In this whirlwind of a recession-affected music climate, Jack White easily takes the cake in putting together some ridiculously sweet promotions and conceptual ideas to coincide with his musical projects these days. However, in the case of his Third Man Records, the records and novelty stores that have popped for very brief periods in a couple select locations, it can’t help but feel like all for nothing sometimes. These cool stores are open and warm our hearts for less than a week, only to become surreal memories of things we must have dreamed up. So it’s good to see that the L.A. Third Man venue at least gets to live on in name for this live Dead Weather EP that was recorded there in August. The EP features four album tracks and a cover of Pentagram’s “Forever My Queen.” The iTunes download will also score you four videos from the band, and if you happen to be in London on Friday you can talk about them in the new brief Third Man location for the day and a half that it will be in existence. We’re not even sure if record store clerks have time to become pretentious in a day and a half… (Via: P4K)

Day 3: Snuggling up and winding down with a whip of hair

Words & photos by Jenn Hernandez

The chill and the overcast came back for the last day of Outside Lands weekend, but it still didn’t stop us from buying cold lemonade and a chocolate chip cookie on our way in from some entrepreneurial eight year-olds. Hey, they figured out since they were cute, they could sell anything. Props to them.

We waddled down to see Oklahoma’s Other Lives as the first act of the day, wanting to see the outfit break out the cello and piano to accompany their dreamy folkpop. At times it truthfully felt like the notes and soft percussions were floating through the trees in the park in a mystical, sort of gorgeous eerie tangle. The weather did impact the energy of attendees in the first part of the day, but seeing the crowd at Matt & Kim later on showed that the sentiment was brushed off by then. And, I’m sure this goes without saying, but seriously: Matt & Kim are two most adorable fucking people on the face of the planet.

Exhibit one: “Ladies, there are two reasons to take off your hootchie hoops. One, when you are about to get into a fight, and two, when you are about to play drums so that your drum stick does not go through.”
- Kim on jewelry malfunctions
Exhibit two: “What the fuck, sun? What do you have better to do?”
- Matt on the weather being a bitch

The two were all super smiles and high energy from start to finish, including a rising version of “Yeah Yeah” that elicited a lot of fist pumping from the crowd, and Kim “backing that ass up” into the crowd later on in the set.

The Dead Weather’s set, as highly anticipated as it was touted as, definitely delivered in terms of precision and a whole lotta bass. Alison Mosshart is a performer in a class all her own, prowling the stage and exuding such an air of confidence mingled with sex and a lot of hair whipping, you forget that she actually has a respectable set of chops on her as well. Jack White, of course, decided to sing during the fourth song after all photographers had already left the pit, prompting a rush the front to snap him and his own hair singing.

While we hoped for a showdown between M.I.A. and Tenacious D, as the rapper expressed her distain for the duo’s last minute addition to the festival roster last week, her performance was actually one of the more disappointing ones. The energy was there but somehow still seemed to fall flat, like the translation from record to live just wasn’t smooth. After passing out plastic bull horns to the crowd to toot along to for “Bucky Done Gun” and sharing details about her experiences in San Francisco (”I got engaged here…I got pregnant here too”), she busted into a Beastie Boys tribute, playing the beginning of “Intergalatic” and “Sabotage” in homage of Beastie Adam Horowitz’s recovery from cancer and subsequent pullout of the band for Outside Lands. At one point M.I.A. did do some headbanger-worthy flips with her hair, which we instantly decided needed to be pitted against Mosshart. It could be a hair whip-off.

As the festival grounds started to turn on their night lights and Tenacious D had a Jack Black stunt double do cartwheels for him, it began to get really cold – but I will still full of admiration for what was able to been pulled off in such a short weekend.

More highlights included:
- Atmosphere’s Slug asking the “beautiful people” in the audience to shut up, and for everyone else to do the index finger salute
- new Morning Benders‘ pretty ballad “Promises” live
- using the phone charging station to give my Blackberry more juice, and being eternally grateful
- receiving an airport hug at the Hug Station, and then a touchy-feeling one (we’ll let you figure that one out)
- eating oysters for the first time (verdict: shellfish-y)
- enjoying Modest Mouse ripping through “Dashboard” on the main stage while eating a crepe
- the crunker dancer dressed in a blue suit and Michael Jackson T-shirt for M.I.A.’s set being wonderfully awkward
- being reminded that festivals, especially ones in set in as majestic of a place as Golden Gate Park, are one of the numerous reasons why I am in love with my city, and then wondering: since Jack Black and Jack White were at the same festival on the same day, did they take a picture together? Have they ever?

Other Lives

Morning Benders

Atmosphere

Matt & Kim

The Dead Weather



(Jack White photo, courtesy of Jennifer McGaffey)

M.I.A.

Tenacious D

Here’s to lucky 2010.

Now, not only can you subscribe to Señor White’s record label Third Man Records, you can visit their store in New York City… for two days. The label will have a storefront in the Lower East Side at 131 Chrystie Street on July 16th and 17th, and you can pop in for a visit between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. on either of those days. You’ll be able to the pick up the new Dead Weather album Horehound, which comes out on the 14th, in addition to lots of other cool exclusive schwag. While you’re at it, why not make it a Dead Weather themed weekend and go see them at Terminal 5 with recent TripWire feature band Screaming Females on either (OR BOTH!) of those nights, or check out the rest of their tour  dates here. (via P4k)


[Photo by Olivia Wright]

Hey, remember back in March when we presented Screaming Females as our On The Cover artist, suggesting you get acquainted — especially with their insanely talented (and young) frontwoman Marissa Paternoster? Well, if you weren’t listening to us back then, maybe you’ll listen to Jack White now.
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The Kills’ frontwoman Alison Mosshart has issued a statement regarding the British tabloid rumors that she and Jack White recently engaged in a fist fight in New York.
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