Last year's It Might Get Loud portrayed White Stripes frontman Jack White as a man (touchingly) concerned with stripping his music of artifice, with avoiding the privileges that success affords in the pursuit of music that's primal, pure, and unfettered by self-consciousness. The irony, of course, is that few musicians seem to be more self-conscious than Jack White; he's self-conscious of his self-consciousness. Trying to let go, to will spontaneity through unspontaneously manufactured obstacles (such as deliberately inconvenient instrument positioning on stage), White probably boxes himself in about as much as if he were comfortably produced, but that yearning for truth, which strikes one as legit, can be felt in his music, which, at its best, is vital, intense, personal. White, like many artists of all stripes of his thirtysomething generation suspects that he's lacked the hardship to produce the kind of art that's inspired him (particularly blues), and it's that doubt that gives White the spiritual friction he seeks.

The White Stripes concert movie Under Great White Northern Lights is almost entirely conceived around White's insecurities: The picture follows the band as they tour every province and territory of Canada as part of a larger tour a few years ago. White seems to see Canada—"a neighbor"—as one of those great natural lands of little towns overlooked by big corporate logo-sporting franchise concerts, and he revels in the intimate shows, as well as in the considerably even more intimate "side-shows," which are usually put together an hour or so beforehand and are attended by whoever happens to have their ear to the grapevine. White, though he never explicitly voices it, is clearly concerned with the effect of the web on rock n' roll—with the effects that iTunes, IM, email, and blogs have wrought on the communal nature of browsing through record stores and listening to local bands at coffeehouses and bars. Continue Reading »