According to Jack White, Get Behind Me Satan deals with "characters and the ideal of truth," but in truth, the album is just as much about what people expect from the White Stripes and what they themselves want to deliver. Advance publicity for the album stated that it was written on piano, marimba, and acoustic guitar, suggesting that it was going to be a quiet retreat to the band's little room after the big sound, and bigger success, of Elephant. Then "Blue Orchid," Get Behind Me Satan's lead single, arrived. A devilish slice of disco-metal with heavily processed, nearly robotic riffs, the song was thrilling, but also oddly perfunctory; it felt almost like a caricature of their stripped-down but hard-hitting rock.
Kept secret for 50 years, no one except Seelie Court and Walter Geertsen (RIP) the legendary collector and dealer have heard this since the day it was recorded in 1972. Blistering, insane heavy prog with demented lead guitars and swirling organ, Writing On The Wall meets Bent Wind, with a large dash of prime 'In Search Of Space'-era Hawkwind. Killer vocalist somewhere between Robert Plant and Jim Morrison, the tracks have the "verging on the edge of sanity" feel of Bent Wind, it opens with the killer title track.
Exhaustive 30 CD collection from the Jazz legend's short-lived label. Contains 44 original albums (421 tracks) plus booklet. Every record-collector has run across an album with the little sax-playing bird in it's label-logo, right next to the brand name Charlie Parker Records or CP Parker Records. Turning the sleeve over, especially if it was one of the non-Parker releases, and seeing a '60s release date under the header Stereo-pact! Was as exciting an experience as it was confusing. Was the claim Bird Lives meant more literally than previously thought?