Since Maxwell’s announced it was closing I’ve been thinking about great shows I seen there. Seems like everyone is talking about having seen R.E.M. or Nirvana playing there when they first started out even tho there can’t have been that many people there at the time. When I saw the White Stripes there, it was a packed house. Maybe that makes it not that special. It was pretty much the point when this record hit; they might even have booked this gig last-minute after selling out a bigger NYC venue, I don’t remember. Everybody knew they were going up from there, and they got pretty big for quite a while, uh, remember? But they didn’t Change Rock Forever or whatever you’re supposed to do to be remembered a couple years after your band breaks up. Maybe it’s a relatability thing. People like the music of the White Stripes, but they don’t seem like your buddies. They did not start doing this for fun one day and become successful in spite of themselves. Everything they did was calculated and intentional. Despite the simplicity of their early work, the commitment to their singular aesthetic seemed bizarre. Even the Ramones gave you the impression that they just dressed like that all the time. These two clearly did not; it was impossible. They were spotless.

I want to say that I bought this record at the show, because that justifies telling this whole story. I may have already had it. Because it was definitely in stores and I was spending a lot of time on stores then (this was like summer or fall of 2000). I remember I bought their first record at that show because it was harder to find. I also painfully remember not buying any of the 7-inches they were selling that are now worth hundreds at least. Didn’t have a record player at the time. And it wasn’t worth carrying more than a couple CDs the 12 blocks to the PATH station. (CDs fit nicely into a back pocket.) Anyway, I hardly ever listen to that first record anymore so I guess I’m not reviewing it. Good record, like all their records, but I like this one best.

When I first heard the White Stripes, it was on the radio, WFMU. I thought it was a rare Led Zep outtake:

I was dumbfounded to learn this was a new band and that no one was even making the comparison at the time. (Also, I was drunk.) Hello Operator was also in heavy rotation then. The stripped-down nature of the band is much more obvious on this track. But the band was first popular not with fans of classic rock, but with underground garage rock scene out of Detroit. All of these bands are very blues-based, but mostly filtered through the Stooges, not Zep.

But I don’t need to tell you all that, somebody else could do it better. This was just my first impression from where I was coming from at the time. This band paralleled a dovetail of several interests and ideas I was having then, as I had just left art school to play in a garage rock band which almost immediately broke up as soon as we were all fully committed to it, right before these types of bands were getting popular. I don’t need to go into that (“we were almost laughingstock also-rans!” it’s kinda funny, the turmoil in hindsight), but these ideas were all still on the surface of my brain. I was also obsessed with female drummers.

Being a drummer, I have thought a lot about what it takes to be good. Possibly more than I have practiced being good. My theory is that the female drummer is superior for a certain type of rock music because she is less concerned about showing off and more about complimenting the feel of the song. It’s a weird, sexist but positivist theory that girls can rock harder inherently because guys have confused rocking to be a macho thing, which it really isn’t. They (we) will build up these bullshit arm muscles to hit the drum harder. For a girl to play hard, she’s going to put her whole body into it, which is going to give the music a better feel. Meg White is the coincidental embodiment of this idea. Some people think she’s a shitty drummer, but put Jack in front of a human metronome and you’d have a band no one would give a shit about. He’s great as player and songwriter, but you need the feel and the push of that not-giving-a-fuck style. That was what elevated the group into something original. (Which is apparently why the group broke up, she really didn’t care, it was not a put-on. How long is rock group supposed to last, so what.)

THE REST OF THE SONGS: Besides the heavy early blues influence (up to and including straight covering early blues songs) that is simply something shared with Zeppelin (if you ignore the Robert Plant-ish delivery) that rules most of the album, you’ve got the song I’m Bound to Pack It Up which is soo Zeppelin III. I love it tho. But there’s also a few songs with piano that really stand out, if that’s a direct homage to someone else I can’t place it. I bet someone else has. How about that triple tremolo? Did he even use that? The guitar seems pretty straight up. The visuals and text of the booklet really seem designed to throw you off. It’s pretty pretentious but they didn’t have the budget yet to make it seamless and really cool. It’s exactly as silly as it should be. Maybe that’s that why I like it best. Maybe not I just need a way to wrap this thing up already.

Oh, you can buy it online. %