“He’s like Albert Einstein behind a drum kit, even the way he dresses,” Ellis, the Dirty Three multi-instrumentalist, said in a video interview, chuckling. White recently lopped off his longtime Einsteinian poof, but he still dresses like a professor. “He’s a font of knowledge, always with an opinion. Jim reads a book. I regurgitate what he tells me.”
When White toured with Cat Power, Marshall remembered, he would sometimes bring along mathematics tomes, devouring them as the band bounced between shows. White first balked at the memory but admitted his life plan involved studying maths – that is, until drumming intervened and he dropped out of university.
Dirty Three, from left: Mick Turner, Jim White and Warren Ellis.Credit: Rodger Cummins
The middle child and only son of a university professor and high school English teacher, White was a devoted student and shy child who slowly got swept up by rock and country – Charley Pride and the Rolling Stones first, punk later. When he asked to play drums, his parents agreed to buy them only after he had stuck with lessons. His older sister, Anna, was painting, so creativity became a kind of competition to see who worked harder and practiced more.
There was a fundamental difference. “My sister went into her room painting, a solitary activity,” White said. “But me, I liked the whole interaction part. As soon as I got a car, I was finding people.”
For a half-century, that’s exactly what White has done most every day. Dirty Three’s open-ended improvisations provided endless runway, allowing him to develop new techniques and patterns that commingled math and emotion. Over the years, fantasy opportunities to work with childhood idols such as Lou Reed and Neil Young appeared but never materialised. Anyway, White treasured singer-songwriters who expanded that term, finding new ways to frame old feelings.
“I’m not saying I would have turned down Lou Reed,” White said, pausing to laugh. “But Cat Power and Will Oldham have these voices that do something to people, including me. If you think something is really good and you want to be involved, how much choice do you have?”
When White toured with Cat Power he would sometimes bring along mathematics tomes.Credit: Mario Sorrenti
Still, he has never been interested in being subsumed by singer or songwriter, in just keeping the beat. His playing on Smog’s Say Valley Maker was a composition unto itself that mirrored the lyrics, rising from canter to charge; his tessellated layers on Cat Power’s American Flag amplified her lyrical vertigo.
“Drummers always say they’re serving the song, but what’s ‘the song,’ you know? It’s a cop-out,” he said, his gentle voice momentarily indignant. “I’ve got a perspective. It’s like the theory of relativity – where you’re standing is important.”
In spite of countless sessions, White never really cared about the recording process. He once owned a four-track he seldom used and could barely name a microphone. But early in 2020, after a tour with lutist George Xylouris, White stuck around Australia to help his ailing father. When pandemic curfews were announced, he rushed around Melbourne, borrowing and buying enough gear to record remotely. Turns out, nearing 60, he enjoyed becoming an engineering autodidact.
Back in the living room of his Brooklyn apartment, crowded with art and rows of sci-fi and history books, White stockpiled more gear including keyboards. He set up his kit on a rug and began passing bits to Guy Picciotto, the former Fugazi guitarist who first met White while his band slept on the floor of the Dirty Three’s Chicago label. Living on opposite sides of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, the two had become close friends and collaborators. White had speculated about a solo record for years. This was different.
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“For musicians who are basically masters of their instrument to challenge themselves with an instrument they’ve never played, that’s a very bold move,” Picciotto said from his Brooklyn basement. “He could have made a record strictly of drums, but I was so surprised how quickly he dialled in these keyboards. That’s the thing that’s so fun about working with him: there’s no reticence. It’s always, ‘Let’s try!’”
All Hits: Memories resembles a playground, each of its 13 short tracks suggesting an adventure into an idea. Mostly devoid of percussion, Soft Material uses electronics to conjure an angel’s sigh. The clatter of Walking the Block is a bracing snapshot of big-city tizzies, a fanfare for energy itself. But the most intriguing bit may be St. Francis Place Set Up, a 58-second tour of White’s drum kit interrupted by a warm piano chord. As a warped sample of the piano loops, that prized old snare holds the centre.
Long in the works, Dirty Three’s soon-to-be-announced album finds the trio as expansive and open as ever, shifting from ragged and twisted instrumental punk glory to slow hymns that feel like haunted dreams and back.
Almost two decades ago, the band flew into Portugal. White waited impatiently at the luggage carousel for the plastic shell that protected his treasured snare. It never arrived, so he returned every day to ask. When his patience finally faded, he crossed the security line and was almost arrested. An officer took pity, though, and escorted him to the luggage hold – a tin shed with a dirt floor.
“I found it there in a corner in the dark, away from everything,” he said, beaming as if talking about spotting a missing pet. “I’ve never checked it since.”
On occasion, White runs into Midnight or hears from someone who has. He’ll say that maybe it’s time to have the snare back or get paid for the treasure. Is it a joke? Regardless, White laughed, not a chance. “Any time you want to come to a show or whatever, OK,” he said about Midnight’s recompense. “If I play another drum, I still sound like me. But I just want to play mine because I’m happy with it.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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