{"id":2021,"date":"2009-02-22T23:38:37","date_gmt":"2009-02-23T04:38:37","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-03-06T22:47:56","modified_gmt":"2009-03-06T22:47:56","slug":"white-stripes-will-t-rex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/white-stripes-will-t-rex\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;White Stripes will = T.Rex&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/du7jfDYe5LI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nIn response to my speculation that <strong>The White Stripes<\/strong> will be remembered along critical and popular lines similar to the ways in which <strong>T.Rex<\/strong>* is remembered today, <strong>Townsman dbuskirk<\/strong> wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Remind me again how being remembered as well as T.Rex is a bad thing? I can&#8217;t recall meeting too many rock fans who didn&#8217;t have a special place in their heart for them. Devendra Banhart stole half of his act from the acoustic Tyrannosaurus Rex LPs and coincidentally just recently I met a very smart and hip twenty-year old who was all about her T.Rex t-shirt. From DJing weddings, I know that &#8220;Bang A Gong&#8221; is pretty much a guaranteed cross-generational dance floor filler.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>To clarify, I didn&#8217;t say it was a &#8220;bad&#8221; thing, but it&#8217;s not uncommon for Townspeople to interpret any insightful, piercing analysis on a favorite artist&#8217;s legacy that is anything less than unconditionally loving as somehow negative and insulting. Let&#8217;s work through this misunderstanding and reserve compliments for my off-the-cuff analysis from earlier this morning for possibly another thread. Here goes&#8230;<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/tsiWmWMAx90?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nWhat I wrote, while Townspeople were declaring what side of the Baby Boomer War they were on, that I had hoped would provide musical focus to yet-another troubling discussion over The White Stripes, was this:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I agree that White Stripes have a little more going for them, long term, than Outkast. Unless Jack White can actually broaden the band&#8217;s palette &#8211; and not by making more Raconteurs records &#8211; I could see the band going down in history like T.Rex: remembered by most casual rock fans for a couple of super-catchy singles, loved by some rock nerds for what they did within narrow stylistic confines and thought of by just as many rock nerds as a band that could have, should have been better if not for their inability to work beyond their self-imposed, narrow stylistic confines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Reading this again, I have to say it was a quite unifying statement, likely to instigate the healing we have coming to us&#8230;until my man db had to tap his pipe and question what I could have possibly been suggesting. The funny thing is, in his questioning, db verifies two of the three prevalent points of view I outlined:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The wedding dancers represent the mainstream love for the band&#8217;s biggest hit and probably one or two other not-as-readily identified hits.<\/li>\n<li>Devendra Banhart and the hip 20-year-old girl who likely was as attracted to the hot image of Marc Bolan on her t-shirt as she was his band&#8217;s <em>deep traxx<\/em> represent the rock nerds who cherish the depth they find in Bolan&#8217;s narrow pool of work.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Why can&#8217;t our T.Rex-loving friend see the third, equally represented piece of the puzzle that I identified, people like <strong>myself<\/strong>, who find the hits more fun than a barrel of monkeys, like the general approach the band took to making records, yet cannot find evidence that T.Rex was anything but a very fun record-making outfit that had not a drop of emotional or intellectual content that resonated with us. Think of his contemporaries: <strong>David Bowie<\/strong> on one end of the spectrum and <strong>David Essex<\/strong> on the other. Bowie was groundbreaking; Essex was, for Americans of my generation, at least, possibly the greatest 1-hit wonder of his time, a lightweight, even to a generation of American rock nerds desparate for coming across one more song with the magic of &#8220;Rock On.&#8221; The magic of Marc Bolan and T.Rex is that they were able to replicate the futuristic-retro-boogie catchiness of &#8220;Rock On&#8221; a dozen times over! And he was super-cool and good-looking to boot. <\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FxwVffYTPQc?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nCheck out the above clip, from 1971, and imagine it as a scene from my imaginary documentary of <strong>John Lennon<\/strong> during the early, idealistic years of his solo career. In my film, Lennon is seen sitting among the crowd of young people, surrounded by <strong>Klaus Voorman<\/strong> and <strong>Yoko<\/strong>. While the earnest Bolan plays to an audience including the master himself, Lennon is seen suppressing a smirk and leaning over to whisper observations to a stoic Voorman. Bolan assumes the kid-size mantle of <strong>Donovan<\/strong>. Later claims that Bowie stole his act are better not aired. Years later, Rock Town Hall adds T.Rex to its own smirking set of tags that sometimes appear in tribute to <strong>Townsman Hrrundi<\/strong>&#8216;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2008\/06\/01\/what-s-your-holy-trinity-of-rock-n-roll\">Holy Trinity of Rock<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_rqllYBAJt8?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\n<em>Am I totally off base?<\/em> Without getting into the possible accuracy of my prediction for The White Stripes&#8217; eventual legacy (and without taking the easy route and simply complimenting me for my astute and unifying observations) &#8211; <em><strong>and<\/strong><\/em> without being blinded by your probable love for T.Rex&#8217;s dozen takes on &#8220;Rock On&#8221; &#8211; <em>is there anything behind the fun of those records?<\/em> If they <em>do<\/em> resonate with you on a level beyond <em>Man, that is so cool!<\/em> (not that there&#8217;s anything wrong with that), can you please describe it? I walk this earth troubled and confused by such questions, and before I trouble anyone else with my possibly ill-informed views I hope to know what T.Rex love is, I want you to show me.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks.<\/p>\n<p><em><small>*I looked it up: the band&#8217;s name was presented as <strong>T.Rex<\/strong>. I can never keep that straight, so I&#8217;ve taken the liberty of changing all quoted, previously incorrect stylings of the band&#8217;s name. Your ability to spell the band&#8217;s name throughout the comments in this thread may reflect on the authority of your opinions.<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In response to my speculation that The White Stripes will be remembered along critical and popular lines similar to the ways in which T.Rex* is remembered today, Townsman dbuskirk wrote: Remind me again how being remembered as well as T.Rex is a bad thing? I can&#8217;t recall meeting too many rock fans who didn&#8217;t have <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/white-stripes-will-t-rex\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[46,47,22,48],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}