FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
Tangled up in Blue: When Stephen Colbert met Jack White
06.09.2017
03:55 pm
Topics:
Tags:


 
The “Blue Series” started in 2009 with the simple idea of a continuing series of 7-inch singles to be released via Jack White’s Third Man Records label. Each artist/group would be given just 24 hours notice, the music would be recorded in the same studio (at Jack White’s house), the songs would all be produced by Jack and the cover photo would be the performer(s) in front of the blue wall in the Blue Room at Third Man’s Nashville offices.

From that sprung 40 releases spanning every sort of style and genre and all pressed at the same local pressing plant. The beautifully-published new book The Blue Series: The Story Behind the Color is an extensive 282-page oral history of the project presented in a hardback slipcase-clad volume featuring a series of interviews conducted with the Blue Series’ many contributors giving a lot of insight into how these spontaneous recordings came to be. This excerpt with one of the series’ more surprising participants can be read in full in the pages of The Story Behind the Color. Courtesy of editor Ben Blackwell and Third Man Books.

Ben Blackwell writes:

While his team was always assuring me otherwise, I never really thought Stephen Colbert would have the time to speak to me. The onset of our conversation was probably the only time in the writing of the book where I was legitimately nervous. But he’s so easy to talk to, so affable…he SPEAKS for a living and that’s a great asset to have in an interview. By the time we landed on Neutral Milk Hotel I’d just thrown that in there out of personal interest, yet THAT part of the interview became one of my favorite parts of the entire book. I don’t know if he’s ever explained so in-depth his appreciation for the band.

BEN BLACKWELL: This is Ben Blackwell from Third Man Records.

STEPHEN COLBERT: Hey! How are ya?

BLACKWELL: I’m good, how are you doing?

COLBERT: Doing just dandy.

BLACKWELL: That’s just great. Are you a big fan of Black Oak Arkansas and Jim Dandy the lead singer?

COLBERT: Of course I am. Of course I am.

BLACKWELL: So yeah, I’m calling to talk about the wonderful recording experience you had a couple years back when you came down here to Nashville.

COLBERT: Yeah!

BLACKWELL: So I guess where does your memory bring you in terms of how all this came about? Where did the idea spring from?

COLBERT: Well we were fans of Jack, and one of my producers, a guy named Aaron Cohen, came to me — he was also one of my writer/ producers who also was always making music recommendations to me, so he always came in with his music ideas — and he goes, “would you wanna go, would you wanna record something with Jack White at Third Man Records?” And I said “Yeah, sounds great!” And he goes, “We’d have to go to Nashville,” and I went, “I don’t know about that,” because traveling was difficult — we had to do a show every day. And he goes, “No it will be fun, please, let’s go. It’s supposed to be like a musical playground down there.” And I said, “Alright, sure, I’ll give it a shot. What are we doing?” “Oh we’ll do a sequel to ‘Charlene,’” and I said “That will be fun.” And I don’t think… I can’t remember if we had Jack on the show yet, I can’t remember if we had him on yet because I know evidently we had a show where we did something a little different, he didn’t want to be interviewed.

BLACKWELL: I don’t think you did from my recollection.

COLBERT: Ok. He’s pleasantly difficult, is how I would describe Jack. A difficult that leads to creativity because you have to find a new way to talk to him or play with him and it’s always fun, because he’s particular about the way he likes to do things, which I respect. And so, I said “sure,” that was it. Just one of my producers was a fan of Jack’s and he knew that I liked Jack and The White Stripes and I said “sure let’s give it a shot.” But I didn’t know what to expect at all.

BLACKWELL: Do you have any recollection — I remember back in, whenever it was, 2005 or so, at some point in the lead up to your show —


COLBERT
: — Oh shit, yeah! Ok so here’s the deal: Jack agreed to do our theme song, the original song, and listen, I didn’t have the original conversation with Jack. It was Ben Carlin, one of my old execs, and he goes, “Hey, Jack White said he’s up for doing our theme song.” And I’m like, “Oh that sounds fantastic! That’s great!” And the closer we got, the less it seemed like it was gonna happen so Jack finally said like, “I just don’t have time. I know you guys are coming up, I wanna do it, I just don’t have time.” And I had always thought that — I was very excited that Jack wanted to do it — but I hadn’t actually reached out to Jack because I didn’t know him. And I was always like, I kinda felt like we were gonna go with Cheap Trick and my exec was like, “Would Jack White be fine too?” And I’m like, “Yeah sure.” It was just another thing I didn’t want on my plate. And I was thrilled it was gonna be Jack, and then I found out he couldn’t do it and I was like, “Man, fuck Jack White!” And then I was like, well let’s go with what I wanted. Then we went with Cheap Trick and had a great time. But yeah, Jack was originally gonna do the theme song.

BLACKWELL: And Rick Nielsen has since made millions off of your theme song.


COLBERT: God I hope so.

BLACKWELL: I remember being with Jack at the time and him saying, “Yeah I’m gonna do the theme song for this new Stephen Colbert show.” Oh wow, that sounds pretty cool. And not hearing anything from him between when he said that and I was watching the first episode going like, “can’t wait to see what Jack did! Ehhh this doesn’t really sound like Jack.”


COLBERT: [laughs] Does not sound like him, no. And that was my original thought. Because I had totally forgotten about that. So when they said do you wanna do something with Jack White. I was like “I’d like to plan to do something with Jack White” —

BLACKWELL: So you had to travel down here, you guys— you and a bunch of your writers — kind of started sketching out the idea of the song. Was there a little bit of back and forth? You guys came up with lyrics and —

COLBERT: Yeah, what would the next version of the song be …

BLACKWELL: Right. You guys didn’t do any of the music part at all, right? You guys just only focused on lyrics?

COLBERT: Yeah, I think so we just did the lyrics and Jack came through with the music, I think that’s how it worked.

BLACKWELL: Right. And how did you feel about that, did that feel all in concert with the interview and the actual filming or did you view it as two separate, but connected, parts?


COLBERT: Well the funny thing was, the interview that I did with Jack, felt so different from almost any other interview I’ve ever done because it was all just about music and Catholicism. Those two subjects that we talked about. And he’s got an irascible nature, and it was such wonderful friction to go up against. Because you really want somebody to resist you in an interview situation. So you have some place for sparks to happen. And he’s all either flint or steel. I’m not sure which one it is. So there are so many sparks, even if — think I was like, “What’s your favorite Bob Seger song?” And he’s like, “excuse me?” I’m like “C’mon, Seeg?” And it’s time for the comeback. “What’s your favorite Seger song? Don’t tell me you don’t have one. Don’t tell me you don’t have a favorite.” And in some ways I’m fucking with him but it was kind of sincere. I ran my interview with him, but the song is totally in character. The song’s totally in character. But I was doing the interview with one of the early examples of like, this is what I would be like if I could just interview people not in character. Because yeah, I was fucking with him but just like a comedian, but it was entirely enjoyable just to spend time with someone as opinionated and as, oddly, both opinionated and reticent at the same time. Having to pry answers out of him at times and almost entirely be combative, but seeing that he would enjoy it, it was such a joy to do. So the interview was totally not the song. The process of the song was, let’s complete this character game that we created in the first months of the show when the character was very tightly wound. And the interview was the loosest one I’ve ever done up until that point. Even though I was, I had a game of just messing with him. So, yeah, they were very different.

BLACKWELL: You had said, at some point you said to someone, that Stephen Colbert, the character, and Stephen Colbert, the person, are both huge fans of Bob Seger.

COLBERT: Yeah that’s true.

BLACKWELL: And do you recall at the time that Bob Seger was actually in Nashville?

COLBERT: He was?

BLACKWELL: He was in Nashville and it seemed like we almost got him down to appear on-screen to play one of those nights you were filming here.


COLBERT: [laughs] I remember something like that. I actually ran into Seger about a month ago.

BLACKWELL: Oh nice!

COLBERT: I had never met him before, but I was at the Kennedy Center Honors and he was there to sing “Heartache Tonight” for the Eagles, which I guess he co-wrote with Don Henley. I think it was Henley he wrote it with. With Glen Frey, he co-wrote it with Glen Frey. And we were seated next to each other at the actual award ceremony at the White House. He leans forward around his wife and goes, “Heyyyy,” and I said, “Oh man! So nice to finally meet you.” And he goes, “I saw your thing with Jack. Really liked it, man. We were playing it around the office a lot.” And so that was a real joy. I’m still waiting for the re-Segerence. I know he’s never going anywhere and he’s still been around but somebody needs to do a movie with an entire soundtrack of just Seger. But let’s get back to Jack.

BLACKWELL: Well, we’ve been working on it since, at least since then to try to reissue some of that stuff. But that’s another story. So the whole Catholic throwdown thing, you talk about the interview being nothing but talking about music and Catholicism — my side question becomes, you have a — I remember preceding this Jack said it’s really hard to be interviewed by you because first of all,  it’s not a traditional interview. Second of all, you actually need to come in with an approach as maybe you dealt with a lot of people who were trying to be funny in response to you? And maybe a lot of people weren’t coming in thinking no you actually need to dial it back and Stephen’s the funny one and you need to be the straight guy. Did that feel at play with that conversation at all?

COLBERT
: No, I didn’t feel that at all. Not with Jack at all. He was very — I mean, I don’t know what he’s like to people who have known him for a long time, but he’s got a combative nature — at least when I talked to him — and he’s also got a little bit of “oh you’re not so great. You’re not so great. Why are you such a big fucking deal?” And so it’s like, “Oh you’re not the biggest Catholic, I’m the biggest Catholic.” You know? [laughs] He wouldn’t give me an inch. And my character is usually very high status. And just like having a TV show is very high status. And he wouldn’t give me the status. Which was always fun. It ended up being the status game. The status game evolved very quickly into specifically the Catholic status game. Who could stump the other person. I don’t even remember how we got to the first question about it.

BLACKWELL: He asked you how to spell your name.

Continues after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
|
06.09.2017
03:55 pm
|
Invoking blackface, conservative idiot whines that Stephen Colbert is racist towards conservatives!


 
I seldom write about political matters anymore on DM because there’s an assumption that if you hate Republicans then you must automatically be a Democrat and I got tired of offering the disclaimer that the only reason I would ever vote for a Democrat is to keep the Republican out of office. Not only that, once-reliable traffic-generators like “Glenn Beck says something OFF THE WALL (again)” or “Sarah Palin says something IDIOTIC (again)” don’t really bring in that much traffic anymore. Republicans are fucking idiots. If they weren’t, then they wouldn’t be Republicans. Most people who read this blog probably don’t need anyone, including me, explaining that to them. I prefer to ignore them.

Today, though, I’m making an exception for the #1 dumbest rightwing reaction to Stephen Colbert taking over for David Letterman. This is just too good.

Young Ben Shapiro was once the wimpy “boy wonder” to Andrew Breitbart’s blob-shaped crusader and he usually makes about as much sense as his blustery late mentor, except that no one takes him nearly as seriously. Lil’ Ben is now the editor of a silly blog called Truth Revolt that no one reads except for lefty bloggers who want to mock him. He’s written a new book called How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them and he’s proud of the fact that he was still a virgin on his wedding day.

Shapiro possesses pretty much the most punchable face I think I’ve ever seen. He fills me with visceral hatred. Which is kind of funny because in his latest Truth Revolt “think piece” Shapiro makes an inadvertently hilarious argument for the comedic genius, not to mention vital cultural importance of Stephen Colbert by complaining that:

“It is nearly impossible to watch an episode of The Colbert Report without coming away with a viscerally negative response to conservatives.”

Sharply observed, fuckwit! Give that man a Kewpie Doll…

But in the wake of all the conservative hand-wringing about Colbert replacing Letterman (Rush Limbaugh said that CBS was declaring “war” on the heartland with this pick) Babyface Ben sees something far more sinister going on:  Colbert IS a racist! He’s a racist against conservatives!

Blackface, which has an ugly history dating back to at least the fifteenth century according to historian John Strausbaugh, was used to portray demeaning and horrifying stereotypes of blacks. Such stereotypical imitation has not been limited to blacks, of course; actors tasked with playing stereotypical Jew Shylock often donned a fake nose and red wig, as did actors who were supposed to play Barabas in The Jew of Malta. Such stereotypical potrayals [sic] create a false sense of blacks, or Jews, or whomever becomes the target of such nastiness.

And this is precisely what Colbert does with regard to politics: he engages in Conservativeface. He needs no makeup or bulbous appendage to play a conservative – after all, conservatives come in every shape and size. Instead, he acts as though he is a conservative – an idiotic, racist, sexist, bigoted, brutal conservative. He out-Archie Bunkers Archie Bunker. His audience laughs and scoffs at brutal religious “Colbert” who wishes to persecute gays; they chortle at evil sexist “Colbert” who thinks men are victims of sexism. This is the purpose of Colbert’s routine. His show is about pure hatred for conservatives in the same way that blackface was about pure hatred of blacks. In order to justify their racism, racists had to create a false perception of blacks; in the same way, Colbert and his audience can justify their racism only by creating a false perception of conservatives.

No, no Ben, you’re confused. Colbert gives a very, very, very accurate portrayal of conservatives. Didn’t you just write:

“It is nearly impossible to watch an episode of The Colbert Report without coming away with a viscerally negative response to conservatives.”

It’s because conservatives are assholes, Ben. Like you. Someone who doesn’t get the fucking joke..

The comments below Shapiro’s logic-addled rant are as delicious as you might expect:

The only thing this article accomplished is making me think that I might not be too sad if society as a whole started systematically disenfranchising and dehumanizing conservatives. After all, if this guy is that attached to the blackface metaphor he should at least get to experience it for real firsthand.

Here’s another:

Is this an article or a rationalization? Sounds like more right wing sour grapes to me. Colbert’s character is successful because it is such a dead-on satire. You can listen to Rush and Fox News and conclude that Colbert is misrepresenting them as somehow worse, or more extreme than they really are? Laughable. Go re-examine your life. You’re on the wrong side.

Tee-hee. Expecting self-awareness from the likes of lil’ Ben seems a tad far-fetched, though.

Oh, brother. There’s this thing called satire and it always exagerrates its subject. That’s how it works. Minstrel shows weren’t satire. They were mockery and cultural appropriation. Is Mr Shapiro claiming that people are born conservative and Mr Colbert is stereotyping the entire conservative “race?”

Or…

BUT WHOOOOO WILL THINK OF THE BILLIONAIRE INDUSTRIALISTS AND UNEDUCATED SOUTHERN WHITE BIGOTS??

What about?

it’s almost as if you’re providing the source material for him to be successful…oh wait, you have

Here’s another good one:

You just compared the schtick of a comedian on a comedy network to the institutional and societal approved degradation of a entire race of people. Which in addition to being monumentally stupid is also precisely why folks like Colbert mock conservatives, your feigned attempts at equivocating always shines a light on the underbelly of your magnificent ignorance.

Not sure if Ben Shapiro and Truth Revolt are important enough targets for Colbert and his writers to take notice of—some attention from him is what Shapiro seems to be aiming for with this insipid drivel—but it would be amusing to hear their take on how the author of How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them scored such a humiliating own goal.

Meanwhile, Colbert did what he does best on last night’s program, totally pwning “Papa Bear”:
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
04.11.2014
03:27 pm
|
Is this the single best segment of ‘The Colbert Report’ ever? It very well might be!
08.15.2013
12:56 pm
Topics:
Tags:


One of the most eloquent men in America.

Stephen Colbert is a national treasure, we all know it, and this is perhaps the single best segment that I have ever seen on The Colbert Report.

Huffington Post said that it’s likely to leave you in tears and that’s most certainly true, but this is also absolutely hysterically funny. It’s a cute, sweet, feel-good tale, but when you see the preacher with the oxygen container, well, it goes into the comedic stratosphere after that. The producers and writers, and Stephen Colbert himself, of course, deserve a standing ovation.

I don’t really need to describe this to you, do I? Just hit play and meet Mayor Johnny Cummings of Vicco, Kentucky and the many wonderful people who live in his town (If you are blocked from the Comedy Central link, here it is on YouTube).
 

 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
08.15.2013
12:56 pm
|
GOP: Give a man a fish, he eats for a day. Take away his food stamps, he’ll become an entrepreneur!


 
In which Stephen Colbert uses an old adage to expose the preposterously illogical position the House Republicans have taken on the matter of food stamps:

Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Take away his food stamps, and he’ll found FishCo, a multinational food conglomerate that gets a massive subsidy in the next Farm Bill.

In the harsh daylight of, I dunno, REALITY, what do the GOP really think is going to happen if they gut the food stamp program? That the 47 million Americans currently dependent on them—the most ever, double what it was five years ago—are just going to curl up in the middle of the road and die? They’re simply going to say “Hey, kids, the jig’s up, let’s just stop eating. The Republicans are right. Why don’t we all buy one last pizza and eat it in the garage with the car’s engine running?”

Or will they come into the rich neighborhoods looking for a snack?

Starve poor families out and they might be forced to become entrepreneurial, it’s true!

They just won’t be the kind of entrepreneurs that these Republican halfwits want…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
07.18.2013
02:56 pm
|
Handmade Stephen Colbert action figure
01.24.2012
03:30 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Good job, CautionLowSign! The only thing mini-Colbert seems to be missing are his wire frame glasses.
 
(via reddit)

Posted by Tara McGinley
|
01.24.2012
03:30 pm
|
Stephen Colbert Couch
01.12.2011
12:15 pm
Topics:
Tags:

image
 
Yep! It’s a Stephen Colbert couch to liven up your living room by Etsy seller Matt Charlan. The couch is priced at $2,008.87 (for now). It might work nicely with the demon rug.

People will gravitate to the percise place in the room looking for where the face is most accurate. While you round them up make sure your finger is ready on the dead switch to the trap door to you basement where you keep all Colbert Couch huff puff nay sayers.

The price of the couch is automatically calculated using a sophisticated algorithm like Goldman used to inflate its assets (Way to drop $300 M on facebook, Goldman). The price is directly proportional to the number of people who look at this listing.

image
 
(via Nerdcore )

Posted by Tara McGinley
|
01.12.2011
12:15 pm
|
Stephen Colbert on American, Republican-style Christianity

image
 
We don’t have intellectuals in America, but we have brilliant comedians like Colbert who can slice it right to the bone. Bravo!

Please FB share and tweet far and wide, won’t you?

Via The American Jesus

Posted by Richard Metzger
|
01.01.2011
11:56 pm
|