“If you think that a kiss is all in the lips...”

Wednesday 11/23/2005 2:47 AM

“If you think that a kiss is all in the lips,
C'mon, you got it all wrong, man.”

So you're at one of ten White Stripes shows in Britain earlier this month. You're waiting for the show to start when you hear a commotion behind you. Because almost all the Stripes shows are general admission, you stood in line for an hour at the front door so you could run in to get a good spot on the floor near the stage. The last thing you need is a bunch of people trying to crash their way to the front of the crowd.

Imagine your surprise when you see it's not party crashers, but some strange costumed group that has infiltrated the crowd. Everywhere you see red robes. Two over there, three more up back, and even more up on the balcony. People are jumping in the air to grab stuff being thrown out by these guys dressed as monks in huge, flowing bright red robes. There's a cigarette girl with a tray full of CDs. Wait, that's a guy — in drag.

You finally get your hands on one of the CDs only to discover that it's not like a normal CD. First of all, it's in a cardboard sleeve instead of a jewel case. Second, when you pull the CD out and flip it over, the pale yellow reflection tells you it's a CDR. You look closer at the tracks, trying to see the telltale band of burned microscopic pits that will tell you much music and/or data is on the CDR. Much to your confusion, it appears to be blank.

What the heck is going on? Why are they handing out custom designed, silkscreened blank CDs in coordinated cardboard jackets with the date and venue of the show printed on it? And why does the artwork refer to a single song, namely "The Denial Twist", from their latest album, Get Behind Me, Satan?

Well, earlier this month, at ten different concerts, The White Stripes handed out custom-printed blank compact discs in similarly custom-printed cardboard sleeves. Every night there was a completely different designed CD and sleeve. But why were they blank?

Brace yourself, because this is so absolutely cool I can hardly stand it.

At each of the ten different shows, Jack and (mostly) Meg performed "The Denial Twist" ten different ways:

Electric Guitar / Drums
Dirty Organ / Piano / Drums
Acoustic Guitar / Drums
Rhodes Keyboard / Hammond Organ
Marimba / Bass Rhodes
Solo Acoustic Guitar / No Meg
12-String Acoustic Guitar / Dirty Electric Guitar / Drums
Piano / Electric Guitar / Drums
Slow Piano / Dirty Organ / Drums
Crunchy Octave Guitar / Drums

They then made all the versions available online for fans to purchase and download onto the CDs. How fantastic is that? I'll go ahead and answer for you: TREMENDOUSLY.

Yet another reason to bow down at the altar of The White Stripes.

This is the type of stunt I would *love* to pull if I was a performing artist. The opportunity to design all the different covers, to re-interpret the song so many different ways and the chance to differentiate myself from everybody else.

Awesome.

Your Link of the Day connects you to the web page for all the different versions. Even if you don't want to buy any, visit it and listen to the free samples. Click the first yellow bar labeled "BUY THE DOWNLOADS ON YOUR CREDIT CARD". Then look for the hyperlink in the sentence "You can buy all of these incredible performances here." The next page has PREVIEW links for each track. Way cool. Check it out.

Sorry for the dearth of posts. Candy is home and doing well (though she has reached the frustration point with the neckbrace — with at least another week to go).

Argus has been punished several times for stealing food. I'll write on that at some point.

My new ATM machine is the $1/$2 5-card draw cash table. I'm plus about $300 over the last 2½ weeks.

g/nite

Link of the Day: The White Stripes' Ten Different Version of The Denial Twist

File Under: Argus; Candy; Link of the Day; Music; Song Lyrics; White Stripes, The
Music: The White Stripes "The Denial Twist - Ten Versions"

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