RBC #5, Introducing Anna.

Back from the holiday weekend and more importantly Redd Blood Cells review week. I understand that the review of RBC 4 was some how preempted due to some confusion at mission control. We apologize and would like to make it up by posting "the Union" and "the Same Boy" this coming Sunday the 14th (for one day only of course).

Ok as I said we have returned and in quite a nice fashion if I do say so myself. The nice thing about Redd Blood Cells, as opposed to White Blood Cells is, it doesn't seem as "front loaded" as it 's counterpart. "Front loaded" being a cheesy industry term describing a record with all of it's strongest songs and/or "singles" crammed on to the first 3 or 4 tracks. I'm finding Redd Blood Cells seems to only get more confident and assertive as we go along. One of my personal favorite tunes on RBC so far has been Expecting, for some reason when I started playing on that one it really came to life for me ... and that's as deep as track 5! More examples of the depth of RBC would be our latest installment We're Going to be Friends and the lyrically resonant Offend in Every Way.

We're Going to be Friends; First things first, we have a very special guest star this week. Originating her role as the object of Jack's affection "Suzy Lee" we have my wife Anna Waronker doing a beautiful vocal duet. Well actually it turns in to three part harmony by the last few refrains so I guess technically not a duet, but still all the same it's got that twisted Lee and Nancy meets Paul and Linda vibe to it.

Originally I started doing the harmony myself, but then the last chorus came around and I was singing harmony on "I can tell that we are going to be friends" and it just felt way to creepy stalker like. Whatever like people are going to take it literally, but still I like it better with Anna, she has a much prettier and versatile voice than I do. I essentially just handed her a Sure SM 57, gave her a few ideas of what I was looking for and then I just left her alone to do her thing. She never seizes to amazing me, listen to what she came up with - in like 10 minutes, seriously, genius! Yeah it's weird when we got married she chose to keep her maiden name rather than mine ... White.That's why I didn't introduce her as Anna White. At first I was going to call her our kissin' cousin, but then I realized she's actually Jack's kissin' Sister in-law?!?!, ok gross enough of that.

Also I was not able to play my now famous Hofner Basses this weekend because one of them was in the shop and the other needed a string. For Friend I chose to play my trusty Beatle bass copy, which I affectionately refer to as Klira. Klira of course being the manufacturer of this mid 60's Japanese knock off of a Hofner Beatle Bass. It's pretty cool, for some reason instead of fake Hofner pick ups someone customized it with Rickenbacker 4001 pickups. I guess it's supposed to give you the best of both of Paul McCartney's worlds, wow what a high concept "Paul McCartney's World's" ... the plural is the magical part for me ... get it world's ... ok I digress too much.

Offend in Every Way: This song has turned out to be the sleeper hit for me personally. The last few lyrics of the song, in fact the whole last verse about dealing with peoples expectations of the White Stripes I found very interesting. I really dig the vulnerable side to this group, as strutty and larger than life as they, well ... we are, there is still a very human quality alive in the songs. I feel like I know what Jack is talking about, but then again I'm probably just projecting my on crap on to it. The song is probably really about hanging out at the Krispy Kream, or something. Whatever, I'm getting what I need out of it, whatever that is? ...OK.

If you noticed a big change in bass tone, that is due to my 1990 Roger Sadowsky Jazz Bass copy. I've played this bass in Redd Kross pretty much exclusively since I bought it new, ...god 12 years ago, when we were recording Third Eye. It has a great deep tone and crazy sustain. I've grown a little tired of it, but it sounded really good to me a couple nights ago when I was recording this. My approach on Offend ... ok this is going to seem weird but basically that's me trying to play like Robert Deleo of STP. I know that Robert is basically trying to imitate James Jamerson (famous Motown bassist), and he's pretty much failing, but instead in the process he is coming up with his own thing. I 'm hopefully doing the same thing, failing at what I'm trying to cop, and inadvertently coming up with something new, ... or "my own thing". Also I play with a pick, and I think both Robert and James are/was pretty much fingers guys ... finger guys, or rather people who pluck with there fingers instead of using a pick, or plectrum as our Engish friends like to call them ... you know what I mean.

Thank you once again to everyone for supporting this project and I hope
you enjoy the new installment,
Steven

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