- A culture magazine reaching terminal verbosity -
Burning a mix CD of love songs has always been the best way to convey your burning desire, and while any mixtape off the street can be fire, it takes a special curation to fan the flames of one's heart.
Now that the metaphors are out of the way, we'd like to present to you Transverso Media's first annual Valentine's Day Playlist, made just for you. Enjoy!
Five years removed from the release of The Dead Weather’s second album, Sea of Cowards, the scrappy indie-supergroup relegated (or elevated, depending on your perspective) to Jack White side project, released their third album, Dodge and Burn.
Following some haphazard research (Google search: “Dead Weather new album promotion”), it has become increasingly apparent that the majority of music/lifestyle blogs and brands covering the Dodge and Burn release are under the impression that The Dead Weather is a project only signified by Jack White's presence and his growing relevance in pop culture.
For the sake of uniqueness, Transverso has elected to avoid diverting the reader with the ongoing and over-saturated melodrama of Jack White vs. Dan Auerbach, Jack White-Hates-Life memes, and the enigma that is TIDAL music streaming, and instead focus solely on his collaborative combination with Alison Mosshart, Dean Fertita, and (the apparently eleven-fingered) “Little” Jack Lawrence.
Dodge and Burn opens with the Zeppelin-leaning “I Feel Love (Every Million Miles),” with Mosshart caterwauling with a warped joy throughout the track. Fertita’s guitar stands out as the song’s flair piece, while White’s drums leads the track every which way, further extending the Bonham-esque nature of the song.
“Buzzkill(er)” and “Let Me Through” follow “I Feel Love” on Dodge and Burn, and both tracks fit the more “classic” Dead Weather sound – sonic allusions to Captain Beefhart, crunchy bass, unkempt drums, and the unhinged pacing. Both are solid tracks, but don’t necessarily offer as playful a tone as “I Feel Love.”
While the second and third tracks on Dodge and Burn maintain what’s familiar, “Three Dollar Hat” heightens the album’s diversity (and overall bad-assery) with a romp of a track. Batting cleanup, the song sounds like Kurt Cobain and The Mad Hatter got together to record an industrial rock track and blow it up one minute in. With only White’s vocals leading the track along, it only helps extend the screwball nature that has become The Dead Weather.
The middle part of Dodge and Burn hearkens back with sounds more reminiscent of Horehound and Sea of Cowards, though “Rough Detective” begins with a brief (but intriguing) sort of skuzzball jazz beat, eventually diving right into the scrappy rock and roll the band cut their teeth with. “Open Up” probably acts as the most archetypal Dead Weather song on the album, with a ravaging opening and the eventual swell into a massive crescendo that lays waste to any expectation of anything else.
Dodge and Burn closes out with a three-track cacophony of rock and roll blitzkrieg – a tight manifesto in “Mile Markers,” a vociferous unraveling with “Cop and Go,” and a triumphant exclamation point in “Too Bad” – and ends with a curious, almost Raconteurs-ish ballad in “Impossible Winner” that acts as a departure from the standoff nature of Dodge and Burn and instead offers the affirmation that The Dead Weather are not just another Jack White side-project, but in fact a full-fledged band that looks to continue for years to come.
Five long years after their last record Sea Of Cowards, The Dead Weather are releasing a new album titled Dodge & Burn this September via Third Man Records.
The supergroup consisting of Jack White (The White Stripes, The Raconteurs), Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Dean Fertita (Queens of the Stone Age), and Jack Lawrence "spent their rare and sporadic free moments over the past year recording together in Nashville" to create something "thick and heavy" that "will satisfy your urges for the dark magic that is The Dead Weather for a very long time."
There will be no tour in support of the album, but there will be a deluxe version released in typical Jack White flair as Vault Package #25, which you can order here:
The LP will consist of eight new tracks and four singles that were previously released through Third Man's Vault subscription series, which you can sample below.
Way back in October 2013, The Dead Weather and Third Man Records announced an incredibly special 7” featuring “Open Up (That’s Enough)” b/w “Rough Detective” as part of Vault Package #18. These two tracks were a fierce battle cry heralding the announcement of a brand new Dead Weather album that was to be released in a revolutionary fashion. Teased out over the past year and a half via a series of 7” singles, the physical versions of which were ONLY available via The Vault (Third Man’s one-of-a-kind subscription mail-order service), the band promised this would culminate in a brand new album in 2015. The third Dead Weather LP would be a full length album comprised not only of the previously released 7” singles, but newly recorded, previously-unheard material. Today, The Dead Weather officially announce their new album Dodge & Burn. Dodge & Burn will be released worldwide in September 2015 on Third Man Records and will feature eight brand new songs, along with the four previously released tracks remixed and remastered. Alison Mosshart, Jack White, Dean Fertita and Jack Lawrence spent their rare and sporadic free moments over the past year recording together in Nashville. With the members of the band heavily involved in other projects, The Dead Weather will not be touring in support of the new album. Thankfully the thick and heavy Dodge & Burn will satisfy your urges for the dark magic that is The Dead Weather for a very long time. To learn more about Vault Package #25, visit http://thirdmanrecords.com/vault To subscribe to the Vault, visit http://thirdmanstore.com/vault/vault-subscriptions/tmr-vault-platinum-subscription
Jack White on Portlandia
Gilmore Girls is known for their fast paced dialogue and countless pop culture references, often mentioning numerous artists an episode, so it would make sense that Rory and co would stumble upon a hip new band playing in a club while on spring break. James Mercer and band play "So Says I" for an uninterrupted minute and a half, which is a pretty impressive amount of airtime for television. Rory and friends don't arrive until the last song, though, so we can assume they are the worst concert goers ever. Shortly after you can hear "The Laws Have Changed" by The New Pornographers while Rory and Paris uncomfortable try to fit in with the club-goers stating, "no one can sniff out the hip like we can."
The Decemberists get about 30 seconds of airtime playing "Crane Wife 3" at the Pawnee-Eagletown unity concert. While they might not have gotten as much airtime as deserved the entire episode was full of additional musical guest such as Jeff Tweedy, Ginuwine, and Yo La Tengo.
Jack White magically appears on the Portlandia sketch "The Studio" in which Fred's character portrays a man who has a "top notch" studio with overwhelming similarities the studio used when recording the Beach Boy's album Pet Sounds. Jack White magically appears and silently watches Fred's character as he struggles to make sense of it all. The lack of dialogue from White makes his facial expressions even more hilarious and one of the best musical guest Portlandia has locked down.
Death Cab was famously the favorite band of OC stud Seth Cohen, despite Summer's less-than-flattering analysis, "it's one guitar and a whole lot of complaining." When the band finally appears they play a show at the infamous fictional venue, The Bait Shop, and were featured on the official soundtrack.
Prince, the majestic being himself, guest stars in an episode of New Girl. In the episode, he plays himself and gives Jess (portrayed by Zooey Deschanel) relationship advice. The highlight, though, is when the The Purple One asks, "Do you like pancakes?"
After Bender is hospitalized he discovers Beck's disembodied head is occupying the bed next to him. Beck then loans Bender a set of neck-mounted robotic mini-arms, and the two go on tour together as Bender uses the arms to scrape across his mangled body and earn the position of Beck's washboard player. As the episode continues, Bender writes a song about broken robots, and the duo decide to put on a benefit concert in San Francisco to help all the disabled machines. While helping Bender write a song about his feelings, disembodied Beck explains how emotion is an important part of his musical process as well, saying, "When I'm upset I write a song about it. Like when I wrote 'Devil's Haircut,' I was feeling really... what's that song about?"
The Beach Boys have a long standing friendship with the Tanner family, appearing in not one, not two, but three separate episodes. The most notable episode is the one in which DJ wins two tickets to the Beach Boys show but has the tricky decision of picking which family member to take. Naturally, The Beach Boys show up and invite the whole bunch along (except for baby Michelle) to the show where they sing and do some sort of a line dance on stage.
In this particularly dark episode, Cartman vows to take revenge after being tricked by eighth grader Scott Tenorman. Upon learning that Radiohead is Scott's favorite band, Cartman writes a letter to Radiohead claiming that Scott is a victim of "cancer, in his ass" and the British rock band visits South Park just in time to watch Scott cry after hearing he ate his parents.
In one of these two brilliant episodes of 30 Rock, Sir Paul McCartney appears as himself to prove the point that "it's live TV, anything can happen." The look on Alec Baldwin's bewildered face as Paul McCartney grins and slaps Baldwin's face makes this one of the best moments of 30 Rock's entire seven season run.