Not surprisingly there isn’t a ton of live video footage of the Cranks out there, but I did find a video from ’09 which includes “Desperate Friend” about 3 minutes in:

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Quoting widely from the box set insert about Live in Las Vegas backstory:

In the midst of the run of shows in September 2003, a promotional idea was cooked up by the team at V2 Records – 40 or so fans would be flown out to the White Stripes show at the Joint (at the Hard Rock Casino) in Las Vegas, get a meet-and-greet with the band, and then some time afterward be presented with a vinyl pressing of that evening’s show.

The original pressing is sparse to say the least. With no printed artwork, tracklisting or even credits “The White Stripes Live In Las Vegas” rubber-stamped on the labels is the only true identifier on this record. A dip through the original paperwork shows only 100 copies were ever pressed, all at United Record Pressing in Nashville.

Consider this snapshot of the night…Josh Hartnett, Steve Mcdonald, Darryl Hannah, Scott Caan and Josh Klinghoffer were all there, not necessarily together or gambling. Soledad Brothers and Whirlwind Heat tore it up as the opening bands, and the Stripes’ set itself was spectacular. The unpredictable moments electrify…an off-the-cuff take of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” to a mid-set abandonment of “Offend In Every Way” because of its reliance upon the D minor chord [ed: relevant because two months prior Jack White was in an accident that injured his hand and he was at that time unable to play D minor chords] and an opportune tease of “Mary Had A Little Lamb” imbue the evening with spontaneous joy. Songs from Elephant had taken shape as muscled, taut beasts of energy as the blasting jolt of pure rock and roll lava via “The Hardest Button To Button” testifies. All these factors make this night stick out as measurably better than the rest.

The White Stripes sound fantastic, of course, leading off with Meg’s gigantic sound on the opener “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground,” and continuing on through the million-song set (OK not quite but it’s a lot of tracks). Jack’s guitar work on “I Want to Be the Boy” is bendy beautiful and the rollicking southern blues guitar on Son House’s classic “Death Letter” is over-the-top fabulous. Plus we get the early teaser of the smash “Seven Nation Army” and a bunch of early-Stripes favorites like “You’re Pretty Good Looking,” “Hotel Yorba” and “Fell in Love with a Girl.” Can’t even imagine how amazing it must have been to be one of those 40 folks at the Hard Rock Casino, and did they even realize how lucky they were?

Not from the Vegas show (there isn’t anything out there on YouTube) but “Dead Leaves” from Coachella the same year:

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Mutts setlist from ????

We saw Mutts (from Chicago, now mostly defunct since frontman/singer/pianist Mike Maimone relocated to Nashville – I think – around 2019 or so) pre-pandemic, both at Mile of Music and in Indianapolis for Romanus Records Fest (possibly twice there). They are absolutely fantastic live and Pray For Rain, their first full-length, channels a lot of their brand of energetic bluesy and soulful garage rock, punctuated by Maimone’s signature deep growl (one reviewer says, “Mike Maimone fires off his lyrics like pissed off Nick Cave in a blues mood”). Wherever/whenever we saw them they clearly played two songs off of the LP and they are two of my top picks: “Not Ready” which is super high-energy with a ska-like beat, and “Done It Again” which has a sinister waltzing beat and a feeling like the listener is darting along an old-timey 20’s film noir movie set. That old-timey vibe is also present on “D.O.B.” (feels a bit Cab Calaway) and the sinister on the super-dark, gothic (not goth, just gothic) “Save Us.” Two other top picks are “Throwback” which has a super-funky, slinky groove plus chugga-chugga rocking guitar, and the album closer “Putting on a Show” which is a combo of pure chaos, a highly danceable beat and some serious head-banging vibes.

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Elephant is the band’s fourth LP and far and away their most successful as well as critically acclaimed. It’s included on many best-of-ever lists and won both the Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Song (“Seven Nation Army”) at the Grammy’s. It went to #6 in the US and to #1 in the UK. It’s totally digital/computer-free; the White Stripes recorded it with all pre-60’s gear onto an eight-track tape machine. For the most part it’s hard to tell but I can feel that old-school tech straining its edges on “There’s No Home for You Here” about which Jack White said they recorded “to see how far we could go with an eight track recorder, and I think how far we went is too far.” (I love it, though, it sounds like super-early Beatles or Stones).

They released four singles from Elephant. The first was the mega-power-hit “Seven Nation Army” which only went to #76 on the main US chart but hit #1 on the alternative charts in both the US and the UK. The track now an ubiquitous sports arena fav which is a bit of a head-scratcher to me, more for the genre it comes from than the song itself which is simple, rhythmic and primal aka perfect for sports. According to Wiki, “This phenomenon has its roots in a UEFA Champions League football match in Italy in October 2003, during which fans of Belgium’s Club Brugge KV began singing the riff in a game against Italy’s A.C. Milan. They continued the chant after Club Brugge KV striker Andrés Mendoza scored a goal. Club Brugge KV won the game, and the song subsequently became the team’s “unofficial sports anthem.” The second single was the cover of Burt Bacharach’s “I Just Don’t Know What to Do with Myself” (first recorded in ’62 by Chuck Jackson and then, also in ’62, by Tommy Hunt, finally made popular by Dusty Springfield in ’64). The Stripes version went to #25 on the US indie chart. The third single from Elephant was “The Hardest Button to Button” (#8 US alternative, #23 regular UK chart, #1 UK indie) and the final single was the aforementioned “There’s No Home for You Here.” I love all the singles and my other top picks from Elephant include the hard bluesy rocker “Ball and Biscuit” (fun fact: a friend of ours named her catering company Ball and Biscuit a couple of years after this LP’s release and her business is still going strong), “The Air Near My Fingers,” and “Girl, You Have No Faith in Medicine,” a track that “was originally written for the band’s previous album, White Blood Cells, but Meg had disliked the song and it was removed. After debating it, the song was rerecorded and included in Elephant, but only after a line from the song was removed after it was deemed too harsh.” (wiki) Elephant does treat us to future-Jack White’s tendency towards bat-shit crazy, though, especially on the intro to the song “Little Acorns” (the rest of the song is pretty great though).

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I’m on my very first listen to Dropout Boogie but my first impression is that is really great and also very predictable (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing – The Black Keys are clearly very good at what they do). The opener and the album’s first single “Wild Child” is a fantastic alt-blues ass shaker that will most definitely be making an appearance on my Wild Thing playlist. “Your Team is Looking Good” is another great rocker and “Burn the Damn Thing Down” is foot-stomping and barn-burning. “For the Love of Money” goes a bit more traditional southern blues, as does “Happiness” and “Didn’t I Love You.” “Baby I’m Coming Home” has a 70’s arena rock vibe, but no complaints from me on that. I’m not wild about hazy, dream-bluesy “How Long” though the guitar jam is quite lovely.

I’m not sure if all copies of Dropout Boogie come with these inserts, but our edition includes a drawn rendition of the cover backed with their summer/early fall tour dates plus a pink slip backed with the liner notes.

*Wiki says the release date is May 13th but the email I just got from The Black Keys give the official release date as today, May 18th.

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The second LP is from a live show at the Magic Stick in Detroit on December 31st, 2000. Since they were just back from a tour of Australia they play a couple of AC/DC covers: “Let There Be Rock” and “Dog Eat Dog,” Iggy Pop’s “I’m Bored,” plus live versions of some De Stijl songs like “You’re Pretty Good Looking (For a Girl),” “Little Bird” and “Let’s Build a Home.”

I haven’t watched the DVD yet but the Vault insert states that it is video of “TWO killer shows never seen or heard before their sharing here, from the peak of De Stijl touring…From June 15th [at Jay’s Upstairs, Missoula MT], the band performs strongly while advertising happy hour Pabst pints behind them. Only in Missoula. We think. Excitingly, this show is synched with crystalline soundboard recorded audio giving it an added ‘oomph’ not usually found on these videos…Follow that with the White Stripes first ever in-store performance at Fallout Records in Seattle on June 17th.” They performed a mix of originals and covers, including Bob Dylan’s “One More Cup of Coffee” and Robert Johnson’s “Stop Breaking Down.”

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