Dead Weather - I Cut Like a Buffalo

I had to take the movies back after diner and watching Kings tonight. I get in my car and tune my radio to KCRW. "This is the newest track from the Dead Weather." I love when that happens! I was more thrilled as the song started and I realised that it was the song Cut Like a Buffalo, the SECOND single from The Dead Weather's up coming disc Horehound. Unlike the first Zepplin-like single, Hang You From the Heavens, this track finds Jack White and Alison Mosshart teaming up for the lead vocal under a heavy assault of lo-fi distortion reminescent of early demos by Alison's other band and first love, The Kills. But very different from either Jack or Alison's past projects this song also came with very heavy dub/reggae undertones. The stacato guitar part and the tripple echo on the steal drums made it very obvious where the inspiration was coming from yet they executed it with a subtlety that spared me from slapping my head in an, "Oh Brother..." moment of dissapointment.

With the popularity of the roots reggae rebel rivival looming (Popular Scottish band Franz Ferdinand releasing a dub version, titled Blood, of their last album Tonight) I was glad that Jack White took the bull by the horns and gave us a chance to have a popular rivivl that was more than a silly joke. Hopefully others will follow suit and employ the dub influences without overkill and unoriginallity.

It has been revealed in recent intervies that Alison's Kills band mate, Jamie Hince, has also taken quite a shine to old reggae and dub records. Hopefully, if The Kills decide to let that influence shine through in there next record, they will not find themselves in the same position as in 2001 when The Kills could not turn the corner without being compared to Jack White's first claim to fame, The White Stripes. If Jamie can't repair the hard drive of his water logged laptop that contained new Kills material (thrown into it's watery grave by Hince' girlfriend Kate Moss) then we might never know.

Either way all of this could be very exciting if it happens right. If it doesn't though, do not fret. There is a huge wealth of great ORIGINAL Roots Reggae and Dub that you can fill your ear holes with. Get ready to ride the lion to Zion, Board the black star liner, and praise Jah with Lee "Scratch" Perry and his "king of dub" compadre King Tubby. Take some time for The Originator; U-Roy and the bells of ambient style dub from Prince Far I. And you can't stop until you make sure to pick up copies of Big Youth's highly influential Screaming Targets and Culture's record Two Sevens Clash.
-Molly Ultra \V/_