: Did you notice your voice improve overnight?

White: No, it took a while actually. Within four or five months it started to come back. But it really took up until now for it to come back to really where it was years ago. I first noticed I was losing my high end when I was working with Loretta Lynn (on 2004's Van Lear Rose). I was trying to demo these songs in front of her and I felt embarrassed that I wasn't hitting these notes. So I stopped lying to myself that the smoking wasn't doing it.

Pitchfork: Let's talk about the title of the new album, Icky Thump. I know that the phrase "ecky thump" is northern English slang, and I'm guessing you got that from your wife.

White: That's true. I did get it from her. It's something she said that was funny. It's basically an exclamation of surprise. So I started yelling it out to kick off every verse in that song. Then I started to get some great metaphors out of it, and I changed it to icky.

Pitchfork: Are you picking up any other English-isms from her?

White: All the time. Instead of the word "that" my wife says "which." You know, if you say, "That garbage can that's over there," she'll say, "That garbage can which is over there." So I like that.

Pitchfork: I noticed there's a red-headed senorita in the lyrics of "Icky Thump" and red-headed women you shouldn't be kissing in "300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues". As your wife's a redhead, can we read anything into this?

White: Well, there's always been a few red-headed women throughout my records. It's just something that pops into my head, I guess.

Pitchfork: With the song "Icky Thump" there's a political angle too, as it touches on the immigration debate.

White: It seems like a timeless sort of thing to me. It's something that's been happening in America for a long time. There's this timeless ridiculousness about one group of people excluding another group of people. It's almost like a children's playground feeling, this "you can't play with us"/"you can't go on that swing set" kind of thing. That kind of notion is just ridiculous for adults to still be thinking like that, trying to find a way to justify those exact same notions.

Pitchfork: Is this as close as you've come to writing a protest song?

White: Well, I don't know about that. It's just one line in the song, man. There's a lot going on in there. The theme of that song is more about who's using who, so I think it related well to what I was saying before. I try to stay away from that stuff because I think it's best left to people who know more about politics to talk about it. It's not my speciality. I don't read the newspaper every day. I don't watch CNN all day long, so there are a lot more people who do their research and can back up what they have to say.

Pitchfork: Plus when people mix pop and politics it can so easily fall flat on its face, can't it?

White: Yeah, that or it can start a riot. One or the other.

Pitchfork: Michel Gondry came to you with the idea for a video and you wrote "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" from that idea, right?

White: That's right. The song came from his idea for a video. From memory, we had dinner with him after he'd already done "The Hardest Button to Button" video for us. I went home and a few days later I started writing that song. I began writing that song before Get Behind Me Satan, but we never got a chance to work on it because there were so many other songs. He hasn't heard the song yet, so I hope he likes it. I think he will, because he likes keyboards, and there's a lot of big Hammond organ in that at one. I hope we get to do the video for the song now. It would be a shame if we didn't.

Pitchfork: Of course, "The Hardest Button to Button" video got the ultimate accolade-- it was parodied when you appeared in "The Simpsons".

White: Sure did. Good for Michel. We were very fortunate they picked us. It was cool of them. It was plain old fun doing the voices on that after watching the show for many years. It was completely bizarre. Those episodes take nine months to make and we recorded a lot of different dialogue, and they pick the best of it. They start of with a lot of ideas and then whittle it down to fit into half an hour. There were a lot of out-takes.

Pitchfork: Can you fill me in on the history of "Conquest", the old Patti Page song you cover on the new album?

White: It was one of her singles that came out in 1952. It was actually a top 20 hit in America, I found out later. I've been wanting to cover it for over a decade now. It was good to do it now because it's the 10-year anniversary of the White Stripes and also it seemed to go along with some of the themes of the songwriting on this album, about who's using who, and role reversal, so that song exemplified those themes. I always root for the underdog in movies and books, but it seldom happens in real life where people that are being manipulated turn the tables, and you really want them to, especially if it's people you know.

Pitchfork: Is the trumpeter on that song really a guy you found playing in a restaurant?

White: Yeah. The funny thing...well, not the funny thing...the tragic thing was that the restaurant where his band played burned down a couple of weeks ago. We were recording the song and I said, "Does anyone know any mariachi trumpeters we can use on this?" And everyone was suggesting these white session guys in Nashville who play trumpet. I grew up in a Mexican neighbourhood in Detroit and I thought it'd be sacrilege if I didn't use a guy from a real mariachi band. [We] started calling around Mexican restaurants to see if any of them had bands, and found this one. They had to bring an interpreter into the studio because he didn't speak English. He was great. He just nailed it.

Pitchfork: There are bagpipes in "Prickly Thorn But Sweetly Worn". What brought this on?

White: Well, that song is about the thistle, which is the national flower of Scotland, and that lent itself to a lot of Scottish themes in the song. I was playing pump organ on the demo of the songs and I thought, "This sounds like bagpipes to me now." So one thing led to another.

Pitchfork: Bagpipes are a tricky proposition in rock music, aren't they? It worked for AC/DC on "It's A Long Way To The Top", but not so well for Wings on "Mull Of Kintyre".

White: It is tricky. Whenever you do odd instrumentation on a song, it becomes a battle. You have to do it in a certain way so it doesn't become pretentious.

Pitchfork: How did yo go about finding a bagpipe player? I presume there are not many Scottish restaurants in Nashville.

White: [Laughs] No. Not much haggis in Nashville. We found him through a musician's union in town. He played in a highland pipe and marching band. He was the only one we found who had bagpipes in the key of D, which is what the song is in. Highland pipes are usually in B flat. So that was very fortunate for us.

Pitchfork: More fortunate for him I would imagine, if he's sitting around waiting for session work in Nashville.

White: [Laughs] I guess so. Not much call for bagpipes in the key of D.

Pitchfork: Or bagpipes in any key, really. It's amazing to think that this was the longest you've ever spent recording an album and it was only three weeks.

White: I guess it's not very long these days.

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.

Pitchfork: Do you think your past life as an upholsterer shaped your thinking this way? Do you see yourself as a craftsman who used to work with furniture, but now works with music?

White: Yeah, when it comes to appreciation for materials and things that are real that you can hold in your hands, definitely. Whenever you work with your hands you start thinking differently. It's like vinyl records compared with music on a computer that isn't visible and has no parts, so it's less appealing.

Pitchfork: Maybe more musicians need to get a trade these days. Get a hammer and some tacks into their hands.

White: [Laughs] Yeah. Of course, I kept the tacks in my mouth. That's what you do when you're an upholsterer. I always had to spit them out when the phone rang. Then you had to make the moral decision about whether to put hem back in your mouth again after they've been on the floor.

Pitchfork: If this rock'n'roll thing didn't pan out could you go back to it? Were you any good?

White: It's a difficult trade and I hate to toot my own horn, but I was okay, because the guy I apprenticed for was a perfectionist. He was very talented. If I could be a quarter as good as he was, I'd do all right I think.

Pitchfork: His kids have a band, right?

White: Yeah, the Muldoons. I record their stuff at my house. They're a great band.

Pitchfork: Finally, what's this about you playing Elvis in a film?

White: Well, John C. Reilly called me up and asked if I would do it. They were filming in a couple of days. I said, "Okay, but what year is it supposed to be?" He said 1957, so that was okay. I thought it was just going to be for cable or something, but he said, "Oh no, this is one of the biggest films this company is going to put out this year." He sent the script over and it was really funny. It was from the guys who did the The 40 Year Old Virgin and Anchorman. It's a parody of musical biopics and John C. Reilly plays this made-up character who goes through these different periods and at one point he plays on a bill with Elvis Presley. And that's me.

[roentgenizdat]

White Stripes' stylist reveals secrets of band's pearly suits

The White Stripes' stylist revealed the arduous process of making the band's now-famous buttoned suits that appear on the cover of their new album, 'Icky Thump'.

Brandy St. John told NME.COM that the idea originated when frontman Jack White saw a picture of the cockney Pearly Kings and Queens, whose suits are decorated with thousands of pearl buttons.

"Jack saw the pearly kings and queens and was really inspired," St. John explained.

"He contacted me and asked if it would be possible to make something like that for him and Meg (White) to wear for this record. I thought it was a great idea so we sketched up ideas to see what they would look like."

St. John said that the entire process took several months and about 50 hours of hand-sewing per piece, all in a rush to prepare for the album cover shoot.

"Jack first told me about idea last June." St. John explained.

"We did the fittings in September, sketched designs in October, and started sewing in November. I had to recruit friends to help me sew the buttons so the pieces were ready in time for the album photo shoot in March. I originally thought we would need about 3,000 buttons, and it ended up being 13,000!"

St John said she did all the work in her Los Angeles home studio. She incorporated Jack's obsession with the number three into her designs, which is evident in the three stripes on the back of his suit and on the cuff of the sleeve. She also varied the sizes and shapes of the designs to keep things interesting.

"It was hard to commit to a design because it was kind of like getting a tattoo," she said. "Once the buttons are on you don't want to take them off."

St. John said the Whites have always had a very solid idea of the looks they want to achieve.

"They're very hands-on," she said. "They're very intelligent and have their own sense of style. They were really happy with how great the suits came off. They're colourful, wild and totally over the top!"

[busyboy]

The White Stripes - 'Icky Thump'

Released on 18/07/07
Label: XL Recordings

Just as it's hard to remember the heart-seizing shock of your first plunge into icy water once you've added a daily cold bath to your routine, it's now almost impossible to recall how brutally sexy and senses-ravishing the sonic thunderbolt that is The White Stripes was on first hearing. We may all now be thoroughly familiar with their radically minimal aesthetic and audaciously visceral sound, but despite being chart-topping, catwalk model-wedded superstars of the highest global order, The Stripes have yet to compromise one whit of their compelling eccentricity.

Jack 'n' Meg's winning weirdness shares centre stage of "Icky Thump" with their classically ravaged rock/blues riffage, while off in the wings are a couple of faux Celtic-folk numbers (bagpipes present) and a hilariously OTT cover of Corky Robbins' "Conquest", with strident mariachi trumpets and melodramatic vocal flourishes. Recorded over three weeks in Nashville - virtually constipated in The White Stripes' bang-it-out scheme of things - "Icky Thump" is really a very odd record indeed, but then, oddness of a particularly bravura nature comes naturally to them.

Here, it's produced the super-charged and exaggerated, staccato thrills of both the monstrous title track and "Little Cream Soda", whose clipped heaviosity suggests Jack's been dipping into Pantera and Metallica records of late. "I'm Slowly Turning Into You" is another heavyweight number, anchored by '60s organ and thick with fuzzed guitar. The physical immediacy and size of these 13 songs - several of which (most notably, "Catch Hell Blues") were recorded in just one take - is matched by the duo's refreshing disregard for conventions of space and metric rhythm and the sheer brilliance of the noises Jack wrenches from his guitar.

He's spoken many times about the need to do battle with his instrument in order to create something new and he fights fearlessly throughout "Icky Thump". Even relatively conventional tracks such as "300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues" (which recalls the work he's done with The Raconteurs) and "Rag And Bone" - whose hammered, dirty blue(s)print sees him whooping and jabbering like he's been at the moonshine - have their twists and "Bone Broke" adds an intriguing edge of Bowie-ish glam to its kick-ass rock wallop.

Lyrically, the album ranges far and wide, from a fairly straight-forward narrative about inappropriate lust ("A Martyr For My Love For You"), through an oblique comment on the band's make-do-and-mend working methods ("Rag And Bone") to themes of denial and self-responsibility ("Effect And Cause"). Jack sounds less tormented on "Icky Thump", certainly, but is no less philosophically questioning. "I can not help but wonder if after I'm gone, will I still have these 300 mph. torrential outpour blues", he muses at one point. On the evidence of "Icky Thump", he's good as signed a lifetime contract with them. The deal, praise the Lord, is very much in our favour.



Sharon O'Connell

[areyoureadytojump]

Billboard.biz:

• With each successive album, the White Stripes debut higher on The Billboard 200 with bigger sales weeks. With their new effort, "Icky Thump," the duo checks in at No. 2 with 223,000. Its last album, 2005's "Get Behind Me Satan," started at No. 3 with 189,000 ... "Icky Thump" sold 53,000 through digital retailers -- 24% of its overall first week -- easily making it No. 1 on Top Digital Albums ... The title track is the band's second-biggest Alternative/Modern Rock chart hit, as it holds at No. 3 for a second week. Only 2003's "Seven Nation Army" went higher, spending three weeks at No. 1 ...

In support of the new album, the band played the Bonnaroo festival June 17 in Manchester, Tenn., and "Late Night With Conan O'Brien" June 18. The act also staged a June 20 performance at Tower Records' former location on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Fashioned as an "Icky Thump Records" store, the band played an "in-store" that was streamed live on the Web via AT&T's Blue Room ... "Icky Thump" was available via the Apple iTunes Store with two bonus tracks (as a pre-order) or with one bonus track (if purchased after the pre-order window closed). Additionally, 6,666 specially designed, limited-edition USB drives containing the album were sold via the White Stripes' official Web site. Each drive -- crafted with caricatures of either Jack White or Meg White -- sold for $57.50 or for $99 as a set of two ... The band's tour has dates lined up through October. It includes stops at the Austin City Limits Festival in September and the Ottawa Bluesfest in July.

[TeddyR]

With all the Canadian tour dates and being the bestselling album on itunes Canada and at amazon.ca, I wonder if they'll be #1 on next week's Canadian album chart.

[roentgenizdat]

07/07: NEW 2 WHITE STRIPES ICKY THUMP 223,056 669 223,725

[areyoureadytojump]

Down two places to #4 on the new Billboard 200.

[areyoureadytojump]

Billboard.com:

The White Stripes' "Icky Thump" (Third Man/Warner Bros.) is down 4-10 after a 37% sales slide to 56,000.