White Stripes.....Red Phatty

[Sweep]

I must say I agree with thewaag about this. Basically that sounded like two kids in their dad's garage on a Saturday afternoon. I'm not sure age has anything to do with it, though. It could have been two kids in 1976.

Still, it could have been worse. It could have been the Kings of Lyon.

But this has always been the case. It's true that virtuosity was more highly valued a couple of decades ago, and skilled musicians did get more money than they seem to do now, though I can think of a few who are less well off than you'd expect after several succesful albums. But overall the money, fame and adulation usually depends on fashion more than on music, and that's only changed relatively over the last few decades as far as I can see.

Incidentally I think the White Stripes probably have someone to paint their instruments. I've heard comments about red instruments or red and white ones on a regular basis for a while now. Again, that's nothing new. A guy I respect a lot because he really could play and really could write songs had a series of white keyboards through the seventies. I've even seen posts that read like a parallel universe version of this one, linking to a YouTube clip that shows a white Prophet 5, or whatever. Even painting your synths was done thirty years ago.

At my age I should be saying `call that music? In my day....' etc etc. But the kids of today are just like the kids of thirty years ago, except maybe a bit more lazy.

[MarkM]

My comment was just a statement that here was a guy making big money as a musician and he shows no proficiency on one of the instruments that he plays. And yes, it does bug me that people consider this to be genius. It is incomprehensible to me, but again, I am older than most people on this forum. Musical tastes and expectations have changed. There are people on this board who regularly post music clips that show more keyboard ability than does Jack (at least in this clip). I appreciate their work a lot more.

If you agree that Jack White is the second coming of Hendrix and you want to spend your hard earned money on White Stripes CD’s, that is your prerogative. You will get no argument from me. However, if I can’t understand what all the hub-bub is about and prefer to idolize people who exhibit some mastery over their instrument, do not dismiss my opinion as pointless.

I'm in my 50s, and I like The White Stripes. However, I don't consider Jack White a Hendrix. He has a vision and a sound that he is after, and he succeeds at what he sets out to do. I don't think he pretends to be some tremendous keyboardist. After all, he used a demure and inexpensive Phatty that was partially hidden by red paint and some kind of stand. It was such a small part of his performance.

In pop music it's about the total sound, performance, and the look: not necessarily virtuosity. I find the Stripes to be a refreshing act. Look at what other pop acts are out there. The Stripes became popular when boy and girl song and dancing acts were the rage: Britney, Aguilara, Beyonce, and all the rap artists. I applaud the label that took a chance by first producing them. It's unusual for a record label to take chances today.

Don't get me wrong. I love to listen to someone who has mastered their instrument: Coltrane, Pass, Smith, etc. But sometimes simple angst just hits me right: The Kinks, early Stones, etc.

Regardless, White used a Phatty. And that's cool.

[sizzlemeister]

He's one of the most important electric guitarists in the history of the instrument. I'd put him up there with Hendrix, Page, Beck etc. Not only has he mastered the idiom of electric blues he has created his own dialect of it. He is, to my ears at least, an utterly convincing artist.

Dada.

Well then I guess he and his label have you hooked, huh?

[theglyph]

WOW, some pretty intense flames.

Seeing Jack White playing an LP makes me smile even if the performance isn't virtuoso! I think it fits the song/performance quite nicely and shows that the LP can kick through the mix and have relevance in any style of music!

I'm not a major White Stripes fan but seeing the performance below on the Charlie Rose show did give me respect for their music and personal connection as a duet. A hard rock duet that is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfn_oe4gME

[Tangsonghe]

My tuppence worth:

Skill and 'creativity' are like yin and yang. By creativity I mean a number of things - image, emotion, surprise, etc... Each artist that reaches their audience has some kind of balance. It does appear these days that the balance is skewed towards 'creativity' and maybe as time goes by skill will become more popular again. Right now it is not what the majority of people are too interested in hearing. It doesn't seem to go with the spirit of the age.

On another note:

Do you guys in the States receive the 'Later with Jools Holland' show?

This is the medium through which you were watching the White Stripes
and in the UK the attraction is because its really just about the music
and somehow or other the acts all show a high degree of musicianship.
The acts all play live. There are something like 4 stages arranged in
quadrants and the audience sits around them and at the end everybody
has a big jam together. In a TV world dominated by mass produced pop
music I've always regarded 'Later with Jools Holland' as making a reasonable attempt at holding the flame high for the passion of live and spontaneous music. Yound and old artists appear on the show as you can see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/later/archive/

And get this. You can easily describe Jools Holland as a virtuoso keyboard
player.

[Jazzpunk]

I am smart enough to realize, however, that musical taste is like beauty—it is all in the eye of the beholder. One man’s art is another man’s noise, and what is pointless is to debate what is and what is not musical, or what is and what is not art.

Well said. Imagine if the world were filled with one type of music what an absolute bore it would be?!

[woodenturn]

Imagine all the people...

Definitely no virtuoso solo's in this hit of the Beatles, and I don't think anybody ever compared Ringo to Max roach or Buddy Rich, but he got the job done.

my 2 cents

[thewaag]

Imagine all the people...

Definitely no virtuoso solo's in this hit of the Beatles, and I don't think anybody ever compared Ringo to Max roach or Buddy Rich, but he got the job done.

my 2 cents

You bring up a great example woodenturn.

Pete Best, the Beatles original drummer, was dismissed because he was not proficient enough at the drums (although some say that he was fired because he drew too much of the girls attention away from Paul and John).

On early Beatles recordings, Ringo was replaced by a session drummer because he was not considered good enough. This pissed him off no end and he worked on his drumming to improve it.

While John's "Imagine" shows no particular virtuosity, John was considered to be a pretty darned good guitar player. George Harrison is considered by some to be a great guitar player. And Paul McCartney has a reputation of being a pretty darned good musician as well.

All were proficient at their instruments, if not masters, in some cases.

As I said in my earlier post, some of the legendary bands who produced rock standards were not necessarily comprised of virtuosos (but in many cases the bands who stood the test of time did indeed have at least one virtuoso in their ranks).

My original post was not so much about virtuosity as it was about the absolute antithesis of virtuosity. I marvel when listening to a master that displays their skills on their instrument of choice, but I still respect and enjoy listening to a person who, while not a master of their instrument, at least shows some proficiency with it.

My gripe was about a person who couldn't play a lick on an instrument. For me, and this appears to be a minority opinion here, I do not see "art" in randomly bludgeoning the keyboard of a Little Phatty.

[Jazzpunk]

I do not see "art" in randomly bludgeoning the keyboard of a Little Phatty.

Ah...and that, my friend, sums up the exact thing that makes art so powerful and yet distinctly personal.

[dr_floyd]

Actually, Jack White's Phatty performance ends up being both more unique and original than most virtuosos because nobody else could get away with releasing a recording with this performance, and most importantly, this flailing performance perfectly serves the music. Imagine Wakeman soloing over the White Stripes - it would sound silly and inappropriate.

Re: red Phatty, seems Moog is too small to do one-offs. I would be intern with a spray can. Even the Talking Heads simply took a can of primer to their Moog Rogue for their Stop Making Sense tour.

[GregAE]

I think the most important question we have to ask here is ....where did he get that swank red LP......
Is this Moog Custom or did some stooge at his record company order an intern to take red spray paint to it.....
?

maybe Amos can shed a little light on this......he know everything!

I'd guess that red paint (lots!) was used because everything is red - Jack's pedalboard, all the pedals on it, his amp, and of course, the LP. Even the LP's metal back panel is red. Somebody must have gotten a deal on red spray paint!

On a related note, I've often thought that the grippy end plates of the LP Stage Edition would make a cool canvas for customization. It could be paint, adhesive vinyl, stickers, etc. It would make for some interesting Stage presence.

[redeyeflight]

the white stripes are selling a sh*t load of records and millions of people around the world love them so they must be doing something right....how many albums is Rick Wakeman selling these days. Sorry, but to the haters out there, maybe it's time you actually listened to something current before you start bashing music that you know nothing about and, more importantly, a new, young music culture that you are not a part of. I love all those classic ELP, Yes stuff, etc etc, but music, and the world have CHANGED since then!!! I'm trying to look forward while remembering what come before. This day in age, and I think even back in the day, your proficiency on your instrument was NOT the important thing. The important thing is making songs that resonate with people all over the world and the White Stripes have certainly done that...that point can simply not be argued.

[Sweep]

Actually that was precisely my point.

It's nothing to do with comparing now with the past. Nothing whatsoever to do with older people being out of touch.

This isn't 1977, when older people may not have been able to understand the new music that young people were creating - a new voice that hadn't been heard before.

It's 2007, and young people aren't doing anything of the sort. All they're doing is rehashing stuff we've all heard before, and often rehashing it badly.

Music has changed? When? There's no evidence of that in what we've been hearing from the White Stripes. There's a hell of a lot of copied, derivative rock, punk, EM - you name the genre, it's being rehashed right now. Even rap's been around for getting on for a quarter of a century. Isn't it about time these young people who are supposed to be the voice of now started actually making some music of now, creating new styles and sounds instead of rehashing old ideas and inventing loads of new names for genres that are all minor variations on the same old tired stuff.

There's nothing revolutionary about the White Stripes that older people have never heard before. There's no problem with appreciating a new voice of now. It isn't a new voice of now at all. Not unless the new voice of now is the voice of a generation that just somehow couldn't manage to do anything new.

It's just poor quality, derivative rock music. And if we're going to listen to rock music some of us would prefer to hear it done well.

How many records people have sold means nothing. Does that really need explaining? Or do you think anyone who outsells your beloved White Stripes must automatically be better? Maybe Britney's the best thing to happen to music in a long time, then? She's sold a lot of records. I'm sure you can't possibly mean that. So just stop and think a bit.

What is this topic really about, anyway? Why should it be interesting, if you play a Moog synth, to see someone else playing one as well? Is it just fan adulation and it doesn't matter what the other person plays so long as they're your hero? Or do you want to look to the other person and learn something from their use of the instrument?

If you just want to idolise somebody, go ahead. Big deal.

If you want to learn from somebody, fine. What can any of us learn from this guy posing? Apart from, hey, if I sing a bit and play like some guy in the local pub, and I have some woman clattering around on a drumkit, I could sell a lot of records if I hype things up a bit. Yeah, pretend not to be hyped, pretend it's got street cred. Get enough people to claim it isn't hyped and it's really what's happening. Hype it up that way. That'll convince somebody, maybe enough people to sell a shedload of records.

Ok, go for that if you want. You may impress a few people, like the White Stripes seem to have done. But it won't impress anyone really interested in playing a Moog synth and making good music with it.

[doctorno]

Sweep, I do not like the White Stripes very much either and I understand your point, but I think you should consider that mastering an instrument is only one thing, making good music is another thing.

In my opinion this has nothing to do with fashion, hype or your age. This discussion is quite old in fact. Paganini was a great violin virtuoso in the 18th century, yet his compositions are considered to be not very important.

Rick Wakeman was a great keyboard virtuoso in the 70s, yet the compositions of people like The Beatles or The Velvet Underground are far more important than the stuff Wakeman did with Yes.

In my opinion this whole progressive rock thing was quite boring and the musical structure of songs by Yes or ELO is not very convincing, if you ask me. Finally people were so bored with all this virtuoso tootling, that they started listening to punkrock - three chords and that´s it ...

[Sweep]

Yes, I agree with a lot of that, and I think you're making good points.

Virtuosity for its own sake isn't necessarily musically relevant.

What was great about punk in the mid seventies was that it was fresh and new. I don't think progressive rock had really become stale and irrelevant like people said (and a lot of what was said was greatly exaggerated, as I think people like Malcolm Mclaren would probably agree now), but we did need something fresh and new.

Punk gave people confidence to take up an instrument and perform. And in the process we also got a strong style of British rock that wasn't blues based. It was original, and it was ours.

But a basic level of competence helps a lot, and most classic Punk has at least that, regardless of the pose of `not being able to play.'

The comparison between the White Stripes Moog solo and the Mini solo by Dave Greenfield on The Stranglers' Nice 'n' Sleazy is interesting. Greenfield was a guy who could always really play, right from the beginning, but the novel use of the synth in that style is the really noteworthy thing.

I think a lot of younger people have heard about the original Punk thing and misunderstand what the `can't play' image was all about. It was a reaction against virtuosity for its own sake, and a way of giving people the confidence to say something new and fresh.

And it was new and fresh. The Sex Pistols came up with a lot of very relevant social comment, as well as a new style of rock. Bands like The Buzzcocks spearheaded a revival of strong, fresh live rock in the provinces. (They also had a brilliant two note guitar solo on their first EP). And so on with a whole host of people.

What I'm hearing now isn't anything like that. It's always derivative, which Punk definitely wasn't. (Even the early Punk cover versions weren't copies of the originals.)

My conclusions are that -

you need a basic level of ability;

ability for its own sake isn't too important (and we agree on that);

if you're fresh and different you can perhaps get away with less ability, at least initially;

to be really relevant you need to have a new voice, and right now we seem to have a generation who are copying (or at best re-inventing) things that have already been done. Every time I'm told about someone who supposedly has something new, they don't.

Make no mistake, I don't want to be dismissive of the younger generation of musicians. This is why I've spent time and effort looking and listening. I know of one or two up and coming young people whose abilities I have a lot of respect for, and it's good to see them beginning to gain recognition and finally make records. In one person's case there are some great things on demos she's done over the years, and it'll be good to finally hear those songs released. (And the person I'm thinking of could play The White Stripes into the ground, too.) But I hear no really new voices, even amongst the talent. If that's a facet of this generation, then fine. That's just where they're at, and the next generation will sort that out probably. But what I don't like is hype, and certain people are hyped up to the eyeballs, The White Stripes included. To me this is just hyped up pop, dressed up as some kind of deeply relevant voice of today.