White Stripes Peel Sessions

Jack White was never going to sit still and keep the White Stripes going. I didn’t know that the first time I heard them 11 years ago, when one of my favorite Boston college radio stations (not sure which one; either Boston College’s WZBC or M.I.T.’s WMBR) played the band’s cover of Captain Beefheart’s “Party of Special Things to Do.”

If I’d known back then that Jack harbored dreams to produce, launch a label and form multiple musical projects (The Raconteurs, Dead Weather), I would’ve gone to see him and Meg more than twice before they broke up nearly a year ago.

But thanks to Eric's really great quality soundboard recordings the Stripes did for John Peel (see link below),  I can relive the golden early part of this century when the White Stripes reigned supreme over college rock. The 24-song set list includes songs from their first, self-titled album, their second, De Stijl, and their third, White Blood Cells.

There aren’t any surprises here – Meg doesn’t pull out a Bonzo-style 10-minute drum solo, Jack doesn’t engage the audience with witty repartee – just two dozen cranked-up, fuzzed-out rock and roll rippers done in front of a small but very appreciative audience.

While Jack was in a few bands prior to the White Stripes, and has been in two others since that band’s breakup (and will surely hook up with other combos in the future – he’s only 36), for me the Stripes is the one that matters most. I really like the Dead Weather; the Raconteurs are just a’ight in my book.

The Stripes were just so primal, and had a great ruse – the brother-sister thing – that worked on some people for too long, and which may have just been exposed to at least one person reading this. They had the white-and-red color scheme, the man-woman dynamic, the youthful energy that just can’t be matched as White ages.

There’s a certain freedom in a guitar-drum duo that can’t be found in larger outfits. While Meg holds the beat – heavy, primitive, but surely not as simple as it seems at first – Jack beats the crap out of his guitar, can take it anywhere he wants to without worrying about a rhythm player or a bassist or a keyboardist following along, or rather, not doing so.

In addition to so many great originals, the Stripes in this performance cover Gene Vincent’s “Baby Blue”; “Boll Weevil,” a traditional blues song whose most well known rendition was done by Leadbelly; Blind Willie McTell’s “Lord Send Me an Angel”: Son House’s “Death Letter”: Loretta Lynn’s “Rated X”: and possibly others.

The band did two sets for Peel, both of which are available here. Contained within the zip files are Apple lossless files you can import into iTunes, Amara, or other apps.