I haven't posted anything on here for a while because I've been busy as hell lately. So I decided just to pick a scratchboard work of mine and talk about it for a minute.
The scratch I'm going with is "No Hiding Jack." It is an illustration I did a couple years ago just to explain (or illustrate!) how I was feeling about one of my favorite contemporary musicians. Jack White of the White Stripes, Raconteurs, Dead Weather, and several other projects is by far one of the most intriguing figures in rock today. Although no single term can fully describe White's musical genius, versatile and "balls out" are the two aptest I can think of.
This illustration is meant as a statement of what White does to each project he touches. Any band he joins/starts, any project he produces becomes a "Jack White" work; whether he wants it to or not. In several articles I read when the Raconteurs were first formed, White tried to hide behind the band and state that it wasn't "Jack White and the Raconteurs" but rather "The Raconteurs."
He didn't get his wish as with everything that he does. It is always "Jack White's other band (this)" or "Jack White's new band (that)." White is too talented and too much of a superstar to simply blend in with whatever group of talents he joins forces with. As I tried to illustrate, his colors (red, black, and white) always find a way of shining through whatever front he puts on.
I do not think he intentionally upstages his band mates, but he does. The audience pays more attention to him than to anyone on stage...except for maybe Dead Weather, because Alison Mosshart is so freaking SEXY!
With whatever project John Gillis (White's birth name) chooses next, he cannot hide...it will forever be referred to as "Jack White's (yadda yadda yadda)..."







