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cosmolinguistLying in bed this morning, checking up on Twitter (as you do), I saw that The White Stripes are no more.
And my thoughts first flew to a friend of mine, as they do when you hear about a disaster in a distant city where you know one person, or some crisis affecting a mate's sports team.
In one of my favorite movies, Almost Famous, Fairuza Balk's character says, about the younger, bubble-headed groupies on the other side of the gulf between the early seventies and the mid-seventies, "They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it... hurts. " The way the line is delivered makes it clear that she knows how ridiculous and unfathomable these pieces of music and bands are to most people, but by the time she gets to the last word, after a long pause that's straining towards it, you know she is one of the people who does know what it is to be a fan.
My friend Bec loves the White Stripes, and Jack White, in the way people used to love bands and musicians and don't so much any more really. Loving line-by-line commentaries and incoherent fangirl squee co-exist happily with her. She got me to really listen to The White Stripes, beyond the single or two I'd heard on the radio years before without even remembering what the name of the band was.
Which I really think is how most people interact with a lot of music these days; there's no sense any more of the long span of a career, even an album. It's all single downloads playing on shuffle, it's a new link to YouTube for every song you want to hear.
Needless to say, I think this is rubbish. I have loved many bands and pieces of music so much it hurts, and I love the texture of that kind of experience.
And so now I am quite fond of the White Stripes. I adore Jack White. If I had it, today I would be watching this DVD I once saw, a documentary about guitarists called It Might Get Loud, whiich featured Jack White as well as Jimmy Page and The Edge. And in that Jack is the most loveable thing ever: he jumps on his guitar, not in a demonstrative Jimi Hendrix kind of way but on his own, because he's more comfortable with old, beat-up things.
He listens with rapt attention to a Son House record that he's just told us was life-changing for him at a young and impressionable age. His respect and love for the music is obvious; he is so manifestly capable of loving music so much it hurts.
In the scenes of these three together, it is Jack Whilte who's clearly on the same wavelength as Jimmy Page, who is of course part of a long tradition of folk music and the blues and everything... while The Edge, with his hat and sunglasses and lack of a proper name and the earnestness of the kind of architect who draws pictures of buildings that nobody ever likes to go in, fits in about as well as a Martian would. Worse, probably, because a Martian might not try so hard to seem like he belonged there. Jack While is the one I'd much rather have carrying the torch for proper, loveable music for the next generation.
But of course, while I am the very last one to denigrate Meg White's fantastic drumming, underrated by almost everyone in her misogyniistic line of work, and the other contributions she makes to the duo, it's important to keep in mind this is hardly the last we will see of Jack. He's already doing other music like The Raconteurs with Brendan Benson (something else I would not know about without my friend Bec) and would be much the poorer for missing out on), with Alicia Keyes he did a Bond theme I was fond of, he's proven a great producer for people like Wanda Jackson, a review of whose recent album describes him as "authentic without being paralyzingly retro."
But while there is much to look forward to, as my friend Bec rightly points out, as The White Stripes "there was a magical, beautiful, innocent/devilish feeling" that there was little enough of before, and none left now.
And my thoughts first flew to a friend of mine, as they do when you hear about a disaster in a distant city where you know one person, or some crisis affecting a mate's sports team.
In one of my favorite movies, Almost Famous, Fairuza Balk's character says, about the younger, bubble-headed groupies on the other side of the gulf between the early seventies and the mid-seventies, "They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it... hurts. " The way the line is delivered makes it clear that she knows how ridiculous and unfathomable these pieces of music and bands are to most people, but by the time she gets to the last word, after a long pause that's straining towards it, you know she is one of the people who does know what it is to be a fan.
My friend Bec loves the White Stripes, and Jack White, in the way people used to love bands and musicians and don't so much any more really. Loving line-by-line commentaries and incoherent fangirl squee co-exist happily with her. She got me to really listen to The White Stripes, beyond the single or two I'd heard on the radio years before without even remembering what the name of the band was.
Which I really think is how most people interact with a lot of music these days; there's no sense any more of the long span of a career, even an album. It's all single downloads playing on shuffle, it's a new link to YouTube for every song you want to hear.
Needless to say, I think this is rubbish. I have loved many bands and pieces of music so much it hurts, and I love the texture of that kind of experience.
And so now I am quite fond of the White Stripes. I adore Jack White. If I had it, today I would be watching this DVD I once saw, a documentary about guitarists called It Might Get Loud, whiich featured Jack White as well as Jimmy Page and The Edge. And in that Jack is the most loveable thing ever: he jumps on his guitar, not in a demonstrative Jimi Hendrix kind of way but on his own, because he's more comfortable with old, beat-up things.
He listens with rapt attention to a Son House record that he's just told us was life-changing for him at a young and impressionable age. His respect and love for the music is obvious; he is so manifestly capable of loving music so much it hurts.
In the scenes of these three together, it is Jack Whilte who's clearly on the same wavelength as Jimmy Page, who is of course part of a long tradition of folk music and the blues and everything... while The Edge, with his hat and sunglasses and lack of a proper name and the earnestness of the kind of architect who draws pictures of buildings that nobody ever likes to go in, fits in about as well as a Martian would. Worse, probably, because a Martian might not try so hard to seem like he belonged there. Jack While is the one I'd much rather have carrying the torch for proper, loveable music for the next generation.
But of course, while I am the very last one to denigrate Meg White's fantastic drumming, underrated by almost everyone in her misogyniistic line of work, and the other contributions she makes to the duo, it's important to keep in mind this is hardly the last we will see of Jack. He's already doing other music like The Raconteurs with Brendan Benson (something else I would not know about without my friend Bec) and would be much the poorer for missing out on), with Alicia Keyes he did a Bond theme I was fond of, he's proven a great producer for people like Wanda Jackson, a review of whose recent album describes him as "authentic without being paralyzingly retro."
But while there is much to look forward to, as my friend Bec rightly points out, as The White Stripes "there was a magical, beautiful, innocent/devilish feeling" that there was little enough of before, and none left now.
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(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-03 08:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-03 08:23 pm (UTC)To be honest, I think a certain amount of the misogyny is rooted in the idea of Authenticity being something that's handed down from Spiritual Father to Spiritual Son and manifested through the Holy Guitar, which made me really twitchy on seeing the trailer for that movie.
And that's one of the things that I liked about the White Stripes, and one of the reasons that I'm sad to see them go, is that it is very difficult to apply the idea of Authenticity to a band which spent the first half of their life claiming that no, really, they were brother and sister :)
I have more to say about how boys and girls and Bec love music, and how I hope a lot of people do still love music, but it would probably come out wrong, and I would not wish to end up offending Bec (Hi, Bec!) on this day more than any other.
Which I really think is how most people interact with a lot of music these days; there's no sense any more of the long span of a career, even an album. It's all single downloads playing on shuffle, it's a new link to YouTube for every song you want to hear.
Well, if you mean most people likely to be reading this, you're probably right. Most people don't have an internet connection, mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-03 08:54 pm (UTC)I don't know if it's better or worse for drummers. I don't know if it'd have been better or worse for Meg if she was playing something other than drums. I had too short a glimpse into the world of drummers to tell, or even guess.
I would love some other day to hear what you have to say about boys and girls who love music.
Most people don't have an internet connection, mind.
Very true. But they will like music in different ways again.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-04 08:06 am (UTC)Oh, I could go on and on about my interpretation of Jack's Vision of Truth and how that weirdly goes with the sibling myth, but I'm saving that for the post I've been trying to write for my music blog :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-04 08:43 am (UTC)Feel Flows
Date: 2011-02-04 06:06 am (UTC).. just one of the reasons th' White Stripes' music works is they're from Detroit, a city that is at least as blighted today as New York was in its 1970's musical heyday (not just homegrown talent, but folks converging from elsewhere like Talking Heads / and, jeez, the Rolling Stones' Some Girls lp is indelibly stamped with the sleazy/sexy NYC of old).
and i'm pleased you brought up the Big Guitar movie, as i haven't read much commentary on the web. the "personal" segments pretty much say it all: Jimmy Page giving a rare boy-a-wonder *grin* while spinning Link Wray, Jack White playing a blues (th' Son House) so primitive it doesn't even have instrumentation, a-and "the Edge" seemingly unable to function without an assistant who handles his pedals and effects racks. interesting cinema.
had no idea you were a fan of Almost Famous. i have a weird relationship with Cameron Crowe movies, but it says something that almost nobody is indifferent to them. moments i recall especially are .. Mark Kozelek (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrqQHSYXmCU) as the Bass Player (ha!) and, jeez, how can i resist the closing credits?
Re: Feel Flows
Date: 2011-02-04 09:04 am (UTC)And he hadn't seen Almost Famous until I showed it to him, and that was magical too; one of the reasons I couldn't watch it yesterday despite havin' a hankering for it. There are lots of ways you can love things so much they hurt.
As for The Edge, I still think this is the best condemnation of him as a "musical architect": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSbbhO4kTNU
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-04 08:07 am (UTC)xx
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-04 08:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-04 08:51 am (UTC)http://drowningintheseaofcowards.wordpress.com/
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-04 11:19 pm (UTC)As for Meg, too many drummers I know who should know better denegrate her, though I will point this out: The BEST drummers I know (for a given reason of "know" in this case had lessons with or spent time at drum camp with" rate her.
Greg Bissonette,amongst the world's top five session players with Vinnie Coliuta And Steve Gadd raves about her work, and Ringo's even more so.
REAL musicians, drummers or otherwise recognise one thing: the thing I keep telling people I am in bands with: The Music's In Charge.
Meg plays like the music's in charge.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 10:56 am (UTC)I hope Meg does something now. Jack can go on doing the solo stuff and various bands he's also in and producing, but I really hope Meg continues drumming somewhere or another.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 09:17 am (UTC)Exactly; it's not that it needs to be the greatest music in the world -- most of what I loved so much, when I was a teenager and loved music most strongly, was stuff most people wouldn't listen to if their lives depended on it :) And as in the Almost Famous example, the band there are nothing special (though it is the great tragedy of their story that they want to believe they really are), and this girl knows that: it's silly music, it's just a band.
And yet....
I'm so glad you got to see Def Leppard eventually, and if the tears don't mean you were having a good time, I don't know what would :) These songs carry so much of the emotional weight of the things that are important to us, it's no wonder we are overwhelmed from time to time, and find some of that weight spilling from our eyes.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 01:22 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 06:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-02-05 08:42 pm (UTC)...which does lend me to think that he has overdosed on the "silly little band, some piece of music" stuff too much, that he has to make a point of embracing "fandom" here.
(I don't really like "fandom" myself. As a concept, I mean. I think it makes the things you like too big a part of your personality, makes people self-conscious, unnecessarily factionalizing into arbitrary groups or, like this guy, cowering behind irony. It all seems very tiresome and damaging to a person's curiosity or enthusiasm about things they might not necessarily have a lot invested in... but to continue on these lines would make my curmudgeonliness cross the line from endearing to annoying