MORE JACK THAN GOD

The rocker of my generation, as I see it.

NAME

Jack White III.

Yeah! That´s a great name. I´m sure it gave Jack some respect in the hood. Even if you don´t like White Stripes, you just prick up your ears as soon as you discover the royalness in it. Wise man.

ABILITES

He sings, plays guitar, piano and drums. A real pain in the ass for any parents to raise. I picture Mrs White talking in the hairdressing salon, saying to her friends, “Well, Little Jackie makes noise with almost everything. He slams things on the ground, grabs a spoon and crashes the saucepan. We are thinking of giving him some musical instruments. Or maybe some really strong medication. I hope to take a decision this week”.

This guy is a professional swagger. White Stripes, The Racounters, Dead Weather, solo album, and record producer. What is more, he opened his own record label: Third Man Records.

His alter-egos work perfectly. Maybe Dead Weather´s “Cut like a buffalo” sounds pretty much like Strangler´s “Peaches”? Don´t worry, it´s ok. We won´t tell anyone.

I almost forgot! He played “Elvis” in the Dewey Cox movie. So, we can also consider him an actor. Can we? I hope Al Pacino won´t read this.

ATTITUDE

Just two things Jack said:

1. “I have enough money to live on vacation for the nex twenty years”.
2. “I have three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan.”

He doesn´t achieve “bigmouth” levels like Liam and Noel Gallagher, but White´s a pretty clever guy and declares such things freely, just like a minor elevator chat with your neighbor. “Nice day, uh?” “Great one! I´m recording with all my three bands and then maybe have some casual sex with girls I haven´t met yet.” Lucky bastard.

He played a like a thiry seconds concert with the White Stripes in order to be part of the Guiness World Records under the name of “Shortest concert ever”. As a musician, he´s a terrific publicist.

MOVING TIMELINE

He looks into the future with his feet stuck in american roots. Why? Tries to look trendy and makes records sound up to date, but you won´t see White denying his cowboy persona. He created “Third man Records”. Where? In Nashville! “Fool”, great antonym for “Jack”. Obviously, this guy is aware of the significance that place gives to his work. He loves Dylan (even played with him) and Cash, and doesn´t want to miss the chance to become one of them in the future. Although he isn´t as talented as these two legends, he manages to create the ideal atmosphere to deceive us and make us believe he`ll be in the podium with Johnny and Bobby.

MISTERY

Is Meg his wife? Or are they just brothers? Recording five albums at the same time? Won´t release any record until 2018? Quitting tours? Why the hell should we worry about these things?

TALENT

Is like UFOs. Many people believes its existence, but is hard to prove.

“BOWIE AWARDS” IN HOUSTON, TEXAS. THE THIN WHITE DUKE GETS THE BIG MEDAL.

“BOWIE AWARDS” IN HOUSTON, TEXAS. THE THIN WHITE DUKE GETS THE BIG MEDAL.

Just a little bit of what happenned in the last “Bowie Awards Ceremony”.

Tom Arnold: Welcome everyone, this is the first (and maybe the last) Bowie Awards Ceremony in Houston, Texas. Working along many journalists and music experts (not me, certainly), we are here to celebrate the many personas that our dear David Robert Jones had, has and will have. Lady, please...

Kim Kardashian: “I made my dad angry” Award.

TA: This one goes to... Ziggy Stardust!. Born in 1973, he pledged to be someone from outter space, his hair was red, used lipstick and wore shiny clothes on stage. A real proud for any middle-class dad. A good topic for Bowie´s dad to chat with his mates working in the factory or later at the bar. “Hey, Joe. Is your kid still dressing like a drag queen?. Ziggy was really influenced by Lou Reed´s band. Yeah, he was really fond of using “Velvet underpants”.

(Standing ovation)

TA: Thank you, my friends. Let´s keep on, shall we?

KK: The next one is sponsored by Mirtazapine. It´s the “Where´s my gun when I need it” Award!

TA: Ouch! Someone got a little depressive round here! This goes to.. Major Tom! A guy who believes to be a “british astronaut”. Tell me a better oxymoron than that!

(Standing ovation. Audience fire shotguns several times).

TA: My loyal audience! I love you! Thanks for all the love you show me. Though, It would have been better to give a hug to our Major Tom. He´s still orbitating round the globe, I think. I picture him punching all the space station walls, screaming “We´re is my Tivo?” God, I love this ceremony! Next one, please.

KK:  Okey, Tom. This is the “Fashion emergency” Award!

TA: And the winner is.. Aladdin Sane! Yeah, great nickname, yo know? It´s A-LAD-INSANE. Of course! He was a total nutcase, not precisely because of his troubled mind. Did you see his totally unexplainable look? He had a haircut like Miranda from “Sex and The City”, wore clothes from Sesame Street characters and draw himself a stain in the face like the one Gorvachov has! My god! Aladdin would have been a great contestant for “Queer eye for the straight guy”. Do you picture it? “Well, Aladdin.. Before we start with your wardrobe, you should get a REAL NAME”!

(Standing ovation. Audience fire shotguns several times. Again.)

TA: Ok, dear fellas. We are close to the end of this lovely ceremony. We have one more award left. This one is the superb prize of all. This is...

KK: “Best Bowie Persona” Award!

TA: Yes, Kim! And the lucky bastard to receive the loudest clapping in the room is... The Thin White Duke! A lovely dude. Why? Listen: THIN and WHITE. Besides, he wore marvellous light-colours toxedos, smoked liked hell and, what´s more... He loved nightlife! Yes! No depressed or psychotic men, this guy really knew what he wanted: Cabarets! He also started to make that great rubber-soul tunes. God save the Thin White Duke! That´s all from us, Houston... But, what happenned? Did you fall asleep? I can´t hear your shotguns!

(Thousands of guns shot into the air)

TA: Yes! There you are! See all of you next year with the “Chris Martin Awards”! It´ll be short, just one medal to give in the hole ceremony: “Boring guy Award”. Love you, Texas!

MY ALL TIME FOUR-PIECE BAND

This is my band. I hope none of them refusing to wear shiny leather jackets and tight pants.

DRUMS: BUDDY MILES

A totally underrated artist. He had a great funk-soul beat that could give any song (any!) a sweeter and sexier sound. Just to mention an example, most of the songs played at the Fillmore by Band of Gypsys, have the heavenly backing vocals by Buddy, adding a beautiful atmosphere to Hendrix´s sound. His first solo release (“Them Changes”) showed how complete Buddy was; drummer, composer, singer.  

Last but not least, a great presence on stage. 140kg of swing, with a classy and curly afro on top. Lovely.

BASS: JACK BRUCE

Jack, the silent one that stood on Clapton´s side during the Cream era. A virtuous bass player, hell of a singer, and what´s best: He managed to shine onstage, without leaving his bandmates behind. A guy who lives for the team: Goalkeeping, stopping rival´s players, generating the escence of the game and even scoring at the last minute. A guy who after the game has finished, and having scored four times, declares shyly looking at the grass: “Well, we have great players and our victory is because we are a great team”.

Put him as a bass player, a singer, a rythm guitar player, organ... He´ll do wonderfully.

GUITAR PLAYER: MICK JONES

The glamorous guy in the Clash. Another underrated musician, that stood out in the last stage of the band. Pop, punk, hip hop, disco; nothing escapes from Jones´s hands. He doesn´t make any guitar solos because there´s no need! He has the perfect guitar player mix: Mick´s a creative rock and roll riff-maker with a touch of pop music in every note. Great backing vocals, also. Could make a great counterpoint with any strong lead singer.

Some people would say “Jones´s a better listener than composer” because of his astonishing ability to adapt properly to any trendy music sounding on the radio, but I don´t mind.

Jones, you´re in my band. Teach us the way, and we´ll follow.

LEAD SINGER: JON SPENCER

A (blues) explosion! He can scream and whisper almost at the same time. Spencer squeezes his vocals skills and gets all the juice from it: Cocky rock tunes, country-like songs, funky/hip-hop rimes; all of it, with a sexy rock and roll feeling.

One of the last musicians that still believes in rock music. A loyal soldier that jumps onstage to win every battle.

The Elvis Presley of my generation. And don´t make me start talking about his hairy sideburns, please.

BONUS:

MANAGER: ED GOODGOLD

He was the guy that put “Sha Na Na” on Woodstock. Is he still alive? I really need his phone!

PRODUCER: PHIL SPECTOR

If we manage to leave all kinds of weapons outside the studio, I would love this guy to produce my album.

Rolling Stones: Rock n Roll´s biggest bang.

Let me reproduce you a recent chat that I had with my mom last week. It happened in Buenos Aires, in a not very glamorous bar located in the suburbs. Me, an evil dude, had a smooth strategy to get away with a totally selfish plan.

-         British rock has its glories, mom. Don´t you know?

-         I don´t like rock music.

-         Well, but at least let me introduce them, would you?:

-         ....

-         I´ll take that as a “yes”. There´s “The Who”, a music quartet that began in the sixties doing some catchy psych-beat tunes, then started with rock-operas and finally faded away in the late seventies. These guys really did their best on stage and are considered as the “best live act” ever.

-         I really don´t have a clue of what you are talking about

-         Wait, wait. Then, we have Led Zeppelin. Four guys really influenced by american music, like blues and folk. They named their albums by roman numerals. When reached the fourth one, Zep created some symbols and confused pretty much everyone.

-         I don´t know them. And I don´t see where you´re going with all these meaningless talking.

-         You´ll see. Let me finish.

-         (sighs)

-         Finally, we have the Stones.

-         The band with the huge mouth that sings?

-         Yes! Did you like them when you were young?

-         I´m still young.

-         Well, not THAT young...

-         My god. Well, when I was YOUNGER than today, I...

-         (interrupting) You almost name an album by The Byrds! Though it´s called “Younger than yesterday”.

-         (...)

-         Sorry, mum. You were saying..

-         I was saying that in my twenties, I bought a record by the Rolling Stones.

-         Wow! You never told me! Did you like it?

-         Well, no. It was so noisy.. The guy from the record shop told me that I´d love it. But I was looking for something softer.. like BeeGees for example.

-         Oh, sorry to hear that. For me, they´re the greatest band ever. Unlike The Who and Zep, they managed to get through all decades, especially the eighties. While all artists coming from sixties or seventies crashed themselves into techno, The Stones absorbed all the “modern” beats and disco stuff into rock and roll. They didn´t have that “hippie spirit” and managed to remain fresh through the years. I think they always knew they were going to be timeless.

-         (looks at her watch) I´ve got some work to do. Why did you insisted on having this coffee? It´s just you talking about something I don´t have a clue.

-         Hmmm, well, luckily the Stones kept on playing. They recorded some pretty bad records like “Dirty work”, but the Jagger-Richards writing mantained healthy through all these years. Jones passed away, Taylor and Wyman quitted, but the flame is still burning. They now have a younger bass player, although he looks like their male nurse from the geriatric. Their latest albums, wow.. “Voodoo..”, “Bridges..” even “A bigger bang” is great!

-         I´ll go. Here´s money for the check. Bye.

-         Wait, wait! The point is...

-         (stares at me) IS...

-         Okey, okey.. They´re celebrating their 50^th anniversary in London and New York with some live shows. I was wondering if you....

-         (angry) DO YOU WANT ME TO LEND YOU SOME MONEY? IS THAT ALL?

-         Well, if you want to sum it up.. it sounds unfairly rough, though.

-         (angry) SO, THE FIRST TIME EVER WE HAVE A COFFEE... AND IT´S BECAUSE YOU WANT MONEY? WHAT ABOUT THAT NONSENSE PREVIOUS CHAT?

-         It was just to make the picture that the Stones are the best band ever. In the world, the galaxy. And that it´s very important to me. And that I love you.

She stood up and stormed out of the tiny bar before I could give her another reason to lend me some dollars. Well, the tickets cost lots of “some” dollars.

I couldn´t understand how my clever plan finally failed. Lot of thinking spent to make my mother understand why the Stones are the best band ever, to realize that the main reason for Jagger and company to be known as a legend, more than The Who or Zep, is... that even my mom knows them.

SABBATH vs OZZY: No one gets hurt.

I love both Black Sabbath and Ozzy´s solo work equally.

Sabbath is drenched of seventies sound and attitude, while Ozzy grabs the best of the eighties and adds some glamorous feeling to heavy metal.

It´s pretty similiar to when someone asks you wether you love more mum or dad.

But, sometimes, my thoughts towards these artists may vary. It happens that when I don´t sleep well, or I get angry, or drunk, or whatever, my objectivity becomes slightly affected and tends to express as follows:

SABBATH:

Ozzy looks like an angry man. A common angry man, who after a tyring labour day, may stab you in the throat for drinking the last drops of beer left in the bar.

SOLO:

Ozzy is a fat, blonde dyed hair man who wears excessive make up.

SABBATH:

Iommi: mysterious, dark and soulful guitar riffs. Hell of a compliment for a guy who has no fingertips.

SOLO:

A midget playing electric guitar and mixing hard rock with classical music. Everyone, this is Randy. Randy, everyone.

SABBATH:

A band. A music group. A gang that would pleasently do any mischevious things like the ones in Kubrick´s “A Clockwork Orange”.

SOLO:

A drunk man who looks like Beeltejuice jumping up and down, while a tiny dude hurts a guitar.

Luckily, I keep myself sober most of the time, and I hardly never get to say these horrible and untruthful things.

"Subterranean Homesick Blues" video. My visit to the shooting location

Visiting London with my girlfriend Mariana was really good. We attended at Manic Street Preachers concert in Brixton Academy, bought lots of records and met the TATEs (both ones). These museums were really of her interest, so after going to the newest one (just across river Thames), we headed to the original TATE. But what happened? I remembered that an inconic videoclip was filmed somewhere in the middle of our way, just at the back of a famous hotel. Well, let me introduce you to “This the story of how I met the Subterranean Homesick Blues shooting location”

“Maybe there are some put out cigarrettes that both Bob and Allen (Ginsberg) smoked” / “Perhaps I can find some of those signs Dylan used in the video. Hope I get the one that says –Wind Blows-, it´s my favourite”. All these thoughts were dancing over my head, as Mariana looked at me kind of scared. My heart-beating was dramatically increasing at the same time we were getting close of our destination, when all of a sudden it appeared in front of us: The Savoy Hotel. A couple of security guards looked down on us. The tallest one, suddenly spoke to his partner. I guess he said “This poor young people cannot afford a single room for half an hour” at the same time we held our hands nervously tight, acting like a “young and enthusiastic NOT criminal tourist couple”.

We kept on walking, turned round the block through “Savoy Hill” and headed to that ¿legendary? alley. There it was: Sublime. Dark. Dusty. Well, it was a dead-end street, after all. I started to walk all through it in its entirely. I searched for some lost Allen Ginsberg´s writings, “Bring it all back home” outtakes, or at least a broken Ray-Ban that Mr Zimmerman left on the ground in 1965. Well, none of this really happenned, but at least I confirmed that it´s impossible to find anything thrown on the ground about fifty years ago in a dead-end alley.

On one side of “Savoy Steps”, some offices we built. Busy workers stopped their duties to watch me come in and out the tiny street, like some hamster trapped in a cage looking for freedom. Well, my “freedom” was to be able to find any souvenir from that amazing video. Suddenly, I realized that a pretty big sign on the ground could be one of those which Dylan carried in the “Homesick..” video. I turned it back and said “London City Council”. Worthed a try, though.

Mariana looked at me tenderly. Trying to overcome my frustration, I asked her to take me a picture just like Dylan in the video. She agreed. I used a London map because there wasn´t any Bob Dylan close enough to write me a sign. Glamorous.

“Shall we go to the TATE? It´s getting dark” she said. I turned round and gave a last glance to the alley. My eyes were kind of wet for the excitement. We held our hands, kissed, and headed to the Museum.

The same security guys were standing at the front of the Hotel, and watched us made our way through Victoria Embankment.

“I told you they didn´t have the money” the tall guy must have said.

Search for Bob Dylan records in this week´s PopMarket "Folk/Rock Legendes III" section.

STONE TEMPLE PILOTS. My ¿grunge? favourite band

Ok, I deserve all the booing that I´m hearing right now because of the title. Lots of people would think that STP was a Grunge band in the nineties. But, do I really think that way? Let´s have look: Weiland, DeLeo brothers and Mr Kretz, disobeyed almost every commandment written in Grunge´s bible. Don´t you believe me? Below, I enlist a few facts that show how this “rebels” gave us a little bit more than grunge in the nineties.

1. Shaved chest? Short dyed hair? Where have all the curlies gone?: As seen on “Sex type thing” video, Scott Weiland comes up with a “controversial” look, faraway from the usual long and waving hair. His naked chest ensures that no long sleeve plaid shirts were damaged in the making.

2. ¿Glam? Come on! We all are depressed dudes! There´s no need to say that Weiland is a huge David Bowie fan (he assumed this in several interviews and even recorded “Fame” in his latest solo release) but what really stands out, is his constant “extraterrestrial” feeling on stage (“from outer space”, the latest antonym for “Grunge”). He looks like an alien, we moves like one, and sings like The Thin White Duke. “Lady Picture Show”: An outtake from “Ziggy Stardust”? Not at all. Face it: You know, It´s (not) only grunge rock, but you like it!

3. “They talk about suicide, pain and violence” Yes, but with a beautiful “cocky” feeling. Do you imagine Eddie Vedder singing “You wouldn't want me have to hurt you too”? Of course not. He´s a nice and educated guy. He might be thinking right now about different ways of saving the world. Keep up the good work, Ed!

They have the songs and the attitude. And what´s best, a few remarkable characteristics that made Stone Temple Pilots emerge from the “Grunge ocean” and keep their head up the surface in spite of the heavy waves. As if they were using high heels, like Bowie. Like Weiland.