Pitchfork

Gather 'round young folks, and let me tell you the tale of a little band called the Raconteurs. Once upon a time, a boy named Jack, he of the White Stripes, thought, "Side project?" At the same time his good buddy, one Brendan Benson, thought, "Escape from obscurity?" And so the Raconteurs (known to our Aussie readership as the Saboteurs) were born.

Flash forward to 2007 and the Raconteurs have one album in the can (last year's Broken Boy Soldiers) and another on the way. Thus far we only knew they were recording LP2 in Nashville and had enlisted the Hives' Howlin' Pelle to guest on a track called "Footsteps". Now we know, well, just a wee bit more.

As Jack White disclosed in a conversation between he and Brendan that appeared on the band's website today, "Ok, the time is right. The teurs have a lot of new songs in the works people, the writing and structure of them has dissipated and reinvigorated and many times over since we came home from our last shows." We gather there's an extraneous "and" in there, but we'll give Mr. White a pass. After all, he's a busy man.

J and B elaborate further:

Jack: But as we were saying, the new songs are coming together strong, I hate to even attempt to describe them...

Brendan: It would be like dancing about architecture.

Jack: Or singing about girls.

There's also chatter about some entity known as "little jack" who seems to call all the shots for these guys, as well as talk of Benson and Raconteurs bandmate Patrick Keeler "starting a two piece band on the side."

All of this may or may not be true, for as Jack admonishes, "Don't believe everything you read. Fact of business; don't even believe all the things I tell you when it's just you and me in the room.

"If little jack's there though, then it's all true."

Annnnnd there you have it!

Non-story, you gripe? Well here, have some White Stripes dates.

Stripes:

09-13 Albuquerque, NM - Kiva Auditorium *
09-15 Austin, TX - Zilker Park (Austin City Limits Festival)
09-16 Austin, TX - Stubb's Bar-B-Q
09-18 San Diego, CA - Coors Amphitheatre *
09-19 Inglewood, CA - The Forum *
09-21 Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre *
09-24 Anchorage, AK - George M. Sullivan Sports Arena *
09-26 Seattle, WA - Paramount Ballroom *
09-27 Seattle, WA - Paramount Ballroom *
09-28 Boise, ID - Idaho Center Theater *
09-29 Salt Lake City, UT - The "E" Center *
09-30 Jackson Hole, WY - Snow King Center *
10-02 Rapid City, SD - Rushmore Plaza Civic Center *
10-03 Fargo, ND - Fargo Civic Auditorium *
10-04 Lincoln, NE - Pershing Center Auditorium *
10-06 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom *
10-07 Chicago, IL - Aragon Ballroom *
10-24 Glasgow, Scotland - SECC
10-25 Manchester, England - MEN Arena
10-26 Newcastle, England - Metro Arena
10-28 Birmingham, England - NEC
10-29 Cardiff, Wales - International Arena
10-31 Sheffield, England - Hallam Arena
11-01 Nottingham, England - Arena
11-02 London, England - O2 Arena

* with Cold War Kids