Howard Kaylan Storms the White House in 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles' - Exclusive Book Excerpt

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.

The Turtles, a 1960s folk rock band, were only around for five years – but during that time, they landed a ton of hits on the charts, including "Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me" and their Top 10 cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe." They also partied like maniacs and had enough wild adventures to fill many books.

Howard Kaylan, the group's frontman (and Eddie from Flo and Eddie) has a new memoir coming out in April – Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa. Here's an exclusive excerpt in which he describes their performance at the White House in 1969 at Tricia Nixon's coming-out party.

I was snorting coke on Abraham Lincoln's desk in the White House. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln and that White House. A bunch of hairy peacenik dopers from California though we were, it seems that Tricia Nixon, daughter of Tricky Dick himself, was a fan of the Turtles and had requested our presence. Our first instinct: you've got to be kidding! No way in hell!

Yet here we were, our noses vacuuming lines off the surface of Honest Abe's very own workspace.

We had gone through several managers during the past five years and been on the charts far more often than anyone would ever have guessed, considering that we were the only ones looking out for us, and that White Whale Records wasn't much of a label.

Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures

There had been the folk-rock years, and we had been lucky enough to score a few big hits; we were among the earliest children of Bob Dylan, putting our cover version of his tune "It Ain't Me, Babe" into the Top 10.

Then we had become the good-time music boys, influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful and determined not to protest anything. We'd made it to Number One with a song that's still recognized today as one of the classic rock & roll love songs of all time. "Happy Together," indeed.

And, now, finally, we had engineered our own success with "Elenore," our first self-penned Top 10 record, and "You Showed Me," which we had changed from a Beatlesque rocker into a lush ballad.

We were lucky and we knew it.

Of course, now we had the big-time management to prove it.

Gone were the friends of friends—we'd realized that we really weren't in any position to manage ourselves—and hello to the new Superstar Management Team.

We had been courted, successfully, by Ron DeBlasio and Jeff Wald, who were, at the time, top reps for the Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation.

That's right—Bill Cosby.

Mister Pudding Pops.

Fat Freaking Albert.

Bill, his own self, was a full partner in the firm that represented him.

And us.

And others.

And his sweaters.

And he was the number one comic in America.

Across the hall was the office of the appropriately named Artie Mogul, who ran the in-house record company, Tetragrammaton, home to Deep Purple and more.

Of course, he had nothing to do with us. Neither did Mr. Cosby, but his name promised to open a lot of doors in Hollywood and that was exactly what we needed.

But what, I asked, could these guys bring to the table for a band that had been around the block and, hypothetically, overstayed their welcome?

We didn't have to wait long.

 ••••

We had heard, through the grapevine, that the Turtles were Tricia's favorite band, and we'd all had a good chuckle over that.

Old Man Nixon was the creepiest Dick of his generation, the least popular president among the under-30 crowd that had ever been, and a killer of our young men and women, as far as we were concerned.

We were deeply anti-war and deeply self-conscious. We weren't Nixonites, that's for sure. We were everything he stood against.

So when the hand-engraved invitations to perform at Tricia's coming out party arrived at the Cosby office, we were none too thrilled. In fact, we flat out refused to play.

They started to freak out.

"What do you mean, you refuse to play?! Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn't a political thing. It's like a goddamned royal proclamation, you idiots! You play the White House because you're an American!"

Blah, blah, blah …

They shamed us into it.

Not only that, but to add insult to injury, management now was requesting that we each go out and buy a classy new suit. Can't play for the president looking like the sewer rats that you really are.

Perfect. There it was, again.

Too bad Johny Barbata wasn't the drummer in the band anymore. He'd have loved the sight of us clumsily trying on the very Brioni suits that he'd been trying to get us to wear for three-and-a-half years.

Now we had each bought one. Talk about fish out of water.

****

Came the big day, May 10, 1969, we flew into Washington, D.C. on the taxpayers' dollar. There, we were met by five separate cars, replete with drivers all flying the American flag, and taken directly to the White House. Once there we discovered that the Secret Service had dossiers on each of us. They kept us in a holding lounge while going through our intimate details individually.

After we had all been cleared, it was time to unload the equipment that we had brought with us all the way from L.A.

But we didn't do the unloading. Instead, the Secret Service guys did. And they didn't know the first thing about large equipment cases. So as they began to unload the trap case from the drum set, the large case that holds the snare drum, percussion goodies and miscellaneous items, they tipped it to one side and, unknowingly, triggered the tiny switch on the electric metronome/tuner that we always carried with us.

"…..tick….tick….tick."

Out came the guns.

"Up against the wall!"

Oh, we went there. Up against that wall it was as they carted off our little black box. We stood there, a rock group inside of enemy territory, the Nixon White House, looking down the crosshairs from the wrong direction. Guys in HAZMAT suits were brought in to deal with our little plastic tuner and their freak-out escalated yet another notch when someone hit the tuning switch and the 440 cycle "A" tone started shrieking from the metronome.

The term "shitting a brick" comes to mind.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Howard Kaylan Storms the White House in 'Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles' - Exclusive Book Excerpt

Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa, etc.

The Turtles, a 1960s folk rock band, were only around for five years – but during that time, they landed a ton of hits on the charts, including "Happy Together," "She'd Rather Be With Me" and their Top 10 cover of Bob Dylan's "It Ain't Me, Babe." They also partied like maniacs and had enough wild adventures to fill many books.

Howard Kaylan, the group's frontman (and Eddie from Flo and Eddie) has a new memoir coming out in April – Shell Shocked: My Life with the Turtles, Flo and Eddie, and Frank Zappa. Here's an exclusive excerpt in which he describes their performance at the White House in 1969 at Tricia Nixon's coming-out party.

I was snorting coke on Abraham Lincoln's desk in the White House. Yes, that Abraham Lincoln and that White House. A bunch of hairy peacenik dopers from California though we were, it seems that Tricia Nixon, daughter of Tricky Dick himself, was a fan of the Turtles and had requested our presence. Our first instinct: you've got to be kidding! No way in hell!

Yet here we were, our noses vacuuming lines off the surface of Honest Abe's very own workspace.

We had gone through several managers during the past five years and been on the charts far more often than anyone would ever have guessed, considering that we were the only ones looking out for us, and that White Whale Records wasn't much of a label.

Random Notes: Hottest Rock Pictures

There had been the folk-rock years, and we had been lucky enough to score a few big hits; we were among the earliest children of Bob Dylan, putting our cover version of his tune "It Ain't Me, Babe" into the Top 10.

Then we had become the good-time music boys, influenced by the Lovin' Spoonful and determined not to protest anything. We'd made it to Number One with a song that's still recognized today as one of the classic rock & roll love songs of all time. "Happy Together," indeed.

And, now, finally, we had engineered our own success with "Elenore," our first self-penned Top 10 record, and "You Showed Me," which we had changed from a Beatlesque rocker into a lush ballad.

We were lucky and we knew it.

Of course, now we had the big-time management to prove it.

Gone were the friends of friends—we'd realized that we really weren't in any position to manage ourselves—and hello to the new Superstar Management Team.

We had been courted, successfully, by Ron DeBlasio and Jeff Wald, who were, at the time, top reps for the Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation.

That's right—Bill Cosby.

Mister Pudding Pops.

Fat Freaking Albert.

Bill, his own self, was a full partner in the firm that represented him.

And us.

And others.

And his sweaters.

And he was the number one comic in America.

Across the hall was the office of the appropriately named Artie Mogul, who ran the in-house record company, Tetragrammaton, home to Deep Purple and more.

Of course, he had nothing to do with us. Neither did Mr. Cosby, but his name promised to open a lot of doors in Hollywood and that was exactly what we needed.

But what, I asked, could these guys bring to the table for a band that had been around the block and, hypothetically, overstayed their welcome?

We didn't have to wait long.

 ••••

We had heard, through the grapevine, that the Turtles were Tricia's favorite band, and we'd all had a good chuckle over that.

Old Man Nixon was the creepiest Dick of his generation, the least popular president among the under-30 crowd that had ever been, and a killer of our young men and women, as far as we were concerned.

We were deeply anti-war and deeply self-conscious. We weren't Nixonites, that's for sure. We were everything he stood against.

So when the hand-engraved invitations to perform at Tricia's coming out party arrived at the Cosby office, we were none too thrilled. In fact, we flat out refused to play.

They started to freak out.

"What do you mean, you refuse to play?! Who the hell do you think you are?! This isn't a political thing. It's like a goddamned royal proclamation, you idiots! You play the White House because you're an American!"

Blah, blah, blah …

They shamed us into it.

Not only that, but to add insult to injury, management now was requesting that we each go out and buy a classy new suit. Can't play for the president looking like the sewer rats that you really are.

Perfect. There it was, again.

Too bad Johny Barbata wasn't the drummer in the band anymore. He'd have loved the sight of us clumsily trying on the very Brioni suits that he'd been trying to get us to wear for three-and-a-half years.

Now we had each bought one. Talk about fish out of water.

****

Came the big day, May 10, 1969, we flew into Washington, D.C. on the taxpayers' dollar. There, we were met by five separate cars, replete with drivers all flying the American flag, and taken directly to the White House. Once there we discovered that the Secret Service had dossiers on each of us. They kept us in a holding lounge while going through our intimate details individually.

After we had all been cleared, it was time to unload the equipment that we had brought with us all the way from L.A.

But we didn't do the unloading. Instead, the Secret Service guys did. And they didn't know the first thing about large equipment cases. So as they began to unload the trap case from the drum set, the large case that holds the snare drum, percussion goodies and miscellaneous items, they tipped it to one side and, unknowingly, triggered the tiny switch on the electric metronome/tuner that we always carried with us.

"…..tick….tick….tick."

Out came the guns.

"Up against the wall!"

Oh, we went there. Up against that wall it was as they carted off our little black box. We stood there, a rock group inside of enemy territory, the Nixon White House, looking down the crosshairs from the wrong direction. Guys in HAZMAT suits were brought in to deal with our little plastic tuner and their freak-out escalated yet another notch when someone hit the tuning switch and the 440 cycle "A" tone started shrieking from the metronome.

The term "shitting a brick" comes to mind.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon MP3 Download Center

Read more »

Jack White Digs Up 1999 Live Cuts for Third Man Vault

Third Man Records have dipped back into their vault and are set to release a live recording of Jack White and the Bricks recorded at a Detroit bowling alley in 1999.

Jack White and the Bricks: Live on the Garden Bowl Lanes will be pressed on bowling-pin-white vinyl, with nine tracks including two Bob Dylan covers ("Isis" and "I Threw It All Away") and several songs that would later be reinterpreted by the White Stripes, including "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" and "The Union Forever." The set closes with a cover of ? and the Mysterians' "Ain't It a Shame," which White dedicated to "a girl who has to get surgery soon" – i.e. Meg White, who was about to undergo a tonsillectomy.

50 Best Songs of 2012: Jack White, 'Sixteen Candles'

The recording marks the first show Jack White and the Bricks played, with the band featuring future Raconteur Brendan Benson on guitar, Kevin Peyok (the Waxwings, the See-See) on bass and Ben Blackwell (the Dirtbombs) on drums. The setting was a home of the once-thriving Detroit garage rock scene; the band set up and performed on lanes 11 through 14, while a four-track reel-to-reel was placed in lane 10.

Along with Live on the Garden Bowl Lanes, this upcoming Third Man Vault package will also include a seven-inch single with an early demo of the Raconteurs' "Steady, As She Goes" recorded by White and Benson on the A-side, and the B-side featuring the two playing "The Same Boy You've Always Known" from 1999, two years before it appeared on the White Stripes' White Blood Cells.

If you're not already a Third Man Vault member, you can sign up by January 31st in order to receive this upcoming release.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Jack White Rips Through 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground' Live at Third Man

Click to listen to Jack White's 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (live at Third Man Third Anniversary)'

On March 8th, Jack White made his solo debut to help celebrate the third anniversary of his Third Man Records store and recording studio in Nashville. Now he's marking the performance with Vault Package #14, part of his subscription series, which includes a double album of the performance, Live At Third Man Records; a special seven-inch containing demo versions of "Freedom at 21," "Love Interruption" and "Hypocritical Kiss"; and a photo book from the Dead Weather's 2010 tour, Shark Infested Soda Fountain. Here, White reaches back for the White Blood Cells single "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," tearing through the track with sludgy, rugged riffs.

Fans must sign up by October 31st to receive Vault Package #14. For more information, visit the Third Man Records website.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon MP3 Download Center

Read more »

Jack White Rips Through 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground' Live at Third Man

Click to listen to Jack White's 'Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground (live at Third Man Third Anniversary)'

On March 8th, Jack White made his solo debut to help celebrate the third anniversary of his Third Man Records store and recording studio in Nashville. Now he's marking the performance with Vault Package #14, part of his subscription series, which includes a double album of the performance, Live At Third Man Records; a special seven-inch containing demo versions of "Freedom at 21," "Love Interruption" and "Hypocritical Kiss"; and a photo book from the Dead Weather's 2010 tour, Shark Infested Soda Fountain. Here, White reaches back for the White Blood Cells single "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," tearing through the track with sludgy, rugged riffs.

Fans must sign up by October 31st to receive Vault Package #14. For more information, visit the Third Man Records website.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Guns N' Roses, Jack White and Flaming Lips to Play Bridge School Benefit

Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses performs on stage on June 4th, 2012 at Ahoy, Rotterdam.

This year's Bridge School Benefit will feature performances by Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Jack White, Guns N' Roses, The Flaming Lips, Sarah McLachlan, Foster The People, Lucinda Williams, Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Ranger Band, k.d. lang and the Siss Boom Bang and Gary Clark Jr. The annual two-day event will be held at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California on October 20th and 21st. Tickets go on sale Friday, September 14th at 10:00 a.m. PDT.

As always, the artists will perform completely acoustic sets. This will be the first Bridge School Benefit for Guns N' Roses, Jack White and the Flaming Lips, and it will be a unique opportunity for fans to see them do an unplugged set. Foster The People, Steve Martin, k.d. lang and Gary Clark Jr. are also Bridge School first-timers.

The Bridge School Benefit, which raises money for children with severe physical impairments, has been held almost every year since 1986. It's organized by Neil and Pegi Young and it always boasts one of the best line-ups of the festival season. Previous shows have featured stripped-down sets by David Bowie, Bruce Springsteen, Paul McCartney, the Who, Pearl Jam, Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan and too many others to mention.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Jack White Talks 'Blunderbuss,' Hidden Tracks and Bob Dylan at the Grammy Museum

Speaking with Iggy Pop prior to the 2009 death of Ron Asheton, Jack White described how he might go about producing a new Stooges album. One idea? Having the legendary Detroit proto-punks rent a house and live together, Monkees-style. "There was silence on the phone call for about 10 seconds," according to White, before Iggy Pop replied, "I’m gonna have to think about that."

The Stooges story was one tidbit White revealed Friday afternoon in an hour-long conversation at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where the former White Stripes frontman touched down this weekend for two shows at the Shrine Auditorium in support of his first solo album, Blunderbuss. Following the Grammy talk he also played a surprise 20-minute set at Mariachi Plaza in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood; White pulled a similar stunt last Wednesday at an auto-body shop in Denver.

Dressed in checkered slacks, a dark button-down shirt and a gray fedora, White told the Grammy Museum’s executive director, Robert Santelli, about learning to play drums at the age of 5 in the attic of his family’s home and how he only picked up the guitar when none of his pals would: "I said, 'All right, well, I’ll play guitar so we can play.'" He also described his earliest live act, in which he performed the songs from Bob Dylan’s self-titled 1962 debut – in their original order – at coffee shops around Detroit. (Asked by Santelli what it’s been like to get to know Dylan in recent years, White laughed and said, "He’s very good at making sure you don’t know him.")

Of Blunderbuss, White said he’d begun work on the album one day when RZA called at the last minute to cancel a recording date they’d set at White’s Third Man Records complex in Nashville. "I had all these musicians in the studio and needed something to do," he explained. "So I just wrote a couple of songs."

White earned the biggest reaction from the audience – which numbered approximately 200 fans and various music-biz types – with a demonstration of where he’d hidden a secret track on the vinyl edition of the Dead Weather’s Sea of Cowards album. (It’s etched into the record’s center label.) Yet despite his well-documented love of old music and old technology, White was quick to denounce what he called the "all those words that start with R-E: retro, recreate, reinterpret."

"It’s kind of ridiculous to try to emulate a certain time period or person or what they did," he said. "You could go onstage and be like, 'I love Robert Johnson so much, I’ll try to sing and play like Robert Johnson.' That doesn’t do anybody any good, and you can’t do it anyway. You need to be yourself."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Jack White Talks 'Blunderbuss,' Hidden Tracks and Bob Dylan at the Grammy Museum

Speaking with Iggy Pop prior to the 2009 death of Ron Asheton, Jack White described how he might go about producing a new Stooges album. One idea? Having the legendary Detroit proto-punks rent a house and live together, Monkees-style. "There was silence on the phone call for about 10 seconds," according to White, before Iggy Pop replied, "I’m gonna have to think about that."

The Stooges story was one tidbit White revealed Friday afternoon in an hour-long conversation at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where the former White Stripes frontman touched down this weekend for two shows at the Shrine Auditorium in support of his first solo album, Blunderbuss. Following the Grammy talk he also played a surprise 20-minute set at Mariachi Plaza in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood; White pulled a similar stunt last Wednesday at an auto-body shop in Denver.

Dressed in checkered slacks, a dark button-down shirt and a gray fedora, White told the Grammy Museum’s executive director, Robert Santelli, about learning to play drums at the age of 5 in the attic of his family’s home and how he only picked up the guitar when none of his pals would: "I said, 'All right, well, I’ll play guitar so we can play.'" He also described his earliest live act, in which he performed the songs from Bob Dylan’s self-titled 1962 debut – in their original order – at coffee shops around Detroit. (Asked by Santelli what it’s been like to get to know Dylan in recent years, White laughed and said, "He’s very good at making sure you don’t know him.")

Of Blunderbuss, White said he’d begun work on the album one day when RZA called at the last minute to cancel a recording date they’d set at White’s Third Man Records complex in Nashville. "I had all these musicians in the studio and needed something to do," he explained. "So I just wrote a couple of songs."

White earned the biggest reaction from the audience – which numbered approximately 200 fans and various music-biz types – with a demonstration of where he’d hidden a secret track on the vinyl edition of the Dead Weather’s Sea of Cowards album. (It’s etched into the record’s center label.) Yet despite his well-documented love of old music and old technology, White was quick to denounce what he called the "all those words that start with R-E: retro, recreate, reinterpret."

"It’s kind of ridiculous to try to emulate a certain time period or person or what they did," he said. "You could go onstage and be like, 'I love Robert Johnson so much, I’ll try to sing and play like Robert Johnson.' That doesn’t do anybody any good, and you can’t do it anyway. You need to be yourself."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon MP3 Download Center

Read more »

'Breaking Bad' Creator Vince Gilligan: 'Walter White Is Scarface'

Season Five of Breaking Bad starts with about as foreboding a scene as we have witnessed on the famously bleak show: Walt on his 52nd birthday, buying a machine gun in the bathroom of a Denny's for some unknown reckoning. To help us feed our Breaking Bad jones, we got showrunner Vince Gilligan to break down the first episode and share some insights into the mind behind America's favorite meth cook.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that opening in a Denny's – you've never flashed forward this far into the future, have you?
You are absolutely correct. As we get into Season Five, not quite a year has progressed in chronological time on the show. So flashing forward yet another year, or a little more than another year, is definitely something new for us.

Video: Bryan Cranston on Ending 'Breaking Bad'

It's an ominous-looking future . . .
It is definitely a glimpse at a very real future. One that is going to remain shrouded in mystery for a while. I don't want to say exactly how long. But don't hold your breath because it may be a while before you get too many explanations for what you're seeing. But all will be answered before Breaking Bad is said and done.

Well, it seems like there's a reckoning that is coming . . .
It sure looks that way [laughs]. You go to the trouble of buying an M60 machine gun in a Denny's bathroom, you probably have a pretty pressing and severe use for it at hand.

Walter White's 10 Lowest Lows on 'Breaking Bad'

Taking it back to the present in Breaking Bad time, it felt like last season Walt had tied up so many loose ends – but of course we found out that you can never tie up all the loose ends.
Exactly. There are an awful lot of loose ends when you are forging a meth kingdom. There are so many I's to dot and T's to cross when you're on your meteoric rise to becoming Scarface. And a lot of paperwork that needs to get done, you know? The paperwork is endless.

It feels like Walt and Skyler's relationship has really shifted into an awful new gear . . .
Yes. It very much looks like Skyler is in hell these days. You know, Walt always talks a good game about doing what he does for his family and in the early days of Breaking Bad, that was very much the case, but now, it seems to me Skyler is the member of that particular team who really is worried for the family. To that end, is she making the right choices? Maybe not. But she definitely has her heart in the right place when it comes to her family's welfare. And these days she's just scared out of her mind.

And the source of her terror is Walt.
She's come to realize in this first episode of Season Five that the man she married is not at all that she thought he was. This is a truly scary individual. He said back in the middle of Season Four, 'I am the danger,' and now she believes it more than ever. This is a man capable of blowing up a nursing home in order to kill one guy. This is a scary person indeed, and she shares a bed with him. What does she do about this? Should she call the police? Should she tell her brother-in-law, Hank? Perhaps. Probably, in fact. But so far she doesn't seem capable of doing that. The last image of this episode is all of that in a nutshell.

When Walt says, 'I forgive you' to her, it is one of his most chilling lines yet.
Exactly. It's an interesting line because on the one hand, it seems out of touch with reality for him to think that he is being magnanimous about forgiving her when he's in fact, the monster, the cancer, if you will, that's destroying her and her family. But it's also very manipulative on his part.

How so?
It's this feeling of, 'I'm going to be magnanimous here. I'm the bigger person. And we're going to pick right up where we left off and things are going to be good and it will be that way, because I decree it. I will it. I'm the king.' That's where Walt's head is at and, unfortunately for Skyler, she is – very much against her will –along for the ride.

We've watched Walt go from being a good man doing bad things, to almost a straight-up bad guy. Is there any of that good man still left in him?
It's an excellent question. I think the answer is up to the individual viewer. We're watching a character in a constant state of flux, a constant state of transformation. In every individual episode, Walter's a little further along the continuum between good guy and bad guy. And because our audience is not monolithic, and every viewer has his or her own interpretation, with every episode, I like to picture viewers losing sympathy for Walt. With every episode yet another viewer or two is saying, 'You know, I'm not with this guy anymore. I'm watching him, but I'm not sympathizing.' This is a guy moving along a continuum toward ultimately becoming Scarface, and it seems in episode 501 he's already Scarface.

Walt's that far along?
Man, he's already there. Maybe he's still got a little further to go. But then the question is, if you delve in to some very dark territory– if you lose big chunks of your soul, is there ever any getting it back? Is there anything you can do to at least partially redeem yourself? So this guy is definitely on a journey into darkness and the question remains, how much darker can it go? And, also, is there any light, ultimately, however faint and flickering, at the end of this particular tunnel?

You certainly made him more physically intimidating – now suddenly he's intimidating Saul in a very physical way . . .
I have to give all credit to Bryan Cranston for that. It's all Bryan's skill and artistry as an actor. Back when Walter White needed to be doughy and meek and mild mannered and essentially ineffectual, Bryan pulled that off. Now, I believe we're 47 episodes in, he is indeed intimidating as hell! Bryan Cranston, who's one of the sweetest guys alive but, man, when he puts it on, when he puts on that Heisenberg face, you'd cross the street to avoid him. Bryan does it in some magical, seemingly effortless way. It's like watching Michael Jordan play basketball. It's like watching someone who is at the top of their game. It looks effortless. You watch Jordan play basketball and you say, 'Man I could do that.' No you couldn't! Not in a million years!

Where did you get the brilliant idea  for the destruction of the evidence room with the giant magnet?
Honestly, I can't remember. It came up in the writer's room. I have six excellent writers and we have been together for a very long time now. We sit in a room all day together, hours on end, and just tell each other stories. We plot these episodes out scene by scene. First of all you have to say to yourself, where do we start season five? And then you say, gosh, do we have any loose ends left over from Season Four? Well, yeah, we got a ton of them. Which one do we want to start with? Well, how about we start with a very pressing law enforcement problem of Gus Fring's laptop. We kept seeing him on it all of last season. Whatever happened to it? Then you just build it organically, brick by brick. You go through the process of, how do you get rid of a laptop that's in police custody? Of course you say well, what if they get it before the cops get it? That would be the best thing for them, right? But then if you're being hard on yourself and being honest, you say, what's the worst thing for the characters? Because the worst thing for the characters is often the best thing for the drama.

That's been consistent in Breaking Bad . . .
[Laughs] Oh, good, I'm glad. We hold ourselves to a very high standard in the writer's room and very often we say, why can't they just get the damn laptop out before the cops show up?  But then we say, no, we got to make it tough on our guys. Walt has got to persevere against overwhelming odds and he's got to do it often and consistently. 'Alright, so, this laptop is locked away in a giant facility like at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the walls are two feet thick and it's guarded by cops 24 hours a day, how are they going to get it out of there?' And then the process in the writers room truly does, in that moment, mirror the process in the scene where you pace around the room and bang your head against the wall until you come up with the idea of the magnet.

It feels like Gus Fring's ghost haunts the first episode . . .
Good. We knew that the end of last season marked the end of an era. Gus Fring was, in many ways, the, scariest, most compelling, most complex bad guy we were likely ever going to see on Breaking Bad. And, in the early going of Season Five, we were pacing around very nervously trying to figure out how to top Gus Fring? How do we top the amazing Giancarlo Esposito and we came, you know, very quickly we came upon the inescapable conclusion that we weren't going to be able to do that. Then we thought, if we can't have a bad guy who's as good or better than Gus Fring, then what are we doing? And we came to the realization that we already have a bad guy as formidable and interesting and complex, maybe even more so, ultimately, than Fring was and that's our protagonist. Who in our world was ever capable of out-Fring-ing Fring? Walter White. That's indeed the thrust of Season Five. Walt is now the king. The king is dead. Long live the king.

Of course we know from the very opening scene of season five that Walt's left town at some point and his reign was short . . .
[Laughs] That is true! That was giving away something but anyone who's watched this show for any length of time knows that Walt is probably not going to ride off into the sunset. It's just not that kind of story. The question is, will the show end guns blazing? Will it go out with a bang? What exactly is going happen with these characters? Who's going to remain standing when it's all said and done? Who isn't when the dust clears? But I think it's not giving away much to say that it's going to be very tricky to find a completely happy ending for this particular story.

Mad Men is coming off a terrific season. I wonder how competitive you are with other show runners. Do you think, ''I got to top that?'
Oh, absolutely. First of all, that season of Mad Men was great. Really enjoyable. On the one hand you say to yourself, 'Well, we're apples and oranges, Mad Men and Breaking Bad couldn't be much more different.' But, on the other hand, you look at all the Emmys those guys win, and you find yourself  thinking, 'Man, I want to win some Emmys too!' You have a good-natured feeling of, 'What can we do to top them?' It almost feels like, I'm going to compose a sonnet that's way better than this symphony that this other guy wrote. Well, one is poetry and the other is orchestral music. They are just so different. Having said that, a little healthy feeling of competition never hurt anybody. I feel that way towards so many other great shows, too. I look around and see a Game of Thrones or The Good Wife or Homeland and realize this is such a wonderful time to be working in television. Show runners these days have competitive streak with one another but, at the same time, you feel this glow of pride and you feel this sort camaraderie and you think man, this is a good time to be in this line of work.

Do you know why TV is having such a golden age?
You could do a whole piece about that. I think the answer is multi-fold, but back in the Seventies, when Hollywood was a source of storytelling for adults, you could have movies like Five Easy Pieces that would never in a million years get made by a major studio. You could no more get that made now than you could send a rocket to Jupiter tomorrow. That kind of storytelling was abandoned by Hollywood, because Hollywood's economic model is just different now. It's a model in which only big tentpole sequels and cartoon movies get made, and yet there's a huge appetite for stories about adults. And, because that appetite exists and it keeps going unslaked – if that's the right way to put it – by Hollywood, it had to migrate elsewhere and it migrated to television.

Cranston hinted in an interview recently at a Breaking Bad movie. Any truth to that?
[Laughs] I've learned a long time ago to never say never, but it is definitely not, in any way shape or form, on my personal radar. We've been given this wonderful opportunity to know exactly when we're going to end and to be able to work toward it. You don't want to be George Foreman and keep coming out of retirement. I'm going to tell every goddamn last bit of story I can possibly get in there with these next 16 episodes. I want it to end with the last 10 seconds of picture on the very last episode and I want– My fervent dream is for this show to end and for people to say, 'Oh my God, that was what I hoped for and I'm going to miss it – now, what's on next?'

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Jack White Unveils Flashy Preview for 'Freedom At 21'

Jack White has unveiled a flashy preview clip for his upcoming video for the Blunderbuss cut "Freedom at 21." The clip, directed by Hype Williams, is a shot of street-racing adrenaline spliced with desperado Wild West imagery. The full video won't be out until July 16th, but in this half-minute clip you can take a peek at the vivid superimposed lettering, approximately four seconds of Jack White's guitar fretboard and two seconds of the rocker's angry stare.

Blunderbuss is out now on Columbia and Third Man Records.

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Jack White Unveils Flashy Preview for 'Freedom At 21'

Jack White has unveiled a flashy preview clip for his upcoming video for the Blunderbuss cut "Freedom at 21." The clip, directed by Hype Williams, is a shot of street-racing adrenaline spliced with desperado Wild West imagery. The full video won't be out until July 16th, but in this half-minute clip you can take a peek at the vivid superimposed lettering, approximately four seconds of Jack White's guitar fretboard and two seconds of the rocker's angry stare.

Blunderbuss is out now on Columbia and Third Man Records.

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

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Weekend Rock Question: What is the Best Jack White Song of All Time?

Jack White performs at Street Scene Music Festival in San Diego, California.

Jack White is set to release Blunderbuss, his debut as a solo artist, on April 24th. Though the record marks a turning point in his career, it's also one more great album in a long string of releases that includes his entire White Stripes discography, his work as a member of the Dead Weather and the Raconteurs and his collaborations with artists ranging from Loretta Lynn and Danger Mouse to Wanda Jackson and Stephen Colbert.

Our question for you this week is: What is the best Jack White song of all time? Feel free to vote for anything he's ever done!

You can vote here in the comments, on facebook.com/rollingstone or on Twitter using the #weekendrock hashtag.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Weekend Rock Question: What is the Best Jack White Song of All Time?

Jack White performs at Street Scene Music Festival in San Diego, California.

Jack White is set to release Blunderbuss, his debut as a solo artist, on April 24th. Though the record marks a turning point in his career, it's also one more great album in a long string of releases that includes his entire White Stripes discography, his work as a member of the Dead Weather and the Raconteurs and his collaborations with artists ranging from Loretta Lynn and Danger Mouse to Wanda Jackson and Stephen Colbert.

Our question for you this week is: What is the best Jack White song of all time? Feel free to vote for anything he's ever done!

You can vote here in the comments, on facebook.com/rollingstone or on Twitter using the #weekendrock hashtag.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

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Jack White: 'Absolutely No Chance' of White Stripes Reunion

Jack White has told NME that there is "absolutely no chance" that he will ever reform the White Stripes. "I'm not the kind of person that would retire from baseball and come out of retirement the next year," says White. "I mean, if we went to all the trouble of telling people we're done, we meant it, you know?

"If we were forced to change our mind about that, I can only imagine the reason being if we went bankrupt or really needed the cash, which would be a really sad thing," he told the British rock magazine. "I would probably be issuing an apology along with the announcement of the show dates."

Though White has taken a hardline stance on a potential reunion, he is happy to perform several of the band's tunes on his current tour as a solo act. Recent gigs have included Stripes hits "Seven Nation Army," "My Doorbell" and "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground" along with fan favorites like "Ball and Biscuit" and "Hello Operator."

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Tour Alert: Jack White Extends His Solo Dates

Jack White performs on 'Saturday Night Live.'

Jack White
In anticipation of his first solo album, Blunderbuss – out April 24th – former White Stripes frontman Jack White has announced a handful of American headlining dates for the month of May. These shows come as an addition to his list of appearances at several major festivals, including the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan.

5/15 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
5/16 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
5/18-20 Gulf Shores, AL - The Hangout Music Fest
5/19 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
5/21 New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
5/22 New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
5/24 Detroit, MI - Scottish Rite Theater
5/26 Quincy, WA - Sasquatch Music Festival
5/28 Eugene, OR - Hult Center for the Performing Arts (Silva Concert Hall)
5/30 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
5/31 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern

Feist
Feist has announced a set of spring and summer dates in celebration of her 2011 album, Metals. The tour includes appearances at such major festivals as Coachella, the Pitchfork Music Festival and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

4/14 Indio, CA - Coachella
4/21 Indio, CA - Coachella
4/22 Phoenix, AZ - Orpheum Theatre*
4/23 Tucson - TCC Arena #
4/25 Marfa, TX - Crowley Theatre*
4/26 Austin, TX - Stubb's: Outdoors*
4/28 New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
4/30 Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room @ Old National Centre*
5/1 Nashville, TN - The Ryman Auditorium*
5/2 Asheville, NC - Thomas Wolfe Auditorium*
5/3 Raleigh, NC - Memorial Auditorium @ Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts*
5/5 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall*                         
5/7 Boston, MA - House Of Blues*
5/8 Philadelphia, PA - Academy Of Music*
5/9 Washington, DC - The Strathmore*
5/11 Burlington, VT - The Flynn Theater*
5/28 George, WA - Sasquatch
5/29 Boise, ID - Idaho Botanical Garden
5/31 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks #
6/2 Minneapolis, MN - Zoo Amphitheater %
6/3 Madison, WI - Orpheum %
6/5 Ann Arbor, MI - Ann Arbor Summer Festival %
6/6 Columbus, OH - Wexner Center %
6/8 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
7/13 Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Festival
7/14 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
# with Bon Iver
* with Timber Timbre
% with The Low Anthem

Norah Jones
Following her recent performance at South by Southwest, Norah Jones has announced several summer tour dates. The trek is in anticipation of her forthcoming album, Little Broken Hearts, and it kicks off in June.

6/20 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theater
6/22 Memphis, TN - Mud Island Amphitheater
6/23 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theater
6/24 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
6/27 Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap
6/28 Philadelphia, PA - Mann Center
6/29 Rochester, NY - Kodak Hall
7/1 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
7/2 Wallingford, CT - Oakdale Theatre
7/3 New York, NY - Central Park SummerStage
8/7 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
8/8 San Diego, CA - Copley Symphony Hall
8/10 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl
8/12 Lake Tahoe, NV - Harvey's Outdoor Arena
8/15 Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater
8/17 Portland, OR - Edgefield Winery
8/18 Seattle, WA - Marymoor Amphitheater
8/21 Salt Lake City, UT - Red Butte Garden
8/23 Denver, CO - Red Rocks

Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey has announced six U.S. tour dates in June: three in Los Angeles and three in New York. The announcement comes following the release of her "Blue Jeans" video yesterday, and in anticipation of her performance on American Idol on Thursday. After these gigs, she will perform a few shows in Europe.

6/3-5 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
6/7-10 New York, NY - Irving Plaza

Ben Harper
Ben Harper has announced dates for his first-ever acoustic tour, in celebration of his 10th studio album, Give Till It's Gone. The tour will kick off at the end of June in Santa Barbara, California, and end in October in New York.

6/30 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
7/1 Hollywood, CA - Hollywood Bowl
7/5 Troutdale, OR - Edgefield
7/5-8 Quincy, CA - High Sierra Music Festival
9/4 Vienna, VA - The Filene Center at Wolf Trap
9/26 Ann Arbor, MI - Michigan Theater
9/27 Chicago, IL - Cadillac Palace
10/2 Burlington, VT - Flynn Theatre
10/3 Philadelphia, PA - Merriam Theatre
10/5 Boston, MA - Opera House
10/6 Portland, ME - State Theatre
10/7 Northampton, MA - Calvin Theatre
10/10 New York, NY - Carnegie Hall

Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello has announced a string of U.S. headlining dates beginning in May in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and ending in June in Montclair, New Jersey. These shows come in between a set of South American dates in spring and some European dates towards the end of the summer.

5/18-20 Gulf Shores, AL - The Hangout                           
5/20 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
5/21 Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore
5/22 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
5/23 Columbus, OH - LC Pavilion
5/25-27 Chillicothe, IL - Summer Camp            
5/26 Detroit, MI - The Fillmore
5/31 Portland, ME - State Theatre               
6/1 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion         
6/2 Montclair, NJ - Wellmont Theater

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Tour Alert: Jack White Extends His Solo Dates

Jack White performs on 'Saturday Night Live.'

Jack White
In anticipation of his first solo album, Blunderbuss – out April 24th – former White Stripes frontman Jack White has announced a handful of American headlining dates for the month of May. These shows come as an addition to his list of appearances at several major festivals, including the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan.

5/15 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
5/16 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
5/18-20 Gulf Shores, AL - The Hangout Music Fest
5/19 Asheville, NC - The Orange Peel
5/21 New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
5/22 New York, NY - Roseland Ballroom
5/24 Detroit, MI - Scottish Rite Theater
5/26 Quincy, WA - Sasquatch Music Festival
5/28 Eugene, OR - Hult Center for the Performing Arts (Silva Concert Hall)
5/30 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern
5/31 Los Angeles, CA - The Wiltern

Feist
Feist has announced a set of spring and summer dates in celebration of her 2011 album, Metals. The tour includes appearances at such major festivals as Coachella, the Pitchfork Music Festival and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

4/14 Indio, CA - Coachella
4/21 Indio, CA - Coachella
4/22 Phoenix, AZ - Orpheum Theatre*
4/23 Tucson - TCC Arena #
4/25 Marfa, TX - Crowley Theatre*
4/26 Austin, TX - Stubb's: Outdoors*
4/28 New Orleans, LA - New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival
4/30 Indianapolis, IN - Egyptian Room @ Old National Centre*
5/1 Nashville, TN - The Ryman Auditorium*
5/2 Asheville, NC - Thomas Wolfe Auditorium*
5/3 Raleigh, NC - Memorial Auditorium @ Progress Energy Center for the Performing Arts*
5/5 New York, NY - Radio City Music Hall*                         
5/7 Boston, MA - House Of Blues*
5/8 Philadelphia, PA - Academy Of Music*
5/9 Washington, DC - The Strathmore*
5/11 Burlington, VT - The Flynn Theater*
5/28 George, WA - Sasquatch
5/29 Boise, ID - Idaho Botanical Garden
5/31 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks #
6/2 Minneapolis, MN - Zoo Amphitheater %
6/3 Madison, WI - Orpheum %
6/5 Ann Arbor, MI - Ann Arbor Summer Festival %
6/6 Columbus, OH - Wexner Center %
6/8 Manchester, TN - Bonnaroo
7/13 Chicago, IL - Pitchfork Festival
7/14 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
# with Bon Iver
* with Timber Timbre
% with The Low Anthem

Norah Jones
Following her recent performance at South by Southwest, Norah Jones has announced several summer tour dates. The trek is in anticipation of her forthcoming album, Little Broken Hearts, and it kicks off in June.

6/20 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theater
6/22 Memphis, TN - Mud Island Amphitheater
6/23 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theater
6/24 Nashville, TN - Ryman Auditorium
6/27 Vienna, VA - Wolf Trap
6/28 Philadelphia, PA - Mann Center
6/29 Rochester, NY - Kodak Hall
7/1 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion
7/2 Wallingford, CT - Oakdale Theatre
7/3 New York, NY - Central Park SummerStage
8/7 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
8/8 San Diego, CA - Copley Symphony Hall
8/10 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl
8/12 Lake Tahoe, NV - Harvey's Outdoor Arena
8/15 Bend, OR - Les Schwab Amphitheater
8/17 Portland, OR - Edgefield Winery
8/18 Seattle, WA - Marymoor Amphitheater
8/21 Salt Lake City, UT - Red Butte Garden
8/23 Denver, CO - Red Rocks

Lana Del Rey
Lana Del Rey has announced six U.S. tour dates in June: three in Los Angeles and three in New York. The announcement comes following the release of her "Blue Jeans" video yesterday, and in anticipation of her performance on American Idol on Thursday. After these gigs, she will perform a few shows in Europe.

6/3-5 Los Angeles, CA - El Rey Theatre
6/7-10 New York, NY - Irving Plaza

Ben Harper
Ben Harper has announced dates for his first-ever acoustic tour, in celebration of his 10th studio album, Give Till It's Gone. The tour will kick off at the end of June in Santa Barbara, California, and end in October in New York.

6/30 Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara Bowl
7/1 Hollywood, CA - Hollywood Bowl
7/5 Troutdale, OR - Edgefield
7/5-8 Quincy, CA - High Sierra Music Festival
9/4 Vienna, VA - The Filene Center at Wolf Trap
9/26 Ann Arbor, MI - Michigan Theater
9/27 Chicago, IL - Cadillac Palace
10/2 Burlington, VT - Flynn Theatre
10/3 Philadelphia, PA - Merriam Theatre
10/5 Boston, MA - Opera House
10/6 Portland, ME - State Theatre
10/7 Northampton, MA - Calvin Theatre
10/10 New York, NY - Carnegie Hall

Gogol Bordello
Gogol Bordello has announced a string of U.S. headlining dates beginning in May in Gulf Shores, Alabama, and ending in June in Montclair, New Jersey. These shows come in between a set of South American dates in spring and some European dates towards the end of the summer.

5/18-20 Gulf Shores, AL - The Hangout                           
5/20 Atlanta, GA - Variety Playhouse
5/21 Charlotte, NC - The Fillmore
5/22 Pittsburgh, PA - Stage AE
5/23 Columbus, OH - LC Pavilion
5/25-27 Chillicothe, IL - Summer Camp            
5/26 Detroit, MI - The Fillmore
5/31 Portland, ME - State Theatre               
6/1 Boston, MA - Bank of America Pavilion         
6/2 Montclair, NJ - Wellmont Theater

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

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Jack White Kicks Off His Solo Tour in Chattanooga

Jack White performs at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

At this point, more than a dozen years since the White Stripes’ peppermint-swirled debut, Jack White’s resume could be pretty fairly described as "towering," stacked with records, production credits, film roles and label proprietorship. He seems like such his own person, such his own kind of person. But while he’s at the center of all these projects, he’s concealed by them, too – masks behind masks and all that. It’s hard to get him alone, which explains the air of piqued excitement around his first solo album, Blunderbuss, to be released in April. He appeared at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee last night for his first-ever solo headlining show, kicking off a brief tour in support of the album.

Chattanooga snagging the show was a bit of a coup; a more venerable hall up in Nashville, White’s adopted hometown, would’ve been a far more obvious choice. Track 29, a low-slung concrete building plopped awkwardly behind the famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo (now a hotel and conference center), just opened last fall. In a previous life it housed an ice-skating rink, but now it’s leading the slow battle of drawing bands off the well-worn touring paths to Nashville and Atlanta. The show was announced in early February, and tickets sold out almost immediately. The day of the show, a line formed outside the venue as early as 5 a.m.; the doors opened at 8 p.m. but it took upwards of an hour to funnel the crowd inside.

All matters of local pride aside, mostly the excitement of seeing Jack White just boiled down to seeing Jack White, as if witnessing him perform under only the thin guise of his own name would somehow finally make everything clear. Of course, then he went and showed up with more bandmates than ever before: a six-piece, all women, one of them pregnant.

Earlier, openers Hell Beach had taken the stage in a haze of red-lit smoke and plodded through a checklist of contrived sexiness and aimless sludge, the trio led by a singer whose haircut did most of the heavy lifting. But after the break, the lights shifted to blue and the six women floated out onto the stage – almost mermaidishly, all of them in shades of silver – with White trailing behind. Their pedal steel, violin and organ were laid thick, sometimes overwhelimingly so, onto every song: a few from Blunderbuss, some from his Dead Weather and Raconteurs, and more than seemed prudent to hope for from his six White Stripes releases.

The same crew had accompanied his performance of "Love Interruption," the album’s lead single, on SNL the previous Saturday, and had been traded in for an all-male band for the second song. But in Chattanooga, the only dudes on stage besides White were his roadies, backlit figures in sharp suits and fedoras. Ruby Amanfu, the Ghanian-born, Nashville-based singer who rasps so gloriously all over "Love Interruption," plied the songs with harmonies and a fairly mad tambourine; Brooke Waggoner, a singer-songwriter in her own right, plugged away on keyboards, her piano occupying the fore of at least one of the new songs, a bombastic number with staccato vocals that found White shrugging off his acoustic for an electric guitar halfway in.

The set slid back and forth between grin-smearing group-sings and crunching, hair-flinging bombast. (White spent more time tending to his coif, mussing and scrunching the sweaty mess between songs, than did any of his female bandmates.) White Stripes songs were the unshocking favorites; there was a countrified "Hotel Yorba," pedal steel and fiddle and all, and when "Seven Nation Army" closed down the main set, a sizable population of the crowd sang along not just to the lyrics but to White’s jerry-rigged acoustic riff as well.

Many already knew all the words to "Love Interruption," but it’s hard to imagine any of the other new songs relating in the same way – much of the Blunderbuss stuff seems more in the vein of De Stijl, or of "Ball and Biscuit," still one of the fiercest cuts in White’s catalog. Here it spooled into a blues mini-jam, with White screeling away and drummer Carla Azar, buttoned into a high-necked, long-sleeved lace dress, bent double and pounding like a madwoman to the last beat. (Here my notes read "Sorry Meg," followed by a sloppily-rendered sadface.)

That could've sufficed as a closer, but White and the ladies shuffled instead into a generous coda of "Irene, Goodnight," the night’s only cover, first recorded by Leadbelly, since played by almost anyone with an acoustic guitar and half a notion of American folk music, and almost never not lovely. He coaxed us into singing along, and by the third or fourth go-round of the chorus even the drunkest fool in the back knew the words, which we sang up to the stage and to ourselves like our own lullaby. And when the last chords fell there was a little bow and a toss of a pick and cheering as White saluted the crowd, the women all filing offstage ahead of him, and then he smiled and turned and walked away from us again.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

Amazon Music and MP3 Center

Read more »

Jack White Kicks Off His Solo Tour in Chattanooga

Jack White performs at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

At this point, more than a dozen years since the White Stripes’ peppermint-swirled debut, Jack White’s resume could be pretty fairly described as "towering," stacked with records, production credits, film roles and label proprietorship. He seems like such his own person, such his own kind of person. But while he’s at the center of all these projects, he’s concealed by them, too – masks behind masks and all that. It’s hard to get him alone, which explains the air of piqued excitement around his first solo album, Blunderbuss, to be released in April. He appeared at Track 29 in Chattanooga, Tennessee last night for his first-ever solo headlining show, kicking off a brief tour in support of the album.

Chattanooga snagging the show was a bit of a coup; a more venerable hall up in Nashville, White’s adopted hometown, would’ve been a far more obvious choice. Track 29, a low-slung concrete building plopped awkwardly behind the famous Chattanooga Choo-Choo (now a hotel and conference center), just opened last fall. In a previous life it housed an ice-skating rink, but now it’s leading the slow battle of drawing bands off the well-worn touring paths to Nashville and Atlanta. The show was announced in early February, and tickets sold out almost immediately. The day of the show, a line formed outside the venue as early as 5 a.m.; the doors opened at 8 p.m. but it took upwards of an hour to funnel the crowd inside.

All matters of local pride aside, mostly the excitement of seeing Jack White just boiled down to seeing Jack White, as if witnessing him perform under only the thin guise of his own name would somehow finally make everything clear. Of course, then he went and showed up with more bandmates than ever before: a six-piece, all women, one of them pregnant.

Earlier, openers Hell Beach had taken the stage in a haze of red-lit smoke and plodded through a checklist of contrived sexiness and aimless sludge, the trio led by a singer whose haircut did most of the heavy lifting. But after the break, the lights shifted to blue and the six women floated out onto the stage – almost mermaidishly, all of them in shades of silver – with White trailing behind. Their pedal steel, violin and organ were laid thick, sometimes overwhelimingly so, onto every song: a few from Blunderbuss, some from his Dead Weather and Raconteurs, and more than seemed prudent to hope for from his six White Stripes releases.

The same crew had accompanied his performance of "Love Interruption," the album’s lead single, on SNL the previous Saturday, and had been traded in for an all-male band for the second song. But in Chattanooga, the only dudes on stage besides White were his roadies, backlit figures in sharp suits and fedoras. Ruby Amanfu, the Ghanian-born, Nashville-based singer who rasps so gloriously all over "Love Interruption," plied the songs with harmonies and a fairly mad tambourine; Brooke Waggoner, a singer-songwriter in her own right, plugged away on keyboards, her piano occupying the fore of at least one of the new songs, a bombastic number with staccato vocals that found White shrugging off his acoustic for an electric guitar halfway in.

The set slid back and forth between grin-smearing group-sings and crunching, hair-flinging bombast. (White spent more time tending to his coif, mussing and scrunching the sweaty mess between songs, than did any of his female bandmates.) White Stripes songs were the unshocking favorites; there was a countrified "Hotel Yorba," pedal steel and fiddle and all, and when "Seven Nation Army" closed down the main set, a sizable population of the crowd sang along not just to the lyrics but to White’s jerry-rigged acoustic riff as well.

Many already knew all the words to "Love Interruption," but it’s hard to imagine any of the other new songs relating in the same way – much of the Blunderbuss stuff seems more in the vein of De Stijl, or of "Ball and Biscuit," still one of the fiercest cuts in White’s catalog. Here it spooled into a blues mini-jam, with White screeling away and drummer Carla Azar, buttoned into a high-necked, long-sleeved lace dress, bent double and pounding like a madwoman to the last beat. (Here my notes read "Sorry Meg," followed by a sloppily-rendered sadface.)

That could've sufficed as a closer, but White and the ladies shuffled instead into a generous coda of "Irene, Goodnight," the night’s only cover, first recorded by Leadbelly, since played by almost anyone with an acoustic guitar and half a notion of American folk music, and almost never not lovely. He coaxed us into singing along, and by the third or fourth go-round of the chorus even the drunkest fool in the back knew the words, which we sang up to the stage and to ourselves like our own lullaby. And when the last chords fell there was a little bow and a toss of a pick and cheering as White saluted the crowd, the women all filing offstage ahead of him, and then he smiled and turned and walked away from us again.

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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Exclusive Download: White Rabbits Return with Groovy 'Temporary'

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Exclusive Download: White Rabbits Return with Groovy 'Temporary'

Click to listen to The White Rabbits' 'Temporary'

"Temporary," the first single from White Rabbits' third album, Milk Famous, finds the Brooklyn band fusing a variety of intriguing textures to a tight, ever-shifting groove that emphasizes a thick, post-punk bass line. The new album won't be in stores until March 6th, but you can download the track for free here.

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