Moss

Last post in the join-the-dots sequence of this week and it’s a hop,a skip and jump from DJ Shadow on Monday to Kate Moss today. Kate collided with pop culture in 1990, the Third Summer Of Love issue of The Face magazine (Spike Island, rave, De La Soul etc) and a football and music fashion shoot in April 1990 (E For England, World In Motion etc). I had the Brazil jersey from the range she’s modelling above and wore it to Spike Island. Since then she’s floated around the music world, dipping in and out. Yesterday’s post included Jack White’s Raconteurs. Jack has at least two connections to Croydon’s supermodel- in his primary band, The White Stripes, Kate starred in the video for I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself, an ace, raw cover of the Dusty Springfield song. Your enjoyment of this video will depend on whether the prospect of Kate Moss pole-dancing in her underwear interests you at all.

Ahem. Moving on.
Another of Jack’s projects, The Dead Weather, saw him playing drums behind Alison Mosshart, whose day job was singing in The Kills. I’ve posted Baby Says before but that’s no reason not to do it again. Stunning song.

Alison’s musical partner in The Kills is Jamie Hince, Kate Moss’s husband. She sang vocals on Primal Scream’s 2002 cover version of Some Velvet Morning (originally sung by Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra). This song, and the Disco Heater Dub version which followed it, were produced by, and you knew this was coming surely, Andrew Weatherall. I’m not sure it’s any of those involved’s finest hour but there you go. I’ve more or less managed a Dry January- no, not alcohol, that would be stupid- a Dry January of no Weatherall and no Clash/BAD etc. Abstinence until today.

Crazy As She Goes

DJ Shadow >>> UNKLE >>> Richard Ashcroft >>> The Verve >>> The Good, The Bad And The Queen >>> Dangermouse >>> Gnarls Barkley.

I really liked Gnarls Barkley’s number one worldwide smash Crazy. Dangermouse and Cee Lo Green made some memorable Top Of The Pops appearances (the one where they dressed as air crew springs to mind). Back in 2006 the mash up was all the rage. This one, I don’t know who did it, splices Gnarls Barkley with The Raconteurs (Steady As She Goes).

Crazy As She Goes

We saw a band at a fiftieth birthday party last weekend- the band were much younger than us, mid-to-late 20s. Their go-to cover versions were largely early/mid 2000s- The Strokes, The Raconteurs, Arctic Monkeys, White Stripes, Black Keys. It said something culturally- these kids, their references, are post-20th century. Rave on.

Steady As She Goes

Jack White’s first go outside The White Stripes was in The Raconteurs, which didn’t in the end do too much for me- I loved the first single (Steady As She Goes) but the album was full of my less favourite aspects of the mid 1970s- time changes, guitar soloing, pop balladeering. This version of Steady As She Goes was done for a Radio 2 session and re-works the song as a folkier, wheezier thing, less Zep more The Band.

Steady As She Goes (Radio 2 Session)

Last Kind Word

Jack White has a solo album out next month and I like Jack White, even though I didn’t like everything The White Stripes did (especially towards the end), didn’t get The Raconteurs and missed The Dead Weather completely. But when he’s good, he’s very good and there’s no denying his heart’s in the right place. The single Love Interruption a while back was a cool solo start.

Back in 2009 the Dex Romweber Duo recorded at Jack’s Third Man studio, putting out a single. Dex Romweber has been playing rockabilly, blues and roots since the mid-80s, most recently with his sister on drums. Which sounds familiar. The A-side, The Wind Did Move, had Jack playing bass and backing vox and on the B-side Jack and Dex shared vox and guitar. This is the B-side.

Last Kind Word Blues