Skip to main content

Hard workin', hard rockin' - White Mystery, baby!

Image
(Steven J Wilson)
At the ripe old age of thirty-two, Chi-town's Miss Alex White has been banging out the rock tunes since she was a teenager. I first encountered her in 2005 with the release of her Miss Alex White and the Red Orchestra album. I reviewed it, for the Kansas City Star, I think. I liked it. It was noisy – brash and bruising, but with a marination in soul music that was refreshing for a bratty kid. Her guitar playing was confident, within its limited range. You know, like Johnny Ramone or somebody. She was cool. And as a singer she already hinted at something special. She was raw, and powerful, but with a touch of sweet, sweet soul.


In 2008 (or thereabouts) she formed a duo with her younger brother Francis Scott Key White. Using the name of a Fleer bubble gum flavor, White Mystery, the sibling ensemble was launched. Since 2010 they’ve released an album in April of every year. Each one has some good tunes, each one has some klunkers. The sibs tour relentlessly and their records are essentially consecutive souvenirs – merch table fodder, for those who want more after seeing them live, not unlike the way bands in the Sixties cranked out albums every eight months to capitalize on an endless succession of live dates. 

Live, White Mystery is a high energy outfit, flailing with flying ginger hair, thrift store rock star wardrobe, all projected with flair and humor. F.Y. M.S. (uh, Fuck Your Mouth Shut) is 2017's edition of White Mystery, and a final representation of what they are all about. 

 Alex’s guitar sounds are well dialed. She enjoys a crunchy Who-Slade-Mott power chord style or a janglier, sometimes arpeggiated sound closer to a cross between Love and the Searchers-side of the Ramones. She shifts gears between the two often; “Bad Neptune” shows her jangle-pop side, sweet and scruffy; while “F.Y.M.S.” is butt-rock, something akin to what the Runaways might have done if they were given the luxury of being foulmouthed. 
Alex also treads into girl-group territory with “Stand It,” replete with call and response vocals and a “hit me and it felt like a kiss” sort of theme. “Full of Light” is a tuneful garage-rocker that wouldn’t sound out of place on fellow Chicagoan Liz Phair’s Exile on Guyville. So, you get the picture – White Mystery records are grab bags of rock ’n’ roll party favors. 

 This music don’t aim for high art, it’s entertainment, Alex knows how to make the best use of her talents and brother Francis is an explosive, uninhibited drummer. He drops a beat here and there, but never blushes, and comes back thrashing as if to say “I meant to do that.” It’s music to jump about to, music to bang your head to, sweet to - party music for one, two, or a crowd. On F.Y.M.S. , White Mystery isn’t so mysterious. What you see (and hear) is what you get, two kids from Chicago having one fun, wild ass time playing rock ’n’ roll. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

The people have spoken.

10. Alan Vega - It (Fader) ... SPEW'S Top 10 countdown.

(Steven J Wilson)
If you know who Alan Vega is we can move along.  Alan Vega with one of his installations. But maybe some of you don’t.  Alan Vega was part rockabilly hiccup, part electronic futurist. He was a poetic minimalist. Whether as musician, either with his partner Martin Rev in the band Suicide or solo, or as visual artist (his gallery shows were infrequent, but legendary), Vega was uncompromising and unwilling to play the game. He was interested in energy, in process, not in creating a portfolio. One romanticizes artists at one's peril, but Alan Vega didn't have time for bullshit, and his work shows it.  Alan Vega died in 2016; he was seventy-eight years old. Much of his life he’d been a bit cat and mouse about his age, not wanting to let his Seventies “punk” peers at Max's and CBGB's know he was fifteen years older than them. He needn’t have worried. Nothing dated Alan Vega.  His posthumous swan song It i(the back half of a New York 'exit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Better Ed than Dead

(Steven J Wilson)
Ed Sheeran - He looks like Van Morrison, kinda, huh? Check the tats.   Ed Sheeran is the highest paid entertainer on the planet. I think. I don’t know. They say he’s worth 65 million. Anyway, I read that somewhere. God knows he travels light and doesn’t have to share that dough with an orchestra or anything. I saw Ed once. At least that I’m aware of. He opened for the Rolling Stones in 2015 (or was it 16?) at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. Just me and several thousand of my closest friends. He came out with a guitar in front of that throng and mesmerized the crowd. Okay, not really. Some kids seemed to like him. Old people, eighty percent of the attendees, treated him as a curiosity or mild irritant, not uncommon for a warmup act served up before the Stones’ Lions and Christians, bread and circuses exhibition. Later, he sang “Beast of Burden” with Mick. He was better than Dave Matthews. I see his ruddy little mug and tousled ginger top here and there in the ...
Post a Comment
Read more

2019 (Before I forget)

(Steven J Wilson)
2019 (Before I forget) 2019 Records I Like the Most  Released in 2019: Wives - So Removed @@ Fontaines DC - Dogrel %% Kate Tempest - The Book of Traps and Lessons ## Stella Donnelly - Beware of the Dogs ## Peter Perrett - Human World @@ Mattiel - Satis Factory @@ Tough Shits - Burning in Paradise @@ Felice Brothers - Undress @@ Robert Forster - Inferno ## Danny Brown -uknowhatimsayin %% %% Records I Like that Lots of Other Know-it-Alls Like: Angel Olsen - All Mirrors Jessica Pratt - Quiet Signs FKA  Twigs - Magdalene Charly Bliss - Young Enough Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow Refused - War Music Aldous Harding - Designer Better Oblivion Community Center - s/t Black Midi - Schlagenheim Cate LeBon - Reward Raconteurs - Help Me, Stranger Sturgill Simpson - Sound and Fury Rhiannon Giddens - There is No Other Bruce Springsteen – Western Stars ## Records I Like That A few Know-it-Alls Like: Mick Trouble - Here’s The Mick Trouble Lp T...
Post a Comment
Read more