The Dead Weather: A storm a-ragin' at the 9:30 Club

I didn't write in much detail about my first experiences with The Dead Weather earlier this year in Memphis and Nashville.  The DW shows I've attended this year have also been my first experience with Jack White and seeing the man live on stage is, shall we say, more than slightly intense.  Jack is a powerhouse performer, whether behind the drum kit, out front with a guitar, or even pacing the stage with nothing in hand but a microphone.  The concentrated energy just radiates from him and infects the entire audience.  Something about how that energy affected me tonight compels me to want to share the experience this time, which is entirely contrary to how I felt before.  Third (!) time's the charm, I guess.

Thanks to the generosity of a fellow fan, I was spared from having to camp out in line all afternoon in order to get a good spot in front of the stage.  The weather forecast all week had predicted a 60% chance of thunderstorms from afternoon through evening, which would have been miserable.  Instead, the clouds broke somewhat and the day became brutally hot.  I would've suffered it, not gladly but willingly, if a very cool dude from the White Stripes message board hadn't posted an offer to let someone be his 'plus one' if he managed to win the early entry lottery that's open to ten fan club members, plus guest, per show.  This is the second time I've had an amazing DW experience as someone's 'plus one' and, for such a seemingly little thing, it goes a long way toward restoring my oft-bruised faith in humanity. 

So instead of broiling under the humid sun, I was able to relax, get to the venue a few minutes before the doors opened, and then stroll in ahead of the crowd to claim my particularly chosen spot at the front, the same spot I had for the two previous shows in Tennessee, and the spot I will aim for again come August when the DW plays Baltimore--  on the right, just between Alison and LJ, with a mostly unobstructed view of Jack's drumkit.  If you happen to attend a DW show that I'm at and decide to snatch that spot from me, just know that you do so at your peril.  Not long after my early entry patron and I got settled up front and the rest of the crowd began making its way in, a young kid of 12 or so popped up behind us and announced that this was his second concert ever and his first time seeing Jack White.  His dad had apparently forgotten one of their tickets and was waiting out front for Mom to deliver it, but sent the boy in ahead so he could get a good spot.  Of course, we immediately squeezed him up to the rail and kept an eye on him throughout the evening.  It turned out to be a ball hanging out with him before and during the show, seeing his excitement and discussing music in general and the DW in particular with someone whose perspective is so fresh and unjaded.

Harlem, the opening act, were three very cute young boys who acted very casually about their set but played fairly tightly and with great energy.  They provided a fun warm up and had us all raring to go for the DW.  And D.C. was more than ready-- the show sold out almost immediately when tickets went on sale two months before, and many people apparently remembered that the band had kicked off their 2009 tour on almost exactly the same day in the same venue.  Everyone was expecting a hell of a show.

The band seemed to sense this as soon as they hit the stage.  They tore through 60 Feet Tall, and both Alison and Jack broke into big grins over the crowd response at the end of the song.  From there it was right into Hang You From the Heavens, with Jack twirling his drumsticks between cymbal smashes and the audience singing word for word along with Alison.  Despite Jack's insistence in recent interviews that the band's begun playing without a setlist, they pretty much followed standard formula tonight, following HYFtH with (some of this is sure to be out of order, it all becomes a blur on the drive home)--


You Just Can't Win
So Far From Your Weapon
I Cut Like a Buffalo
No Horse
The Difference Between Us
I'm Mad
Gasoline 
Rocking Horse
Rolling In On a Burning Tire 
Gasoline
Hustle & Cuss
Die By the Drop
Will There Be Enough Water?

Encore
Blue Blood Blues
I Can't Hear You
Treat Me Like Your Mother


Much as I adore 2009 performances of the song, I was not terribly looking forward to You Just Can't Win.  For some reason I can't begin to determine, Jack's vocals during their spring 2010 shows became unaccountably... histrionic.  His voice was fine, but his delivery was terribly over-dramatized.  Perhaps it was having a bit of a break before this tour, perhaps it was the obvious excitement of the audience, I don't know what it was, but he was spot on tonight, singing emotionally yet with a much more relaxed manner.  And having a hell of a time, apparently-- smiling repeatedly, chatting to the crowd a few times between songs (which, unfortunately, I couldn't understand a word of due to the mic at his drumkit being way too damned low in the mix).

The absolute highlight of the show was, as is often the case, Will There Be Enough Water?. The slowest moment of any Dead Weather show, it's also the most intense (there's that word again) as Jack comes from out behind the drums to strap on his guitar and share a mic with Alison as they croon the spare lyrics of the song.  The solo that he launched into tonight between the second and third verse was mind-blowing.  The potential for this was the reason for my determination to get the spot I had on the rail.  With his pedal board directly in front of me, I had a long handful of minutes to watch the man up close.  So close, in fact, that it became difficult to figure out what to look at--  the expressions on his face as he lost himself in the music, his fret hand picking out chords, the other hand switching continuously from strumming to finger-picking to bending notes with the whammy bar, or his feet in those oh-so-cool white winkle-pickers tapping the various pedals on his board.  And on top of all of that going on, I found myself being repeatedly drawn into eye-contact with the honkin' huge, gleaming silver, head of the Creature of the Black Lagoon belt buckle at his waist. The damned thing was staring right at me, winking as the stage lights hit it.  No wonder my mind was blown.

This is very close to the view I had. The person who filmed these was about four people to my left, also on the rail.




In all seriousness, though, as fantastic as it is to listen to Jack play, it really is amazing to watch him. Especially for someone like me who's never had any interest in playing a guitar myself, to hear the sounds he creates and, at the same time, to see, ok, here he's finger-picking, here he's hitting the whammy, that's where he hits the pedal... It's just incredibly fascinating. I've always been drawn to guitar-driven music, but he's the first musician who's made me want to understand it.

Yes, this review is heavily Jack-centric.  I make no apologies for that, he's the reason I was at the show.  Alison, in the few moments that I watched her, was her usual dynamic self, belting out each song and mesmerizing the crowd with her gaze, including the kid at my side who's probably getting a hell of an early, somewhat subconscious, sex-ed through this band.  I can think of worse women than Alison to inspire teenaged wet-dreams.  At least he won't grow up expecting his women to be submissive.  And, as before in Tennessee, I didn't give LJ or Dean the attention they deserved.  I heard them both clearly and appreciated the hell out of their contribution to the show but, no, I didn't watch them.  I'll try to make it up to them later on in Baltimore.

During the drive home, the skies finally delivered on the predicted storms.  Heat lightning glimmered through the clouds as I headed out of the city, before letting loose a deluge of rain on the highway.  I was soaked on the short run from the car into the house and sat down dripping wet to write this, while thunder rumbled outside the window.  Somehow, it seemed appropriate to document an aural storm while feeling the effects of a physical one.  Let the  weather/Weather rage.    

             
    

Random babblings: A chance encounter

Today was one of those muggy, hazy, hot and humid days that we get strings of in the mid-Atlantic area.  Had to get out for a ride anyway.  The tree-lined C & O Canal towpath, running parallel to the Potomac River for 184 miles, is the perfect spot in this sort of weather, tree-lined and shaded, though it is beset with large populations of gnats and mosquitoes.  And large numbers of people on summer days like today.  Ok, so it's close to perfect, but not quite.

Anyway, I got out for a ride today on the C & O.  There's a particular spot where the towpath runs past a parking area and boat launch.  At the far end of the parking area, an old road disappears around a bend into a wooded parcel of land created by the Potomac swinging away from the canal in a large horseshoe curve.  Of course, I followed it to see where it went.  Perhaps a mile or so back, the road suddenly ran up a steep stretch that I decided was too steep for such a hot day, so I got off the bike and began walking.  A couple dozen feet from the top, a doe suddenly stepped over top of the hill from the other side.  We both stopped in our tracks to stare.  Then, the tiniest little fawn I have ever seen came bouncing into sight, all skittery-legged and gawky.  The doe's attention was on me and she paced slowly back and forth, stomping and snorting to get a reaction from me, while the fawn tried to match her movements and keep her close.  I just leaned against my bike and watched, enjoying the sight of them and the sun shining through the leaves of the trees above them.  After a few minutes of this, the doe suddenly decided she'd had enough and was off into the woods in two bounds, leaving the fawn to follow as best it could after a moment's startled hesitation.  By the time I walked the rest of the way up the hill, they had disappeared through the trees.

This sort of thing just does not happen when there are other people around.

I am officially old and curmudgeonly

So last night, about 10:30 or so, I'm getting ready to go to bed.  As I was pulling back the covers, I suddenly heard a woman screaming, agonizingly, as if she were being beaten.  I listened for a moment, then threw some clothes on and went to open the front door to see if I could figure out where it was coming from.  On the sidewalk in front of the small park across the street was a crowd of teenagers carrying on, a bunch of girls judging by the sound of their voices.  I decided I wasn't in the mood for teenaged crap, so I yelled over to them to shut up.  One of them turned around and yelled back, "You want to fight, old lady?"  I just stood there for a moment, honestly flabbergasted.  I had no idea how to reply to that.

I should have said, "Sure, I love to fight teenage girls, it's my favorite thing! Lemme go get my switchblade and my num-chucks and I'll be right over!"

Uh-huh.

Then she yelled it again and I yelled back something about calling the cops and her friends flipped out and dragged her off down the street.  I went back inside, but didn't go to bed because I began getting paranoid that the mouthy one was going to talk her friends into coming back and throwing a rock through my window or something.  Finally hit the sack a bit after midnight, and spent the next five hours tossing restlessly.

Guess it's time to go buy a rocking chair and a shot gun for the front porch.

Can you tell me what I'm supposed to do?

Words are sacred. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little….   -  Tom Stoppard

It happens every now and again, at least to me if not to you.  Words form and flow out through mouth, pen, or keyboard, but just don't come out the way they were intended to.  They take on a life of their own, as it were, conveying a different tone or meaning than they had in the brain.  You can practically hear them laughing at you as they cause themselves to be misinterpreted.  They nudge the world in the wrong direction.  And then, of course, comes the response to these rogue phrases, which can leave you (or at least, me) sitting flummoxed by the disdain thrown back at you.

Happened to me once again just yesterday.  I'm sure it won't be the last time, but you would think I'd learn.  One thing I have definitely figured out, though, is to take a look at my reaction to these situations--  This time around, it was a mix of embarrassment that I had expressed myself so poorly, frustration that people couldn't see through my ill-chosen words to the real intent behind them, and hurt over some of the harsh things said in reply.  Such a combination of emotions makes it difficult to not lapse back into the sullen misanthropic state that I've spent the last few years struggling to climb out of.

So why do these occurrences affect me so deeply?  There is a part of me that's fully aware that I'm not alone in making verbal mistakes, that the people who really care about me won't be swayed by my misstep, and that the entire situation will pass from memory sooner or later.  But there's another part that I've realized resides in my shadow side--  A small, insecure bit of me that wants to be accepted and appreciated, that's terrified of ostracism.  I say that this is a part of my shadow because I've always prided myself on not needing the approval of others, on recognizing my own merits and having the assurance to stand alone if need be.  But in exploring the anger that I've carried around for most of my life, I discovered just what I was sublimating in my unconscious-- My social nature, that primitive part of all of us that needs to feel it belongs to a tribe of some sort.  I've had to admit that, as content as I can be alone, it does feel good to connect with people with whom I share common interests and values.  But once such a connection is made, difficulties in communication prick at this shadowy segment of my self and send it into a panicky, aggravated tailspin.  Do I try to explain myself, re-word my statement, clarify my intent?  Or will the attempt just dig me deeper into the mire?  Do I refrain and wait for my faux pas to become a distant memory?  Or will my silence also be misinterpreted?  Why are situations that are usually really quite trivial also so damned baffling? 

Well, somebody walked up to me,

but I didn't know what to do.

And then somebody said hello to me,

but I didn't know what to do.

Because I think that my words could get twisted,

so I bend my back over, take a gulp, be funny,

'cause I know there's nothing I can do.

Then my mother tried to pick me up

when I was sittin' down on the ground.

Something forced my little eyes to come open,

but I couldn't make out the sound.

It doesn't matter 'cause my eyes are lying

and they don't have emotion,

don't wanna be social, can't take it when they hate me,

but I know there's nothing I can do.

When my thoughts start to feel like mine,

they're taken from me, it seems to happen every time.

And the feelings that are fine for you,

there's somebody there

who doesn't think they are true,

So think of something new,

there's nothing left to do.

And then my idols walk next to me,

I look up at them, they fade away.

It's a destruction of a mystery,

the more I listen to what they say.

So does that mean that there's no more doin',

and there's no more thinkin',

and there's no more feeling,

'cause there's no right opinion...

So can you tell me what I'm supposed to do?

Nashville and Dead Weather, in more ways than one

Now that other things are out of my system, it's necessary to talk about another element that made The Dead Weather's live album preview performance so exceptional.  In the midst of figuring out how to get off from work and how to arrange the timing of my flights there and back, I was made aware of an additional potential complication--  the catastrophic flooding of Nashville and much of Tennessee.

  Photo borrowed from upressing.com

The weather was absolutely gorgeous when I was in Nashville on Thursday of my road trip.  By Saturday night, when I was simultaneously in the Third Man Records Vault chat room and on Expedia, Nashvillians in the chat were telling me to think twice about coming.  The highways were being shut down, and there were already news reports of one or two people being swept away and killed in the flood waters.  

   Photo from a May 3rd blog post at Bear Creek Ledger.

It sounded scary as hell.  How on earth could it have happened so quickly?  There was talk that the band wouldn't be able to make it into town from Louisiana, but no official word from their website.  So I charged ahead and made my plans.  The show was two nights away, things had to get better by then, hadn't they?  

It's obvious by now that both the band and I, and over a hundred other fans, all made it.  Not everyone was so lucky-- One Vault member's wife was still stuck in Texas as of Monday, after American Airlines canceled all of their flights to Nashville on Saturday night.  But knowing what we'd all gone through to get there made the bonding easier.  While no one in attendance that I know of was severely affected, some of us had flown in not knowing what we'd be dealing with, and some had come despite having no power in their homes.  It created a shared experience.  

And, in the midst of all the excitement, my heart went out to The Dead Weather and the staff at Third Man Records.  Jack White and his people live in and around Nashville and there was no telling how they might have been impacted by the disaster.  They seemed to be thinking only of us fans and putting on an incredibly electric show for us.  Knowing this added an emotional impact to the performance that made it doubly special beyond it's exclusivity.  I read one message board comment the next day that mentioned how quickly Jack left after the show was over, as if implying that he should've stuck around to sign autographs or something.  And yet this is what was going on in the town where he apparently lives:


Franklin TN Flood 05-02-10 May 2010 from Jonathan Melton on Vimeo.

Honestly, I'm surprised he didn't bolt directly from the stage to his car.

So forgive me for proselytizing, but this event has moved me.  Between the fact that it's Jack's chosen base of operations and that I was able to connect with a bunch of lovely people there, I've been touched by this part of the country and am eager to see it get through this.  

More importantly, Nashville is a beautiful city that figures prominently in Americana through both its history and music.  Much like New Orleans, it's been through hell and deserves our support.  The Grand Ole Opry House is closed indefinitely for repairs, though the heart of the Opry, the treasured section of stage salvaged from the previously destroyed historic Ryman Auditorium, was fortunately not severely damaged.  Many people lost everything they had because they never expected to need flood insurance.  And a friend in the Vault chat room told me last night of how his little girl's softball games are being re-scheduled to other fields because the local one is still under multiple feet of water.  Just because you don't see this in the news does not mean it's gone away.  The people of Nashville will be living with it for a long while, though their heart and determination are sure to get them through it.  That's something to respect.   

   Photo borrowed from Nashvillest.com

   My own photo, taken from the opposite side of the river from the one above, standing next to a restaurant that was trying to pump water back out into the street.  Seemed a losing battle, what with the river at the same level as that street. 


Ways to help, if you can and want to:

-  So Nashville is Flooded... How Can I Help? is probably the best source out there, with an extensive list of options for donations and volunteering.

-  Nashville Flood Tees, also available at Render Apparel    

   


-  And, if you're curious, here's what Jack's doing:  Jack White lending profit, hand to flood relief.

Carry this burden now until the moment of your last breath

Old Mary, full of grease,

Your heart stops within you.

Scary are the fruits of your tomb,

And harsh are the terms of your sentence.

Old Mary, sister of mine,
Mother to the world,

Carry this burden now until the moment of your last breath.

Now until the moment of your last breath...

So, I went back to Nashville. Got home from my Dead Weather DC-to-Memphis road trip Friday night.  As I was catching up on teh intarwebs, a fellow blogger/Jack-fan messaged me to say that she was one of 20 people who'd won entry into The Dead Weather's pre-release, invite-only, live performance of their new album, Sea of Cowards, that was to take place at Third Man Records on Monday night.  Did I fancy a trip back to Nashville as her plus-one?  Considering that I was still high from the road-trip, the Memphis show, and visiting Third Man on Thursday, I'll leave you to imagine my response. 

Yet I had to immediately catch my breath, as this would be more complex than just hopping a plane.  I was due back at work for a partial day on Saturday and full-time as of Monday.  How to get a few more days off for yet another show?  Here's the kicker--  

I'd already been planning to ask for another day.  On the way home from Tennessee, I'd received a call from my father informing me of a death in the family.  My parents and sister were going to drive up from Florida to Virginia for the funeral, could I get time off from work to join them?  Knowing my employer's dictum that family comes first, I knew that would be no problem.  Of course I would join them at the funeral on Tuesday.

And yet, now I had my own priority staring me in the face.  Musical obsessions are a difficult thing to explain to most people.  Star Wars fanatics or Trekkies might get it, as they'll move hell or high water to make it to their costumed conventions.  A more apt comparison, though, might be to the junkies who prowl the methadone clinic next door to Third Man Records.  Music has such an emotional impact that it can get into your system like a drug, and your chosen musician can become the supplier that you'd figuratively crawl through broken glass to get to in order to satisfy your cravings.  And Jack White's a pusher extraordinaire, coming up with increasingly enticing methods to deliver the raw purity of his musical vision.  

So what was I to do?  This was the sort of offer that just does not come along every day.  The answer jumped right into my already worn-out and over-stimulated brain-- Use the funeral as an excuse.  The logistics would be tricky, getting to Nashville for Monday night's show and then back home by Tuesday morning to meet my family.  What was trickier, though, was the conversation with my boss the next morning.

Was it worth trying to explain why I really needed both Monday and Tuesday off?  No.  Much simpler was to re-write the death to be that of a more immediate family member, say, an uncle instead of a great-uncle.  And if that uncle were being buried in Florida instead of Virginia, then that would necessitate two days off so that I could fly down to be with my family.  It would work.  But did I have the balls for the fabrication? 

I've done some bad things... They get easier to do

I've told some doozies in my time, back when I was a kid.  But I'd more or less developed some integrity by the time I became an adult, especially after discovering Buddhism.  Now, I've never actually referred to myself as "a Buddhist" because I haven't felt ready for a total commitment to the practice, but I have tried over the last few years to follow the Buddhist precepts as well as I can.  My moodiness and impatience have made this quite a challenge, but it's a way of life that makes so much sense to me that it's worth the struggle.  A lapse of the sort that I committed this past weekend is a violent one, in that I can see the two sides of my self at war--  The moral side that wants to live with right thought, right action, and right speech; and the other, perverse side that wants something badly and thinks of nothing but how to get it.  In this instance, craving won hands down and didn't give a flying fuck that morality was left bruised on the mat.

So I told my fabrication, and was given much sympathy along with a green light for the time off I'd requested. The butterflies that had taken over my stomach through last week's road trip began fluttering back, along with a few nasty, dark-winged moths and other creepy crawlies that were obviously not mere excitement.

When I got in the car the next day to head to the airport, The White Stripes' Get Behind Me Satan was still in the cd player from the road trip.  The song that came up this time was not as nifty a coincidence as on the day I left for Memphis.  This time I was hit in the face with "Red Rain" and Jack's refrain of If there is a lie, then there is a liar too / And if there is a sin, then there is a sinner too... 

The irony doesn't end there.  Jack White's a born'n'bred Catholic who reportedly almost attended seminary school to become a priest, though he's apparently since developed a less rigid spirituality.  While it's possible that he'd likely have become a hard smoking, hard drinking priest of the Scotch/Irish variety, I get the impression that he's also intensely moral and committed to his own code of truth.  And I'd lied in order to fly to this man's base of operations and watch him make music.  

By the time I met my compatriots in Nashville the moths from my gut were practically crawling up my throat, but the junkie in me squashed them down.  It was too exciting to meet these people, and the event we'd come to attend was just too intensely amazing.  After the first song, Jack greeted the audience with a hearty "Welcome to my house".  I feel a pang thinking of it now--  Did I deserve to be there?

I'm a prick when I sin, and I know I can't win

There is no sin in Buddhism, only the discipline of the Eightfold Path and the much misunderstood concept of karma.  Most folks think of karma as the old cliché of "what comes around, goes around."  It's actually more direct than that.  Our intentions and resulting acts set chain reactions in motion and can reinforce habitual behaviors.  Sometimes shit just happens, but most often our choices create the atmosphere in which we live.  One of the best explanations of this comes from, of all places, The Huffington Post:

...the analogy of a game of billiards can be a useful way to describe the process of karma --- the table is set up, you hit the ball, it in turn hits other balls, moves the configuration on the table around, and then sets you up for your next shot. After that, maybe another person takes a turn and moves the balls around and then it's your turn again. Just as in the analogy of a billiard game, our thoughts and actions ripple outward, collide with others' thoughts and actions and generate consequences. These consequences create the setting in which we initiate our next set of thoughts and actions. 
  
When our choices are consistently unskillful due to self-centered motivations, we're just setting ourselves up for a fall.  Yet we can always make a more skillful karmic decision to act from positive intentions, and stop ourselves from making negative choices into habit.  I'd like to think that the drive to meet and connect with people I'd only previously known on-line was a benevolent enough intent to counteract the raging desire to just see Jack again.  But for all I know, that's just the junkie validating its behavior.

The question at this point is where things go from here.  I could confess to the boss, but I won't.  Craving gave me the guts for commission of this lapse, but I know that I'm not brave enough for the consequences of admission.  My best hope is that confession to the anonymous intarwebs will serve as a springboard out of the sea of cowards and back onto a truer path.



Edited 2/17/2011: I've just re-read this and decided that the final paragraph is bogus. I don't know what I was trying to say there. It reads more like a lame attempt at clever justification than a conclusion. And so it's struck out.

DC to Memphis Road Trip: Day 6, Hustling and cussing

Nashville seems to sit on the dividing line between the polite west and the obnoxious east.  I noticed a similar phenomenon on my cross-country road trip years ago-- West of this indistinct line, people automatically move into the right lane after they pass, or at least shift over immediately when a faster car comes up behind them.  It's just what people do, and you pick up on it quickly and join right on in.  Driving is a pleasure in that part of the U.S..  In the east, though, all bets are off and people park themselves in the left lane and cruise along oblivious to what's behind or around them.  So the last few hundred miles of this road trip were not only anti-climactic, they were annoying.  I ended up doing a whole lotta right-lane passing today, and even more of this...

DC to Memphis Road Trip: Day 5, Getting behind Satan

Today's objectives were to get to Nashville for a stop at Third Man Records and then to get as close to the border of Virginia as possible.  Driving was hard, considering I was doing it on about three hours of sleep.  Spent much of the day feeling that I'd been rode hard and put up wet, yet still in good spirits.

I saw more cops in three hours on the stretch of I-40 between Memphis and Nashville than I've seen on the roads of Maryland over the last year.  Fortunately, the speed limit is 70mph, so I was only barely illegal.  Not so lucky were the dozens of bugs now smeared across my windshield.  Insects and the fuzz, that's how I'll always remember I-40...

Third Man is Jack White's little house of music.  For those not in the know, he does pretty much everything there that's involved in making records except actually press vinyl, but there just happens to be a place down the street that can handle that for him.  There's even a tiny little storefront to showcase and sell his wares, and that was my destination.

The couple of staff members who assisted me in the shop were so very friendly and helpful, Jack should be proud of 'em.  Though that seems to just be the way people are in Tennessee, which could be part of the reason he chose to re-locate here.  Pretty much everyone I've dealt with in this state has been pleasant and polite and conversational.  The folks at Arnold's Country Kitchen, just round the block from TMR, practically pulled up a chair at the table for me.  I'd read about Arnold's at roadfood.com and the high ratings at that review are no lie.  The food was so good it'd make you want to smack your mama for making you think she could cook.  Thank whatever's above that my appetite returned as of this morning.  It would have been a sad thing to not be able to finish the mouth-watering roast beef with au jus, greens, mac'n'cheese, and two kinds of corn bread that they served up to me.  Instead, I was so happy I could have hugged the chef.

And that was pretty much my visit to Nashville in a nutshell.  Though leave it to me to find the historic city cemetery en route to Third Man...

Part of the reason I was so tired today was that I played fan-girl after last night's concert and hung around for a while with my show buddies at the tour buses, waiting for The Dead Weather to come out and sign autographs.  I had mixed feelings about doing this.  I've done it before, eons ago, and found that getting a signature and babbling something that my idol has heard thousands of times already really wasn't that meaningful to me.  But I was caught up in the moment and tagged along.  By the time an hour had gone by, though, I came to my senses and headed off.  What was the point?  Perhaps I'm cynical, but I don't see how any connection can be made in those brief, chaotic moments with dozens of other people all vying for a piece of the musician in question.  And I'm of the mind that connections are important.  I'd rather have nothing but the experience of the music than to have some rushed, illegible scribble on a piece of paper that means little more than that I stood in front of a distracted rock star for 5 seconds. 

And what can it mean for them?  I'm sure that the adoration is gratifying, but there have got to be times when it becomes too much.  Remembering last night during this morning's drive, it was pretty much impossible not to think of Take, Take, Take, from the White Stripes' album, Get Behind Me Satan.  Another example of Jack's skill at story-telling, it's a tune that also delivers a gentle yet firm message to his fans.  It's very obvious that he understands what it's like to be a fan, yet also just as clear that he expects his own admirers to behave better than that.

I was sitting there in a comfortable chair

And that was all that I needed
Then my friend offered me a drink for us to share
And that was all that I needed
Well, then I felt at ease
But then I'm not too hard to please
I guess you couldn't call me greedy
Then I was shocked to look up
And see Rita Hayworth there in a place so seedy
She walked into the bar with her long, red, curly hair
And that was all that I needed
And I said to my friend, "Good God, we're lucky men just to even see her"
Take, take, take
Take, take, take
Take, take, take
And I could not resist, I just had to get close to her
And that was all that I needed
I walked and loomed around her table for a while
And that was all that I needed
Then I said, "I hate to bug you, ma'am, but can I have your autograph?"
And that was all that I needed
She pressed her lips against a white piece of paper
And that was all that I needed
Then I saw what she wrote, my heart is in my mouth
And that was all that I needed
Then she handed it to me, and I think that she could see
That that was all that I needed
I started to walk away but then I remembered 'Hey, I forgot to get a picture'
So I asked her one more time, "Could I have another favor?"
That was all that I needed
She was kind and posed with me
Then I knew my friends would see my celebrity meeting
Take, take, take
Take, take, take
Take, take, take
She turned and said to me, "I need to go to sleep,"
And it seemed so mean
It was almost as if she could not appreciate how cool I was being
She said, "Good night" and walked away
And I didn't know what to say
I just couldn't believe it
Well, it's just not fair
I wanted to get a piece of hair
That was all that I needed
Or maybe a kiss on the cheek
I wouldn't wash it for a week
That would be all that I needed
But she didn't even care
That I was even there
What a horrible feeling

Satan was the second Stripes cd that I bought and probably had much to do with why it took me so long to connect with this band.  The songs are piano-heavy and lyrically dense.  Even Jack apparently didn't realize how little guitar was on the album until he was mixing it.  And he dives deeper into metaphor in this collection of songs than on other Stripes records.  But as obscure as parts of it are, it's also a plaintive album.  Written as Jack was coming to grips with the fame resulting from Elephant, it reflects a search for truths both personal and general.  He's talked about how he doesn't like to write about his own issues, that other people's problems are more interesting than his own, but the consistency of the theme throughout Satan makes it hard to believe that these lyrics aren't authentically heartfelt.  It seemed appropriate since I'd been thinking of Take..., so the cd played repeatedly over the miles as I drove between Nashville and Knoxville and my mind was somehow able to sink in to it and finally get something from these songs.

Like Elephant, GBMS begins with a song that pairs frustration with an infectious musical hook--

You need to do something

To keep the truth from showing up...

Truth and trust, loss and loneliness, come up in every song on this album.  From the regretful plea of Forever For Her (Is Over For Me), to pining for a love that doesn't exist in Little Ghost, to the wistfulness of I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet), this makes for some melancholy listening.  And the one full-on blues number, Instinct Blues, with its nervous string-picking and the complaint of "...why don't you?" just adds tension to an already pensive situation. 

The idea of "verbal dexterity" in Jack's lyrics came up after I posted Carolina Drama on Day 3 of this trip. Denial Twist is one of the lightest moments on this album, though it's still about issues of trust.  But the metaphors are witty and the imagery adroit, and together serve to make this tune a lot of fun--  

One of the most metaphorically inscrutable songs that Jack's ever written is the moody White Moon. Having no clue to any of the meanings in this bizarre assortment of imagery, I pretty much ignored this tune until it was featured in the recent Stripes documentary, Under Great White Northern Lights. The inclusion of this performance in the film explains nothing about the lyrics, but there's no denying that it makes an enigmatic song doubly intriguing--

So while White Moon remains a mystery, the rest of this album has finally made an impression on me and I'm glad for that.  Nothing like hours on the road to help one achieve a long overdue breakthrough.

DC to Memphis Road Trip: Day 4, The reason for it all

I'm not sure how to describe this day so please excuse me if I babble.  The original plan had been to get to Minglewood Hall around noon to get into whatever line existed in order to ensure a spot right at the front.  For some reason, though, I kept putting off getting ready, instead spending time writing the blog post for Day 3 and surfing teh 'nets.  What held me back?  I'd been so excited leading up to this show that my stomach had been in knots and I'd barely eaten for days (aside from last night's bbq, which was required).  And, again, I ate nothing today.  Anyone who knows me knows that that's a highly unusual state.  I just couldn't bring myself to get it together to leave the hotel for either food or the show.  Was I afraid of my own anticipation, preferring to hide in my peaceful hotel room rather than face the turmoil of my own excitement?  Or was it a way to prolong the situation, knowing that getting ready and going would set the process in motion and there'd be no way I could keep it from being over in a handful of hours?

I finally forced myself out the door in time to be at the venue by four.  There were three groups there already, about a dozen folks altogether, some of whom had driven distances similar to mine and others who'd been there since 8:30 in the morning.  Having them to hang out and talk with helped keep me from climbing the walls while we waited to get in to the venue.

The opening act, The Ettes, included an incredibly powerful woman on drums but was otherwise forgettable.  After their fourth song I'd had enough and began wishing that each successive tune was their last. 

When The Dead Weather came on, I did a serious disservice to Alison, Dean, and LJ.  I have to admit to barely acknowledging their presences on the stage.  I'd ended up with exactly the spot I was hoping for, on the rail right in front of LJ with an unobstructed view of Jack's drum kit.  From the moment I caught sight of his tall form strolling out from the dark at the back of the stage, my eyes were immediately drawn and remained on him throughout the band's set.  I remember a few glances at LJ when he momentarily stepped into my line of sight, and a few seconds of locking eyes with Alison in a staring contest as she leaned out from the stage in my direction (she looked away first, turning and stalking back to the other side of the monitors).

I could go on at length about the facial tics I noticed, the tricks with the drumsticks, what it was like watching Jack's fingers on the fretboard of his guitar, but I'm honestly not sure how much of this experience I really want to describe.  There are times when sharing something can make it more special.  But there are other times when a moment is so meaningful that it needs to be held inside where it's safe from being trivialized.  Jack himself has commented on a similar feeling--  At a promo event for It Might Get Loud, he was asked about the conversations between himself, Jimmy Page, and The Edge that didn't make it into the film.  He allowed that there had been quite a bit of unused footage of the three of them together.  Asked to elaborate on those bits, and whether he'd learned anything from his co-stars, he demurred and said that those moments were special and he was keeping them for himself.  That's exactly how I feel about this show.  Just as Jack was totally wrapped up in his music on that stage tonight, I was totally wrapped up in experiencing both the music and his presence.  I know what I felt in the moment and I know what it meant to me.  And that's enough.

The one thing I will say, though, is that after so many days of anticipation, it was over way too quickly.

Setlist for my own memory and anyone who's interested (not necessarily in correct order):

60 Feet Tall
Hang You From the Heavens
You Just Can't Win
No Horse
Gasoline
Blue Blood Blues
Hustle & Cuss
So Far From Your Weapon
Die By the Drop
Child of a Few Hours
Will There Be Enough Water?

Encore
I Can't Hear You
I Cut Like a Buffalo
Treat Me Like Your Mother

DC to Memphis Road Trip: Day 3, Stories in Tennessee

As is so often the case, my cyclothymic nature is in sync with the weather.  After some heavy rain throughout the night, the sun is breaking through the clouds this morning just like the opening credits of The Simpsons and today feels so much better than yesterday.

I ended up yesterday heading south as far as Chattanooga.  A look at the map showed that it would still be easy to dog-leg west if Birmingham didn't work out, so I figured what the hell.  Maybe I'd get lucky.  One last e-mail before bedtime about one last craiglist listing turned up as a dead-end, though, so this morning I turned my back on B'ham and re-set my sights on the original rendezvous in Memphis. 

As Route 24 outside of Chattanooga followed the curves of the Tennessee River before heading up and over the last of the Appalachians, I popped The Raconteurs into the cd player.  Jack White has mentioned that one of the main things he's gotten out of the Racs is the opportunity to work on his song-writing with a craftsman like Brendan Benson.  Personally, I think he's selling himself short, as is the rest of the world.  I don't play any instruments so I can't speak to the music, but words are my thing and I will say that Jack's incredibly overlooked as a lyricist.  In It Might Get Loud, he talks about wondering whether he could become a member of the story-telling family of the great bluesmen.  If he hasn't proved to himself by now that he's done so, then I'd love to be the one to assure him he has.

Story-telling is the raison d'etre of The Raconteurs.  If you've never looked up the meaning of the word raconteur, it's defined as "a person skilled in telling anecdotes".  The first album, Broken Boy Soldiers, seems like a warm-up for the band in this respect, as it's not until Consolers of the Lonely that both Brendan and Jack break out some serious tales--  Brendan's "The Switch and the Spur" and Jack's "Carolina Drama".  Of the two tunes, "Carolina..." is by far the standout, full of dramatic intensity and a cleverness that's typical of Jack.  Between the fantastic imagery and the question of what the hell the milkman has to do with it all, it's an engrossing song.

I'm not sure if there's a point to this story

But I'm going to tell it again

And like just about every other tale

Someone's gonna die in the end

It was a junk-house in South Carolina

Held a boy the age of ten

Along with his older brother Billy

And their mother and her boyfriend

Who was a triple loser with some blue tattoos

That were given to him when he was young

And a drunk temper that was easy to lose

But thank god he didn't own a gun

Well, Billy woke up in the back of his truck

Took a minute to open his eyes

He took a peek into the back of the house

And found himself a big surprise

He didn't see his brother but there was his mother

With her red-headed head in her hands

While the boyfriend had his gloves wrapped around an old priest

Trying to choke the man

Billy looked up from the window to the truck

Threw up, and had to struggle to stand

He saw that red-necked bastard with a hammer

Turn the priest into a shell of a man

The priest was putting up the fight of his life

But he was old and he was bound to lose

The boyfriend hit as hard as he could

And knocked the priest right down to his shoes

Now Billy knew but never actually met

The preacher lying there in the room

He heard himself say, "That must be my daddy"

Then he knew what he was gonna do

Billy got up enough courage to get up

And grab the first blunt thing he could find

It was a cold glass bottle of milk

That got delivered every morning at nine

Billy broke in and saw the blood on the floor, and

He turned around and put the lock on the door

He looked dead into the boyfriend's eye

His mother was a ghost, too upset to cry, then

He took a step toward the man on the ground

From his mouth trickled out a little audible sound

He heard the boyfriend shout, "Get out!"

But Billy said, "Not till I know what this is all about"

"This preacher here was attacking your mama"

But Billy knew that she was caught in the drama

So Billy took dead aim at his face

And smashed the bottle on the man who left his dad in disgrace

The white milk dripped down with the blood

And the boyfriend fell down dead for good

Right next to the preacher who was gasping for air

And Billy shouted, "Daddy, why'd you have to come back here?"

His mama reached behind the sugar and honey, and

Pulled out an envelope filled with money

"Your daddy gave us this," she collapsed in tears

"He's been paying all the bills for years"

"Mama, let's put this body underneath the trees

and put Daddy in the truck and head to Tennessee"

Just then, his little brother came in

Holding the milkman's hat and a bottle of gin singing,

La la la la, la la la la, yeah

Well now you heard another side to the story

But you wanna know how it ends...

If you must know the truth about the tale

Go and ask the milkman

Back to the road...  I-64 runs east-west through southern Tennessee and is apparently  in the process of being converted from a two-lane blue highway into a four-lane thru-way.  I'm glad I had the chance to drive it before the work was completed--  While the newer sections were wide and smooth and perfect for picking up some speed while still retaining a rural feel, they definitely didn't have the same intimacy of the narrower, older portions.  The road squeezes down into 2-lanes as it rolls through each small town it hits.  Two common elements I've noticed throughout these towns are giant crosses on the water towers and gun permit classes at the local civic centers.  One of the largest is Lawrenceburg, home to both Davy Crockett and actor/senator (same thing, really) Fred Thompson, where I stopped for a quick lunch and realized that I'd crossed into the next time zone. 

But even that extra hour didn't leave enough time for a thorough tour of Shiloh battlefield.  I've mentioned before that I'm a U.S. Civil War buff, and Shiloh was my goal for today before the Birmingham idea got stuck in my head.  As much as anything else, these preserved battlefields appeal to me for their beautiful landscapes and the monuments erected to honor the men who fought and died on the land. 

As I walked through the national military cemetery and the older graveyard at Shiloh church, another Jack White connection came to mind.  Back in 2003, Jack had a tiny bit part in the film Cold Mountain (good flick, but be sure to read the novel).  He was also tapped for the soundtrack, for which he performed four traditional songs and wrote one original.  The tune he wrote, "Never Far Away", is another example of his lyrical abilities, as it's a synopsis of the movie in a handful of beautiful verses.  It's not used in the film and apparently barely made it onto the soundtrack album (according to Jack, it was added as "favor" to him), which is a shame.  Thinking about the people who lived and died around the time of the battle of Shiloh, both this song and the old folk tune "Great High Mountain" played through my head, fitting accompaniments to the scene.

Arrived in Memphis early in the evening and achieved four objectives in short order: Locate my hotel, scope out Minglewood Hall (venue for tomorrow night's show), find the old cemetery behind the Piggly-Wiggly up the street from Minglewood, then eat some amazing bbq ribs at Cozy Corner. I don't know if it was the spicy sauce on the ribs or just mounting excitement at what's ahead tomorrow, but it was well after 1:00am when I finally turned out the lights and tried to calm down to sleep.

The full collection of photos for this trip is here.