Archive for the ‘the white stripes’ tag

the white stripes – im bound to pack it up

i have a funny family story involving the white stripes. its not funny at all unless you know the parties involved and since most of you dont, im pretty sure this wont be funny at all. in fact, you probably wont talk to me ever again after reading this. but 2 or 3 summers ago, way way after the white stripes became uber-famous, one of my cousins got a text from another cousin that just said “hey, have you ever heard of the white strips?” and i know he wasnt talking about white strips. funny, right? and then i found 5 dollars.

truth be told, i was a little late to the white stripes train, but not too much i guess. i do have my old roommate bobby to thank for introducing me to them freshmen year, even if that son of a bitch tricked me in the process. he would often listen to todays track, im bound to pack it up, from their album de stijl, and one day i asked him who it was by and he told me the beatles. and ill be damned if i didnt believe him for a good 3 months until i tried to find this elusive beatles song with no luck. i know hes probably reading this right now with that big goofy smile getting the last laugh, but youll get yours bobby, youll get yours. of course meaning that im going to destroy him in mario kart wii, perhaps the best game ever.

was it really that naive of me to believe him though? with maybe the exception of the last verse where jack white sings way up high and almost hits the note he planned on (part of the beauty of this track), it really could be mistaken for a beatles song with the simple guitar and percussion, vocals that could arguably mistaken for a beatle (again with the exception of the end of the song), and the once-strummed final chord is vintage beatles. and what about the “ba-da-ba-da-ba-baaaahs” interspersed within the chorus? yeah, pretty sure nobody would ever make that mistake but me. this is also a ridiculously easy song to play if youre just learning guitar, so its got that going for it too, which is nice. this is the grit of the white stripes (strips?) at its finest.

side note : to insert the little player below theres a bit of code i have to type every time, including the word “titles”, and without fail, it always makes me think of “ill take famous titties for $500.”

the white stripes – im bound to pack it up

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handsome furs – i’m confused

today was the official start of summer for me. we went canoeing down the huron river for several hours and it was my first canoe trip of the summer. combine this with my first use this year of the bathing suit, and it is officially summer people. so i decided to bring you another track from my famous summer playlist. this began as 6 or 7 songs that sounded like summer to me and i was supposed to be adding new tunes. but i didnt do that, so its still only 6 or 7 tracks, but this ones on there. it also became my running playlist because i decided this was the summer that i was gonna start running on a regular basis. it went great for the first few weeks, but just like my summer playlist, it fell to the wayside. despite that, i did give this playlist a good 10 runs or so, and all the songs were high energy and fast-tempoed (is that a word? it looks pretty funny).

todays track is by montreal husband-wife duo handsome furs. im pretty sure the guy is in wolf parade, but im not positive. theyre both on subpop records, so that would make sense. it is inevitable that they will get compared to the white stripes, solely for being another husband-wife duo. does anyone else think it must be really awkward for jack and meg white to tour together now? i do. but since they never come to detroit we may never know. but this comparison shouldnt be made, because theyve got totally different sounds. handsome furs sound is very simple, full of catchy guitar riffs and 80s synthesizer sounds. their sound is pretty gritty overall, probably best exemplified by the slow rocker “evangeline”. its raw but polished. and check out the picture above. dont they just look like they make some pretty solid music? additionally, they like to party.

this track imparticular really really reminds me of the 80s. the verses even remind me of a specific song, but im not able to put my finger on it. does anyone know what song i may be thinking of? i think this made the summer playlist because of the contrast between the quiet of the verses and the screaming guitar riffs of the chorus. theyre some real screamers, those screaming guitar riffs. plus, im confused a lot (ask anyone i work with) and my mind was set on you. so i can relate to it. and its super catchy which doesnt hurt its cause. in fact, the whole album is pretty stellar in my opinion and now im kind of excited to listen to it again, and you should be too.

handsome furs – im confused

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