Meg White Is Amazing!!

Uh, wrong thread I guess

i think it's pretty cool, in 2023, to talk about meg white and what she accomplished and the shit she endured and how much she meant to people (including the author?)

centering it around how 'wow she won't talk to me' is absurd tho. and god bless meg for *not* talking to someone who would frame it that way

Xpost no not at all, I was reminded of The Sundays' thing too.

I hate the strawman mystery of these pieces - just because you don't know what someone's thought process is doesn't automatically make it a mystery. Also, your lifestory in investigating this purported mystery rarely justifies the word count.

Leave Meg alone. I remember that when Pink Floyd started touring again in the 80s, Syd Barrett would get a new set of fanzine writers and/or stalkers trying to sneak a photograph (or worse, just knock on his front door)

https://townsquare.media/site/295/files/2017/12/macca-farleyv2.jpg

Remember when you were in the Beatles? That was cool.

Fucking love Meg White’s drumming. Don’t give a shit about any other aspect of her life that she’s not interested in discussing. First half of this thread is puerile and repulsive.

I was reminded of Richard Simmons.

This isn't even the worst Meg thread from early ilx.

Jack White’s entire career separate from Meg is the best argument for her value as a drummer.

^^^^^^^^^^

OTM, that's also my go-to argument. How many Raconteurs songs do you know?

"Steady as she goes", that's it.

And, as for the the Dead Weather, um...

i'd thought about posting that elle article earlier but ended up not doing so after looking at all the meg white threads on ILX. The general White Stripes threads honestly weren't much better, where meg was concerned. just seeing it all at once made me so sad, just how much fucking shit she faced while the band was active.

personally, I actually really liked the article as a recognition of Meg and all the crap she went through, though I agree that the framing of it as the hunt for an interview is lame. It would have worked just fine as a long appreciation piece. 

Roz, exact same!! I recently looked up MW here and saw how bad it was and like 1000 posts about her body and couldn’t bring myself to revive until this article and I still didn’t post it bc I didn’t want to see the grossness all over again.

Completely agree that you don’t need to find her and force her to talk to write an appreciation piece which I also agree is long overdue.

In addition to the young women she inspired I wonder what the collateral damage of the misogyny was — we’ll never know because you can’t count discouraged people but I’m sure (from my own experience) that there are a.non-zero number of women who actually chose not to pursue drumming bc of the way they saw her being treated. Who would sign up for that but the most courageous who probably would have started playing without the inspiration of MW??

Even when I finally decided to start playing and learning there were always chucklebutts who would say discouraging things like “well good luck, there’s hardly a shortage of awesome drummers in (city where I live)” Fortunately they did not deter me but obviously I still think about it from time to time.

Basically everyone but obsessive Jack White weirdos totally agrees and acknowledges that the White Stripes is BY FAR the best work he's ever done and yet there's still some question about how important the other person in the band was? It's kind of like debating why Mick Jagger solo albums aren't as good as Stones albums, gee I wonder.

If I had worn the outfit that Meg wore on the cover of Icky Thump, I would totally have gone into hiding as well.

disappointed you're not open-minded enough to embrace the Pearly way, scott

fame isn't really worth it if you have to wear that hat.

Yesterday's Meg White shitposters are Today's Horny Dad posters.

I can't remember the last time I listened to a Jack White solo album, but the Stripes come up regularly in my rotation.

And what is not to like about these outfits?

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1K+jbj+1bL._AC_SX425_.jpg

Even when I finally decided to start playing and learning there were always chucklebutts who would say discouraging things like “well good luck, there’s hardly a shortage of awesome drummers in (city where I live)” Fortunately they did not deter me but obviously I still think about it from time to time.

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera), Wednesday, June 7, 2023 9:20 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Because I know your goal in starting drums was to get that Top Gig with the Headline Band

In any USian city there are WAY more superfluous guitar players than there are drummers.

(This is partly why I mainly play mandola and bodhran. Less competition.)

(and also if I had the ability to hire La Lechera I would do so in a heartbeat)

well thanks for the vote of confidence! i appreciate that
i think you're right about guitar players also

My kid was smart to pick the bass.

^indeed

A guy who works in the music industry recently told me that if I wanted to be a full-time musician I should learn pedal steel, that there's always work for pedal steel players. I'm kind of tempted to go for it.

I’m hoping to be go-to gong gal in my perfect world.

someone who has their own gong and can dependably show up? a rarity in these days

It me: Mature reliable gong-enabled 😎

Even with messing with a lap steel, it is definitely a different kind of beast than a guitar.

I’d love to get a chance to fart around with a pedal steel or b bender guitar, just to try them out but don’t know anyone that plays one and they are really expensive.

I've bought my wife a couple of gongs over the years. She is not into droning out on them - just enjoys a well-placed strike to re-center herself. One was a 10" wind gong that has gone slightly out of tune due to parades of kids just walking up and smashing it. A year or two ago I bought her an 18" chau gong. It is much more sturdy and sonorous and she has placed it out of the way of young ne'er-do-wells. But yesterday morning, before anyone was awake, one of our cats discovered it and decided that she enjoyed brushing up against it and giving it headbutts.

going to need video of this gong head-butting cat asap

The best strategy is to follow the Nashville model, master one instrument but be at least competent at one or two others. I love stories like Buck Owens and Don Rich, where Rich started out on fiddle for several years before Owens learned he was not just a good guitarist but a great guitarist. Or Bill Berry in REM, who iirc surprised his bandmates (who probably already knew he could play guitar) that he was a piano player, too. The Beatles, of course, swapped instruments here and there as needed (though it helped that Paul was a legit prodigy on his primary instrument).

But yeah, the world is awash in good guitar players, but as the saying goes, a band is only as good as its drummer.

gong cat to (cat) thread

there were always chucklebutts who would say discouraging things like “well good luck, there’s hardly a shortage of awesome drummers in (city where I live)”

what fucking cities are these? IME drummers are absolutely the most in demand and hardest to find part of any group. every time I find someone who has availability and desire to play in my band I feel like I won the lottery

Last year I played a show where there were five bands. I was the drummer in three of them.

co-sign there is no city awash in drummers period nevermind awesome ones, boo to those chucklebutts and to every awful chucklebutt at the start of this thread, jack white has gone on record in "under great northern lights" that meg is absolutely integral, he plays with one of the best living drummers alive today and he cannot replicate what meg does at all

by which I mean daru jones is an incredible drummer that is living and alive, presently, but he is no meg white

Brighton has a fair few, just as well for our Alice's sake...

Yeah the number of bands I’ve seen that are better than their drummers beg to differ with the idea that there’s a glut of great drummers.

It was framed as an acknowledgement that there are a lot of excellent drummers in this particular city (it’s true, there are) and I shouldn’t bother trying bc I’d never measure up. Because I’m here specifically.

The idea that there is a drummer shortage doesn’t appear to be particularly true here.

Regardless of the on-the-ground reality in this city I can’t imagine anyone saying something that discouraging to anyone they cared about at all. Whether it’s widely true or not I mentioned it bc it reflects the attitudes of the people who gave Meg such a hard time — like their (baseless) criticism of her was normal/justified and wasn’t hurtful. It was not justified and it was hurtful.

yeah it's just assholish, it's not like wanting to be a musician is something that makes any kind of rational sense, you have the love for it, and no one knows how it will turn out. (i guess i feel like performing very niche music for an attentive crowd is success to me, the chances i've had to do it)

i mean hell the white stripes as long as we are on this thread, who would have bet money when they were new that they were going to be bigger than any of that era of garage rock bands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWrrx7uQfS0

^^Solid Smoke

(i guess i feel like performing very niche music for an attentive crowd is success to me, the chances i've had to do it)

ultimately what's better than this imo?

not much really

nothing imo, it is the greatest

i learned drums bc it was impossible to nail a drummer down for our band, they’re all in 3-5 bands already