Jack White will not rest. After brief stints in local Detroit acts The Hentchmen and the GO!, White, with his ex-wife, forms a guitar-drums duo, The White Stripes. The band proceeds to go from the deepest recesses of the underground to become a chart-topping phenomenon. Along the way, White becomes one of the best blues-based rock guitarists in today's musical landscape (e.g., he occupies a prominent place, along with Jimmy Page and U2's The Edge, in the current rock-guitar documentary, It Might Get Loud). Then, he decides to produce an album by country legend Loretta Lynn, and turns it into perhaps the finest album of her long career. Next, after appearing in the film Cold Mountain, he forms The Raconteurs, a Beatles-Rolling Stones amalgam, enlisting the participation of solo artist Brendan Benson, as well as the rhythm section of Jack Lawrence and Patrick Keeler from cult-faves The Greenhornes. Next, he moves to Nashville, forms his own label, and opens his own record store. And now, he releases Horehound, an album by his new group, Dead Weather. For this project, White puts down the guitar to play the drums (brilliantly!), and is joined by the aforementioned Jack Lawrence, as well as Kills' lead singer Alison Mosshart and Dean Feritta, guitarist for Queens Of The Stone Age (both groups are worthy of your attention if you have not yet checked them out). And, needless to say (given this introduction), Horehound is excellent. Dead Weather approaches rock from the same blues-drenched starting point as the White Stripes, but with less of an emphasis on pop hooks. Instead, with Mosshart as the key, the sound veers towards a more aggressive tone, at times approaching a feeling of almost sleazy violence. Opener "60 Feet Tall" begins with a slow, soft blues riff, with White tapping his sticks on the rim of his snare drum. Then the songs kicks in with bass drum and vocals, a little guitar feedback, and a slow pulse. As it builds, Mosshart's vocals gain intensity as she talks about tapping her lovers "evil well" and taking on whatever cruelty he may dish out. Two loud, bluesy electric guitar solos punctuate the song before it stumbles to its conclusion. "Hang You From The Heavens" follows, and is perhaps one of the discs' strongest songs. With a threatening undertone, Mosshart promises to "grab you by the hair/And drag you to the devil," while White pounds out a great drumbeat and Feritta propels things with fuzzed-out guitar. "I Cut Like A Buffalo" is a doomy, organ and drums led slow burner, while "Treat Me Like Your Mother" ups the tempo, but is still leavened with very heavy guitar. "Bone House" buries the hook from Jan & Dean's "Dead Man's Curve" under a batch of woozy keyboards, leavened with a beautiful guitar solo. "Birds" is the albums biggest change-up, a great bass-led instrumental full of spectral keyboards and twangy guitars. In all, Horehound contains not one duff track. Not bad for a side project. So what's next for Mr. White? I don't know, but I'm looking forward to it.

Indianapolis has a new public radio station, WITT-FM, 91.9 FM. It is definitely worth a listen. More than fifteen years in gestation, it finally went on the air in June and is slowly building a deserved reputation. Based out of Zionsville and headed up by Jim Walsh, WITT specializes in nothing and everything. That is, it is truly free-form radio. On any given day, you may hear Brian Eno (seemingly a station favorite), John Lennon, Nina Simone, Beethoven, Ike Turner, Chuck Berry, Wes Montgomery, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Flatt & Scruggs, Johnny Cash, Ritchie Havens, Woody Guthrie, the Chieftains, and so on. And when they do play something by a "hit" artist (Hendrix, Cream, etc.), it won't be the top-40 hits, but deep album cuts. They also liberally sprinkle in comedy routines from the likes of Steven Wright, Firesign Theatre, National Lampoon and others. And there is also Rock and Rhythm Revue, an excellent 30 minute program on songs from the forties and fifties that were precursors to rock 'n' roll. The station is not perfect-at present, there is a distinct lack of music from the last few years (possibly to be remedied as they get current promos from record labels which are just finding out about the station). But if your radio enjoyment is based on hearing stuff you've never or rarely heard before, WITT should occupy a place on your channel selector.