Painting the Country Red (and White)

Over the past couple of weeks the White Stripes have been traversing the Great White North to promote their fine new Warner Bros. release Icky Thump. Not ones to settle for ordinary promotion, Jack and Meg will have visited every province and territory by the time this leg of the tour ends in mid-July. In addition to their official shows though, a number of secret performances have taken in nearly all of their stops. From a youth centre in Burnaby, to a city bus in Winnipeg , to a bowling alley in Saskatoon, and just yesterday the YMCA in Toronto; the Stripes have been leaving their musical mark across the nation. That leaves London… Let’s hope they keep up this tradition of special shows on Saturday. I’ll certainly be all over it if I hear about it in time. The show that night at the John Labatt Centre will definitely be featured, smuggled camera and all.

One last note, for true fans of Jack and Meg, it's probably a long-standing dream of yours to purchase the Icky Thump album on limited edition thumb drives complete with cartoon renditions of the rockers, but even if it that understandably bizarre scenario never actually crossed your mind, you can still make it a reality. The White Stripes are offering up their latest album on two fairly rare USB drives, each sporting 512MB of internal space, an artistic rendition of one of the band mates, and thirteen rockin' tracks in Apple Lossless format. Only 3,333 of each "Stripe" will be created, and while just one will run you a whopping $57.50 US, you may as well grab the duo for a discounted $99 US.