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April 24-30, 2008
buzz@boulderweekly.com
Under the radar
by Ben Corbett
Rooney’s big run
by Dave Kirby
 Under the radar
The secret album that Jack White and The Raconteurs recorded on the sly
by Ben Corbett
When he’s not touring with the White Stripes, singer/songwriter Jack White has always had his sleeves rolled up in any number of projects: composing Appalachian-style folk music for the Cold Mountain soundtrack, jamming obscure songs on stage with Bob Dylan, producing and recording with Loretta Lynn, or moonlighting on his side project, The Raconteurs. In 2005, when White and Brendan Benson (Alternative to Love) reached peak experience co-writing “Steady, As She Goes,” the two prolific musicians formed The Raconteurs, bringing in collaborators Jack Lawrence (bass) and Patrick Keeler (drums), the rhythm section for garage rockers The Greenhornes. Unorthodox, even revolutionary to the music industry, the band just released their second album, Consolers of the Lonely, with little fanfare and no publicity. Recorded over two three-week sessions (in May 2007 and February 2008), the idea was to quickly package the record (simultaneously in disc, vinyl and digital formats) and shove it out there before the media could manipulate its reception. This generation of mystery surrounding the album smacks of 1970s attitudes à la, for instance, Led Zeppelin — releasing records in brown paper bags, etc. Whether the move was fan-conscientious guerrilla strategy or simply keeping it real in a greed-glutted industry, whatever the case, it’s fresh. And coming from Jack White (a guy who maintains an unheard of amount of control over his products), no surprise.
In marketing, publicity, and in the album roster, Benson is listed before White, whose trajectory of fame is obviously driving him nuts. On Consolers, the flamboyant White seems quite content sitting shotgun in some of the arrangements. But either way, Benson and White are perfect songwriting foils, and the title track oozes with a contrapuntal weirdness that reflects the roller coaster aspect of the entire record, which was captured in a professional recording studio (unlike their 2006 debut, Broken Boy Soldiers, that was canned at Benson’s home studio). Piano-laden compositions complemented by dirty-ass blues guitar jousting — you never know where they’re taking you, and that’s the beauty of it. The end track, “Carolina Drama,” is a grim, postmodern ballad eerily reminiscent of Roy Buchanan’s “Good God Have Mercy.” And with nods like that, you know these guys mean business.
Midwest transplants now hailing from Nashville, The Raconteurs are quickly taking center stage in the garage-rock renaissance. For how long, nobody knows. One gets the impression that — being a hand-spun group of fiercely independent (but exceptionally fused) musicians — they’ll hang it up when it gets too big. For now, doing little promotion, The Raconteurs are apparently trying to keep it low-key, and White Stripes fans have been slow to catch on. But the slippery slope from playing mid-size venues to big outdoor sheds is imminent, so intelligent fans should catch them now before the shit-storm of media hype (mine included) pollutes the experience.
On the Bill
The Raconteurs will perform with Birds of Avalon at 8 p.m. on Monday, April 28, at the Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 Clarkson St., Denver, 303-837-1482.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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Rooney’s big run
After a meteoric debut album, this dynamic quintet had to fight the corporate handlers the second time around
by Dave Kirby
We were a little surprised when the publicist arranging our Rooney phone interview told us we’d be talking with guitarist Taylor Locke, from Germany, where the band had just wrapped up two nights of gigs in Köln.
“Yeah, it’s a little weird, kind of a David Hasselhoff thing I guess,” he said, laughing despite himself. “It’s awesome, though. They treat us great here.
“The first single (‘When Did Your Heart Go Missing?’) did pretty well over here, and the second one is doing well, also. We’re also
getting plenty of video support, here and pretty much throughout Europe, so that helps.”
L.A.-based Rooney is a deceptively simple entity revealed on their second long player Calling The World — straight-ahead rock hooks, three-part harmonies, four minutes in and out, no lingering or guitar-solo showboating. Check out the Beach Boys break on the hook-perfect “I Should Have Been After You,” before yielding to a near perfect toy-prog synth rideout a la Styx, or the Smithereen-ish neo-Fab of “Don’t Come Around Again.” And the lead-off single, the infectious “When Did Your Heart Go Missing?,” snaps like a Fixx/A-Ha FM radio staple. Seriously uncanny, right down to the Rubber Soul trib cover art.
But deceptive. Although Robert Schwartzman’s facility for reaching deep for granite-solid hooks and quoting everyone from The Beatles to ELO, The Cars to The Romantics, Petty to Queen is mesmerizing, there’s an airtight discipline at work here: perfectly mixed guitars and vocal harmonies, everyone playing to the band’s strong suits without dropping into fixed-stare genre larceny or needless spotlight hogging.
“Thanks,” Locke said, graciously fielding our compliments for a letter-perfect album and carrying a pop rock torch, “that’s one of the things I think we’re after, but we try not to allow ourselves to get pigeon-holed by it.”
The band has spent most of the past four or five years on the road, dividing their time between smaller venue headlining gigs and mega-star openers. In Germany they were opening for Jonas Brothers. And before that, Rooney was opening for, uh, Kelly Clarkson.
Kelly Clarkson? Like, the American Idol chick? Didn’t you guys open for Weezer on your first tour?
“Yeah, you wouldn’t be the first to note some… contrast… in the acts this band has opened for. The thing is, there’s a limited number of bands touring the places we want to go, and we’re still trying to extend beyond our own fans.
“But I agree that bands mature faster on their headline gigs, absolutely. We have a chance to loosen up more: Robert talks more between songs, longer or different intros, more jamming. Plus, we’re doing covers — like, more covers than we’ve probably ever done.”
But it’s Calling The World that’s keeping the band out on the road, and the back story behind this CD, released last year, is that while it officially counts as the band’s second album, they actually took three tries, over two and half years, to get it done… about two tries more than most young bands ever get.
As the old saying goes: you get your whole life to do your first album, and usually less than 18 months to do your second.
“Oh, yeah, we heard that a lot. We had just come off the road in late 2004 after touring the first album, and we wanted to just get in there right away and record a new record. Make it sound really live in the studio. And the more we went on, the more obvious it became to everyone that it just wasn’t what the band was about. The songs weren’t there. The playing wasn’t there. It wasn’t representative of us at all; we were in such a hurry to make a record, we didn’t bother trying to sound like us.
“So, by mutual agreement, we put it aside. It kind of shook our confidence.”
Predictable static ensued — firing managers, nervous A&R guys, perplexed fans — all the while their surprising debut just got older.
Follow-up the next year, new producer and new approach.
“We kind of over-compensated for the last experience — really dumbed it down, made it very safe and controlled. It didn’t work either…”
The band finally hooked up with noted L.A. producer John Fields in 2006, got a new A&R guy at Geffen, and got it right.
“We just went outside the usual program — no record company input, nothing. We just worked it all out ourselves, sent them songs one at a time as they got finished. Once it was done, we realized this is how we should have done it all along.
“I mean, we’re on a major label, but we’ve always kind of done things in an indie-ish way, and that’s definitely how we approached this record.”
But Locke has no illusions about their good fortune.
“No, you’re right, the fact that we hung on long enough and the result was this good is pretty amazing.”
On the Bill
Rooney will perform with Locksley & The Bridges at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 29, at the Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder, 303-443-3399.
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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