The Promised "The Dead Weather" Post

"Hey, Jack White, I was just wondering if the reason the only you get Meg play drums in The White Stripes is that you can't play drums."

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous, I can play all instruments."

"Oh yeah, you are a musical genius, I love you."

"I love you too, do you think people will understand I can play drums but just don't?"

"Hmm, maybe not darling, why don't you start a band in which you play drums to show everyone you can."

"Wow, that's such a good idea, can I call it The Dead Weather?"

"Of course you can my dear."

And that's how I invented The Dead Weather, and I'm glad I did because they're awesome.

Jack is joined by a host of people from other bands such as Dean Fertita of Queens of The Stone Age fame, Jack Lawrence from Jack White's other non-white-stripes band, The Raconteurs, and last but not least, Allison Mossheart of The Kills finishes the whole thing off with her amazing vocals. Well, I say that Jack White plays drums and Miss Mossheart sings, but actually they all play pretty much everything, and to great effect. Anyway, enough of me, I'll let them speak for themselves.

Good, no?

Anyway, they've just released their debut album Whorehound which is basically a compendium of musical awesome (it's a noun, of course it's a noun). Jack White obviously had quite a large input in this music with the result that it actually sounds quite a lot like a White Stripes album, but let's face it, what sort of a criticism is that. If you were being critical of the album you could say it's all a little bit the same but you'd be a little bit of an idiot because there's a great mix between White's music and Mossheart's vocals, even including an instrumental.

It has the same sense of musical invention and wit as the White Stripes but even more of the darkness and grime to it. It adds to the Alternative inspirations of the aforementioned pale lines with a fair spattering of the more experimental side of things.

In conclusion, it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but if you think you'll like it then you'll find it's 11 tracks of just what you're looking for.

DOES IT OFFEND YOU, YEAH?

So, after a delay slightly longer than the minute I promised, my review of Does It Offend You, Yeah? goes along the lines of this:

The house lights are off, the stage is empty. A synth starts playing the intro to Being Bad Feels Pretty Good*. I bid goodbye to my companions and organise where to meet up after the show. The band come on and the crowd become a single organism, an organism that lives to feel and respond to Does it Offend You, Yeah?
I was definitely impressed by the support acts but I could see instantly why these guys were top of the bill.

My poor Pizza Hut Chef Hat, already almost blasted from my head by Housse de Racket disappeared at this point, never to be seen again.

I assume you've never heard of DIOYY (as their friends call them), most people haven't. You'll have probably heard We Are Rockstars though, if only because it's at the beginning of Horne and Cordon. I'd embed it but apparently as they're signed to EMI, I can't, so I'll link you instead. LINK

The best thing you can hope to have at a gig is a crowd that loves the band, and on this front this must have been one of the all-time greats. Never before have I seen a mosh-pit that sings along. Having only heard DIOYY in passing before I found out I was going to see them I wasn't 100% on the lyrics and was therefore in a serious minority. For most songs this wasn't much of a problem though, Let's Make Out is comprised almost entirely out of the title and for the others, the right vowel sounds seemed to do. Anyway, the band.

They spent the evening cranking out blinder after blinder, if anything only getting better as the night progressed. Attack of the 60 Foot Lesbian Octopus gave us all a chance to rest our voices and have a little game of "who can jump the most". They even played us some new stuff, for example the song which could possibly have been called The Monkees are Coming which gave them an excuse to slag off the music business and support illegal downloading, which generated a large amount of love. They also gave us their phone number (07575 610169) so we could ring them up and say how much we loved them.

They finished of with a special Acoustic version of Dawn of the Dead (well worth a listen by the way, I'll link you again LINK) which segued into the grand finale of, of course, We are Rockstars.

I urge you, if you can see these guys, do. You will not regret it. If you can't, you'll just have to listen to their debut album You Have No Idea What You're Getting Yourself Into... until the next one comes out and then you can listen to that.

Next time, The Dead Weathers.

*I think, that night's a bit of a blur really.