Around 2000 it didn’t take too much of a clue to realize that there was a lot of cool shit going on in Detroit. The powers that be declared it a garage revival, but what it was was just vital rock and roll in the city that had given us Motown and the MC5 and the Stooges. Bands like the Von Bondies, the Detroit Cobras, the Electric Six (formerly the Wildbunch), and the Dirtbombs were on everybody’s lips. The White Stripes’ album White Blood Cells came out in the summer of 2001 and catapulted them to a whole new level.

In 2001 the Dutch TV station VPRO sent a crew to Detroit to document the goings-on, with a focus on (of course) the White Stripes. The program was directed by René Hazekamp and the interviews were conducted by Helmut Boeijen. The Dirtbombs’ Mick Collins is the closest thing the show has to an MC, we follow him around on Detroit’s People Mover as he explains the nuances of the Detroit scene. (Can’t help but think of the Electric Six song “Egyptian Cowboy,” in which Dick Valentine sings that “there’s never any people on the People Mover.”)

Technically, the title of the show is Detroit Rawk!!! In addition to the White Stripes and the Dirtbombs, the program checks in with the Demolition Doll Rods and the Paybacks.

In Jack White: How he Built an Empire from the Blues, Nick Hasted writes:
 

In early November [2001], ahead of the White Stripes’ European return, Dutch TV station VPRO filmed an evocative documentary showing a Detroit scene on the cusp of change. Mick Collins optimistically opined that if the White Stipes were its Beatles, “the Dirtbombs are the Rolling Stones,” while the Paybacks’ Wendy Case described a community that was finally “coalescing,” with bands “helping each other and booking shows together.” ... Did [White] feel obligated to pay attention to other Detroit bands, his interviewer, Helmut Boeijen, perceptively asked. “It feels good to take another Detroit band on tour with us,” Jack said. “They deserve it,” Meg loyally put in. Now he was home, Jack could duck fame’s chores like a naughty kid, as with the previous day’s phone interviews. “I just had my roommate [Ben Swank] do ‘em,” he laughed.

 
Towards the end of the program Jack is explaining that they had turned down a million bucks from the Gap to do a Christmas commercial, and makes the mistake of invoking Donny and Marie. Their friend and manager Arthur Dottweiler hilariously gives them endless shit for it. “You guys are not Donny and Marie!! You think you’re Donny and Marie?? Do you guys have your own network prime time television program??”

Dude did have a point.

Watch it after the jump…

 
It’s tough when you’re in the nation’s top blues-based two-person rock combo, and another blues-based two-person rock combo comes along and gets some serious hosannas from the likes of Rolling Stone as well as some decent sales….. The blood between Jack White of the White Stripes and two fellas from Akron calling themselves the Black Keys has been pretty bad at least as far back as the time White urged his former wife, Karen Elson, to pull their two kids from the Nashville-area school that Dan Auerbach’s daughter had recently joined.

White has accused the Black Keys of ripping off the White Stripes sound. Then last year, there was some kind of reconciliation, evidenced by White’s statement of late May 2014 that he wishes “the Black Keys all the success they can get.”

Today has seen a kind of Twitter war (complete with truce) erupt between Jack White and Patrick Carney, the drummer of the Black Keys, however, including some indication that there might have been a scuffle or something like that. According to Pitchfork, Carney started the whole thing off with this series of tweets (which have since been deleted) in which he indicated that White, as a “40 year old bully,” “tried to fight” a “35 year old nerd” at “a bar in Nyc” and also called White “a bully asshole” and “basically billy corgan’s dumb ass zero t-shirt in human form.”
 

I’ve never met jack white.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

Until last night.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

He came to a bar in Nyc I go to a lot with a few friends and tried to fight me.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

I don’t fight and don’t get fighting but he was mad!!!
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

He is why I play music. The bully assholes who made me feel like nothing. Music was a private non competitive thing.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

Not sure what he’s unhappy with cuz I just liked Zeppelin a lot and wanted to play guitar. Cut my pinky off and ended up being a drummer
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

Not the best drummer but a passionate one. But any way jack white. A 40 year old bully tried to fight the 35 year old nerd.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

It might get loud but it might also get really really sad and pathetic.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

Jack white is basically billy corgan’s dumb ass zero t-shirt in human form.
— Patrick Carney (@patrickcarney) September 14, 2015

 
White’s first response to the tweets was to issue a statement to Pitchfork directed at Carney. The statement included the following: “Nobody tried to fight you, Patrick. ... Nobody touched you or ‘bullied’ you. You were asked a question you couldn’t answer so you walked away. So quit whining to the Internet and speak face to face like a human being. End of story.”

As is the way these things often turn out, somehow White and Carney immediately contacted each other and have done a complete about-face from the trash talking earlier in the day. At 11:03 a.m. Carney tweeted that he had “Talked to jack for an hour he’s cool. All good.” For his part, about half an hour later, White’s label Third Man Records tweeted, “‘From one musician to another, you have my respect Patrick Carney.’ -Jack White,” as a way of signaling that both sides of the dispute now view the matter as closed.

For observers, however, the incident remains puzzling. Did Jack White shove Patrick Carney? And if not, why did Carney suggest that such a thing happened? At a minimum, despite whatever olive branches are being flung into the fray, it remains obvious that the relationship between Jack White and his Nashville neighbors Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach might remain fraught. 

After the jump, the White Stripes play live in Germany from 2007…

 
Rock and roll riders are always a lot of fun, whether it’s Van Halen‘s demand to have the brown M&M’s removed from their candy bowl (instituted as a foolproof test to see if a venue’s operators were fulfilling the more demanding portions of the rider) or Iggy Pop‘s riders, which, as DM has documented, are hilarious.

On February 2 Jack White played the McCasland Field House on the campus of University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma, in support of his latest album, Lazaretto. During the show White complained about the publication in the campus newspaper, four days earlier, of the full contract between White and the school.

According to Consequence of Sound, White said from the stage, “Just because you can type it on your computer doesn’t make it right.” The newspaper has cited the Freedom of Information Act. Yesterday the William Morris Entertainment revealed that it was placing the school on a blacklist from any future Jack White concerts as well as those of any artist represented by William Morris Entertainment. (In an addendum to the original Consequence of Sound article from yesterday evening, it is explained that William Morris denies banning OU from future Jack White shows—while pointedly remaining mum about other acts on its roster.)

Moral: Do not fuck with lawyers.
 

 
The main reason for White’s irritation, as well as that of William Morris, was the revelation of White’s fee, which comes to $80,000. White’s contract includes a full recipe for guacamole, reproduced here, as well as an unexplained demand that his tour remain a “NO BANANA TOUR.” The rider explains that the person tasked with preparing the guacamole must be “careful not to mush the avocados too much. We want it chunky.” White’s dressing room, the rider stipulates, should be stocked with aged salami, a pound of “high-quality” prosciutto, beef jerky, dried fruit, cashews, and almonds.

The performer’s alcohol requirements include bottles of red and white wine, Veuve Clicquot champagne, and Bulleit Bourbon (aged 10 years), although these were apparently waived for the OU show—those items are crossed out and the words “No Alcohol” are written nearby with a Sharpie.
 

 
At the start of the “meals” section, there is a stern warning: “PLEASE NOTE: this is a NO BANANA TOUR. (Seriously). We don’t want to see bananas anywhere in the building.” It is not explained why bananas are not allowed to enjoy Jack White’s concerts, along with all the other fruits and vegetables.

Here’s the full rider, so you can see for yourself.