Popscreen: Raconteurs

Raconteurs

“Steady, As She Goes”

Dir. Jim Jarmusch

Have pity on poor Meg White. It looks like her ex-husband, and now ex-bandmate, Jack White has ditched their blues revivalist outfit The White Stripes to form the garage rock quartet The Raconteurs with some of his buddies.

The Raconteurs’ first single, “Steady, As She Goes,” is a bluesy romp with an infectious bass line, boozy guitar heroics, and—sorry Meg—crackling percussion. Jack White’s wailing vocals soar above his band’s sweet cacophony, proving once and for all that he has the best pipes in rock ‘n’ roll.

Fittingly, indie-film god Jim Jarmusch helmed the “Steady, As She Goes” video shoot. In many ways, Jack White is the prototypical Jarmusch protagonist: emotionally volatile, slightly anachronistic, and unwittingly seductive. Jack’s passionate, if rambling, lectures on the impossibility of true love in the modern age have graced the pages of several White Stripes album liner notes, and his intractable commitment to analog recording technology has proven the bane of many a record producer. Jarmusch plays into Jack’s atavistic tendencies by shooting the video in Super 8 stock, giving it the look and feel of one of Godard’s “Nouvelle Vague” films of 1960’s. Like the French New Wave films that it emulates, Jarmusch’s video also lacks discernible plot and strong characterization—it consists of scenes of The Raconteurs rocking out in a deserted farmhouse and a few frames of rampaging cattle.

“Steady, As She Goes” is allusive and beautifully shot, but it lacks the whimsical playfulness of The White Stripes’ best videos. Perhaps Jarmusch is just more serious minded than the Stripes’ usual video director, Michel Gondry, or maybe that sense of fun was something that Meg brought to the table. Here’s to hoping that Meg isn’t out of the picture for good, because Jack and The Raconteurs could stand to lighten up a little.

—Bernard L. Parham