Building Blocks and Breathing Flames

Paul Griffiths inhales large Cuban cigars and juggles pedestrians to the White Stripes' Icky Thump

The White Stripes seemed to me to be slowly disappearing down the sink after the release of Get Behind Me Satan, the fizz and creative energy fading somewhat to the off-cut fragments of earlier records. Jack White globe-trotted and poured his fingers and apocalyptic voice over The Raconteurs, allowing him to expand or reduce his musical palette and visual delights, leaving old red and white as something of a fading drum beat.

But it could never really last. Icky Thump, the latest reunion between Meg and Jack, has been blasted out in true Warner Bros style. Jet setting between the world’s festivals and music grottos, the duo are in laborious Zeppelin mode. Their performances channel European art movements with American spunk, Meg’s beating sticks, however criticized for unsteady tempos and limitations, breathing the flames and building blocks for their colorful performances.

Pop delivers its message in classic three and half minutes. As we all know, a chocolate ・clair, a sexual climax with a blonde bombshell can all last under pop’s rule. Sometimes I say “Well; go on; blow my mind pop maestro?” and sometimes talk bores me. As for music, cute girls purring and clinical fiddle fingers also angers me, on occasions. On these days I require speakers crying with pain throwing my car on to Cardiff’s pavements juggling unfortunate passers by. As I sat in a long distant pile-up somewhere north of London, I threw the new White Stripes album through my tin-pan car. Shick shock, tip top with dirty grease lightning leathers! You know the type: Mr. Plant used to peel his back with a forklift truck. I was transported to an exotic danger zone filled with people smoking large Cuban cigars whilst juggling with dinosaur horns. I’d thought Tony Blair and his cronies outlawed such delights from the British shores. I wiped the disk clean and read the name again: “White Stripes”. I was sure it was some obscure MC5, Magic Slim, Charlie Patton and Led Zeppelin pop milk shake.

An incredible story for a band to produce probably their rawest and freshest sounds on their sixth album. This is what grunge music should have been, Heavy metal should shiver in it’s fesses, and BB King would be delighted with such an orgasmic guitar blues screech. The opening title track sets the tone for the chaotic rawness of Jack’s vision. Keyboard squeals flooding over Meg’s pounding drums result in their modern Blues escapades. The rawness of ‘The Courage’ spills through to tracks such as ‘Conquest’ and the bagpipe dueling banjos of ‘St. Andrews’. ‘Rag and Bone’ is a toothless parade on the life of gypsy kings, cartoon lyrics fill the bum beats with an honest brutal ROCK. The sound that belongs on Fat Mans sofa, his Fender Strat hanging in the corner, a wobbly ciggy in his mouth. The only disappointment is the lack of the Treorchy Male Voice Choir. With the Loch Ness Monster tapping his toes to Meg’s rambles, Irelands pubs alive with red haired beauties and a toothless leprechaun dancing to the tune of “Prickly thorn, but sweetly worn”.

© 2007 Paul Griffiths

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