…when they play live do they bring in any other bandmates?..who plays bass?..is there a 2nd guitarist?..just curious…
No bandmates, no bass, no second guitarist, and somehow it works really, really, well. For a lot of songs Jack has an octave divider on his guitar, though. That’s it.
LC
GUINESS: no second guitarists, no bassists (at least not when I saw them). It’s just straight out blues rockin. Really simplistic. Jack comes on stage and says something like “I’m Jack White and this here’s my sister, Meg” and then they just rock out. Fucken amazing.
I totally agree with this. Listen to “In the cold cold night” and you completely understand. Meg is by no means even a competent singer, but for what she does, it’s perfect.
RE: Meg’s drumming, check out Moe Tucker of the Velvet Underground.
uh, wouldn’t that be emo, not garage?
Nope. Garage. As in The Strokes, The Hives, The Vines, The White Stripes, The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, etc. It may not be all over the radio, but you hear enough of it, and it’s definitely what’s in with the pretentious music-critic-type crowd right now.
I think you hear the White Stripes’ garage influence waaaaay more in concert than on their albums.
To fans of the White Stripes’ sound, I recommend a band I saw during SXSW that absolutely rocked my world - The Immortal Lee County Killers
Same setup - two people, one drumset, one guitar. Blues meets punk and it rocks to 11.
LC
I thought EVERYbody in a rock band played garage rock until, er, you were good enough to play somewhere other than your own garage. 
Garage isn’t so much a new fad, as an old one coming back into style. Lets not forget the contributions of early Pavement (Slanted and Enchanted and before) and Sonic Youth to the rock side. I must say, though, the blues aspect added into the mix is fairly new, and quite fun to listen to.
The only bands you mentioned that can rightfuly be called garage are The Hives and The Immortal Lee County Killers. The Zeppelin influences alone rule White Stripes out (just cause Page was a Yardbird, doesn’t mean Zeppelin was garage, they were everything that garage wasn’t), and the Strokes are just hokey inde rock. Sorry for the hijack, but those bands are to garage rock what Good Charlotte is to punk.
I second The Immortal Lee County Killers recommendation though. Also check out The Cynics new one “Living Is The Best Revenge” or any Billy Childish project (Thee Headcoats, Thee Mighty Caesers, etc) for true modern garage rock.
Jon
The Zeppelin influences alone rule White Stripes out (just cause Page was a Yardbird, doesn’t mean Zeppelin was garage, they were everything that garage wasn’t)
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Right. And the Beatles influence means that Nirvana wasn’t grunge, because the Beatles weren’t grunge.
No, I’d go with nitroglycerine’s breakdown.
more like only those colours. there was also an obsession with using only perfectly vertical and horizontal lines. I guess the whole minimalism of De Stijl fits in nicely with their music, except that De Stijl paintings and architecture is pretty damn boring most of the time and the Stripes aren’t.
uh, and I’ll second everyone saying that they’re a mind-blowing live act. yowza.
Right. And the Beatles influence means that Nirvana wasn’t grunge, because the Beatles weren’t grunge. **
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Well, if ya wanna get nit-picky, there wasn’t any such thing as “grunge” it was a marketing label that got pinned on everyone from the north-west, metal, punk…if it was from Washington, it was “grunge” I mean, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Soundgarden were all stuck with the grunge tag, and those bands have absolutely nothing in common with each other.
And besides, There’s nothing wrong wih early Beatles influences…Lots of great punk and garage band have 'em…The Cynics, The Dictators, Flaming Groovies…The Early Beatles stuff is a far cry from Zeppelins overblown shtick.
Jon
Jon Spencer will stop by your house in the near future to kick the everliving bejeesus out of you.
Also, on a side note, I’m really suprised to see how big the Cynics are getting. They were a bunch of old men rocking it in Pittsburgh before I starting becoming aware of the scene in that city, in 88 or 89.
Hey, I had Jon Spencer and his posse in his mind when I spoke of the new mix…
Okay, maybe he’s been around a little while longer than the White Stripes and others mentioned here, but I discovered them all at the same time, so it all seemed new to me.
You HAVE to get the new album. Its their best one yet, And Greg still has the best scream in rock and roll.
Jon