White Stripes Live
The White Stripes Icky Thump as played live on Jools Holland music show UK has a fantastic spontaneous live raw energy sound. White Stripes songs often have simple sounding but solid pounding drums. There are deceptively simple guitar lines which make for a fascinating sound especially amongst much of the stiff computer-digital sounds of the day. I love the use of the squealing feedback from Jack White’s guitar. It’s the inaccuracies and unexpected in the playing that make this great music.
Music Production Tips and Music Technology
Nevertheless some digital technology is at work. How does Jack get his lead guitar sound ? I can see on the White Stripes Icky Thump video that here are some really high notes playing above the normal (distorted) guitar sound. Jack is using an effects board something like a Digitech whammy pedal. He uses a moving pedal to get some kind of high quality pitch shifting.
Rolph Harris Stylophone and no Competing Frequencies
And the organ (sounding similar to the Rolph Harris Stylophone – a hand held organ originally) type solo just takes you by surprise. On the Jools Holland shows it looks like a moog synthesizer. There is a surprise around every corner with this song – great listening. There’s never a dull moment. You wonder what is going to happen next. The instrumentation is simple and so none of the frequencies are competing against each other. The lack of a bass guitar is compensated by the really solid bass drum sound.
First and foremost it’s the performance – its sounds live raw and gutsy!!!!!