Kelley Stoltz "Antique Glow"

 Kelley Stoltz

"Antique Glow" 20th anniversary expanded edition

scum stats: 300 UK indie exclusive, 700 US indie exclusive, a whole mess of 'em on black and maybe some super top-secret single digit kinda things still to be revealed to you real heads

The number of albums I love more than "Antique Glow" could be counted on two hands.

Cut to February 2003. I'm still in college, loving journalism classes but bummed that I need to take French, in the beginning steps of starting my own record label and also balancing time in the Dirtbombs.

We're scheduled for a quick West Coast trip centered around a headlining spot at Noise Pop Festival in San Francisco. I made my way into Amoeba in the Haight and happily felt like I was at home. Back at that time, I knew enough people who worked there that someone I was friends with was bound to be on the floor whenever I walked in. It was a nice feeling then...I don't think it's true anymore.

I cannot remember if it was Detroit ex-pat Michael Cooper or SF stalwart Brock Galland who made the suggestion, but it was definitely one or the other who thrust a copy of "Antique Glow" into my hands.

My first impression was...I didn't like the name Kelley Stoltz. Probably to do with my dislike of Eric Stoltz and thinking that Kelley with an "E" seemed pretentious. I was NOT pulled in immediately. But after I was told that ever album cover was hand-painted by Kelley, that he self-released it himself AND that he was originally from the Metro Detroit area...I thought the $12 investment was worth the risk.

Took a minute upon arriving back home for me to throw the record on the turntable, but as SOON as I did, it was instantaneous amazement. The opening lick of "Perpetual Night", just close enough to "Here Comes The Sun" without invoking lawsuits, is the perfect enticement to keep listening. The WARMTH of it all, enveloping like a cozy old blanket, I mean, that's the GLOW we're talking about in the title, right? The lyrics lazily introduce themselves, delayed effects sputter from left to right channel like a shooting star across the night sky, it all feels like it's just going to fall apart and then at 1:52 the drums spring into step and it all locks in and just...makes sense.

The album is just full of moment after pleasing moment like the one's described. Every song, every change, every note...just a damned cornucopia of brilliance. An embarrassment of beautiful music all squeezed onto one album. Like...it feels like it's not even fair to the rest of the world. There's a lifetime's worth of incontrovertibly statuesque songs upending the statistical improbability of all being crammed one next to another across the 14 tracks on the original release. I mean, "Mt. Fuji"? Don't even get me started!

I sat and listened to that original hand-painted version for months before I finally worked up the gumption to actually reach out to Kelley and suggest that I put out a CD version of "Antique Glow" on my imprint, Cass Records.

He wrote back, quickly, and said he'd just signed a deal with Jackpine Social Club to put it out on CD, but that he was excited to try and work on something else. He wound up sending me 5-10 more copies of the LP which I handed out amongst people I trusted (Ian Svenonius, Simon Keeler, Jack White...probably some more I'm forgetting) that helped spread the word.

I wound up releasing a 7-inch single with Kelley in 2006 and by that time, I had passed his music along to Sub Pop, who ultimately ended up signing him to a three-album deal. He'd later go on to open one of the earliest Raconteurs tours, let me do a stint playing drums for him, get a crazy licensing deal with Regions Bank, join Echo and the Bunnymen as a touring member and generally making quite remarkable records in the intervening two decades. 

If there's anything that gets me OVER excited about this new reissue is the inclusion of SO MANY BONUS TRACKS. Ho-lee shit. A lot of these I'd heard back in the day as included on his absolutely necessary "Australian Tour EP" and just fell in love with. There really is no song more deserving of inclusion on some breathtakingly cinematic reminiscent soundtrack as "Old Pictures" is (side note: its Kelley's mom's favorite song of his). That along with "Frying Pan" and "Dead John" (inspired by Edward Gorey books) are just so integral to the listening my ears have done. As in....some of my most enjoyable moments of listening I've ever had have been to these songs.

So imagine my extreme happiness in the assembling of this set where Kelley pulls out a half dozen songs from that same time period that I'd never heard...and they are all absolute killers. I mean, "Too Beck" (named so because, well, it's sound too much like Beck) is just brilliant. I am still hopping around losing my mind to it. And "Umbrella" is painfully spectacular...described to me by Kelley as him "trying to sound like CSNY" and keep finding my way back to this song. The plaintive lyrics, not really telling a story per se, but just astutely conveying a feeling. "Don't you make the same mistakes that I made, don't forget to bring your umbrella" is simple at face value, but there's so many other ways to interpret it. "If you're a girl well you might see some mascara run but if you're a field...you will be smiling." 

I have not felt so compelled by a song in an unmeasurably long time. Kelley has this way with me. I am forever a fan and the ability to help spread the gospel here is one the numerous joys I get here at my dream job.

Jack White Live at the Garden Bowl Lounge June 3rd, 2001

Listen here!

The weekend had been a whirlwind...the slightly odd outdoor college gig on the Columbus campus of Ohio State at dusk on Friday night followed by the third time in nine months that the Stripes were onstage at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky on Saturday evening...pretty sure it was the first run of gigs in the brand new 2001 model Dodge van that Jack and Meg had bought from the dealership for straight cash. I sold merch out the back of the van in Columbus, Weezer's "Green Album" was listened to on the drive, the band goofed on the Gories' "Rat's Nest" on Friday night...these are the few memories that are still retrievable two decades on.

We made our way back to Detroit with a tad bit of urgency, as there was an interview with Ralph Valdez on WDET radio on Sunday night followed by this performance at the Garden Bowl Lounge, booked under the name “John Gillis” with hopes of notifying some people while not tipping off ALL people.

In my memory Brendan Benson was doing sound or at least some approximation of it. There may have even been a newly purchased PA for the occasion, but still, that room is a hard one to get the sound just right. Compared to previous Jack White performances in this spot, it felt a hair more subdued...no other musicians, no feral screaming, still that same electric hum, but more a calming exercise than some attempt to prove something or win folks over.

Jack first played the Garden Bowl Lounge, solo, in November 1998 and in the intervening three years he would play there no less than five additional times in various configurations. The June 3rd, 2001 show is, seemingly, the last time he’d play this intimate setting where he’d spent so much time, both socially and on stage, that time and the experience gained used to propel himself from local up-and-coming musician to internationally renowned ROCK STAR.

That being said, I am hard-pressed to find or recall ANY set by Jack White, in any incarnation or band, that is as varied and unique as this Garden Bowl gem. A layover, stopoff, way station...in my eyes, something that just had to be done as a means to get to the better things in the not-so-distant future. The metaphorical closing of one door so that fifty more could open.

All these years later, I’m legitimately surprised to find out that this evening is likely the first-ever live performance of “I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman.” The take here is charmed...almost as if Jack had never even tried to tackle it without the beating heart electric piano that pumps throughout the recorded version...having to find his footing on the fly but never tipping his hand to the struggle. 

Coupled with an early live outing of “We’re Going To Be Friends” and solid runs through tried-and-true (at least in Detroit) songs “Hotel Yorba” and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” along with “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket” a good two years before the band would record it and those are the only de facto White Stripes songs shared this evening. The majority of the set is a phalanx of covers which almost reads as a road map as to where the future would lead.

Like “Rated X”...the Loretta Lynn-penned polemic here is plain but pointed, the live from the Hotel Yorba version would be recorded within a week and end up as a b-side from the Stripes come November. 

Or “Cold Brains”...on this evening all contemplative and compelling, while just over a year later and an hour up the road Jack would perform it live with its writer Beck at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. 

Or “Baby Blue”...the 1958 Gene Vincent rockabilly gem, which soon after this performance found its way into Stripes sets and in seven weeks time would wrap up, on a lark, their first ever session for John Peel, as earlier that evening Peel had mentioned his appreciation for Vincent in passing.

“Who’s To Say…”  had been a staple of Two Star Tabernacle’s sets during their brief 1997-1999 existence. The song was written by White’s Two Star band mate Dan Miller and would see its debut release via Miller’s group Blanche on a 7-inch on my imprint Cass Records. Released “summer 2003” (I’m terrible with non-Stripes timelines) and complete with a stellar guest guitar solo from White, the Stripes’ version would follow close behind as the flipside to their “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” single in September 2003. 

“Fragile Girl” was originally written by Dean Fertita and performed in his group the Waxwings, who joined the White Stripes on their West Coast tour in July 2001. Fertita would later perform with White in the Raconteurs and then as bandmates in the Dead Weather. White’s pre-song anecdote speaks to his endearing mishearing of the lyric “to unveil a vision” as “television” and its ability to break up a couple or bring them closer together.

The middle of the set is thick with blues and folk covers. White’s tackling of “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” is arguably the highlight of the entire performance. The daft deathbed storytelling is accompanied by insistently accelerating guitar...from slow, to trot, to rollicking...as the listed litany of last requests piles up, the specter of impending death is palpable, as if there’s a rush to get all these thoughts out before Death wields its mighty scythe. 

The folk standard “Black Jack Davey” tells its tale with an austerity of words, which would later make an appearance as the b-side to “Seven Nation Army” in roughly two years time.

“In My Time Of Dying” likely shows up on White’s radar via Zeppelin’s 1975 version. In the context of his performance here, both Blind Willie Johnson’s 1927 original (titled “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed) and Dylan’s well-known take from 1962 seem to figure prominently.

White’s version barely hits the ninety second mark when, right before the start of the third verse, he pivots into Blind Willie McTell’s “Lord, Send Me An Angel.” Curiously, the first word of that third verse is “Lord” and I can’t help but think this was a purposeful connection between the two done on Jack’s part.

For me, being in the crowd for this performance was a treat...these were all songs that kinda felt like they’d just been floating in the ether for the past couple years. Things that’d be goofed on, messed with, maybe never fully explored yet. In the spirit of that, at approximately 3:14 mark of “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” you can hear my distant voice yell “Hypnotize!” from the bar.

Jack had written the song roughly three years earlier as a “gift” to local band the Hentchmen. He’d come up with the idea that was vaguely in their musical wheelhouse, recorded a demo where he played all the instruments, and then shared it with them to ultimately...end up having the White Stripes do a version for “Elephant.”

Having heard that demo at the time and likely nothing of itin the intervening three years...I was just hoping to hear it again. My request went unanswered and I’d end up waiting another eight months or so before the Stripes started playing it live. 

A recording of this show made by taper Brian Rozman seemed to be available in trading circles pretty quickly after the performance. The quality is solid. A few years back when gathering disparate master tapes for our vault, a DAT of this show recorded by Brendan Benson landed on my lap. Having been previously in the dark about its existence, I was happy to hear it was even better quality than the respectable audience tape...yet failed to capture the entirety of the performance.

So with the help of our crack mastering engineer Bill Skibbe, we stitched those two recordings together and gave the whole thing a proper mastering clean up for the audio you listen to today. 

The Garden Bowl Lounge looks largely unchanged now from how it was back in 2001. There’s a new coat of paint on the walls, the random black and blue linoleum flooring has been replaced. But if you get in the cozy little nook where Jack was set-up on that calm Sunday night in 2001 and look up, you’ll see the same checker pattern black and white ceiling tiles, having held that spot for Lord knows how long.