Ra Ra Ra

May 3, 2006 5:59 AM

Gotta love a website that thinks it's 1982. Jack Lawrence, Brendan Benson, Jack White and Patrick Keeler are The Raconteurs. This is their website. It's kinda neat.
posted by The Ultimate Olympian (47 comments total)

Excellent.
posted by Zozo at 6:07 AM on May 3, 2006

Their picture on the Band Bio page flickers every so slightly. Nice touch.
posted by GuyZero at 6:19 AM on May 3, 2006

Goldie Lookin' Chain had a website that emulated a C64 for a while. Then they changed it. Then they lost their record contractand now it's low-band an amateurish.
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:20 AM on May 3, 2006

i miss that green text on black thing
posted by amberglow at 6:23 AM on May 3, 2006

[this is old-school awesome]
posted by blacklite at 6:24 AM on May 3, 2006

Think I may have just seen a nostalgic tear or two among the network guys I work with...and their music's not too bad either.

Thanks Olympian.
posted by JaredSeth at 6:27 AM on May 3, 2006

The Raconteurs music that is...these network guys can't sing worth a damn.
posted by JaredSeth at 6:27 AM on May 3, 2006

i miss that green text on black thing

but the little beeps happen only in movies, right?
posted by beno at 6:31 AM on May 3, 2006

Awesome. Where's my light pen?
posted by xthlc at 6:31 AM on May 3, 2006

It was kind of jarring when the full color pictures flew up at me. It was quite unexpected.
posted by Roger Dodger at 6:31 AM on May 3, 2006

but, but, there were no (public) internets in 1982!

Great site, though.
posted by pmbuko at 6:34 AM on May 3, 2006

Forced Javascript browser resizing is soooooooooo 1982, man!
posted by zsazsa at 6:36 AM on May 3, 2006

By Hollywood movie logic, we should be able to utilize this website (after an impressive flurry of Van Cliburn-style keystrokes) to compromise our entire national defense system.

Yes, computer, I'd like. To play. A game -- and that song Blue Veins.
posted by Haruspex at 6:41 AM on May 3, 2006

Awesome! I'm almost willing to ignore the fact that the record is mediocre.
posted by Adam_S at 6:44 AM on May 3, 2006

This exactly like the interface the New York Public Library Card Catalogue still uses.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:46 AM on May 3, 2006

I'm almost willing to ignore the fact that the record is mediocre.

You are so cool to get albums before their release date.
posted by smackfu at 6:49 AM on May 3, 2006

Wait, that is the Jack White from the White Stripes, yeah?
posted by Zozo at 6:51 AM on May 3, 2006

Ha!

Welcome to the Internet
posted by Adam_S at 6:51 AM on May 3, 2006

When I start a band, it will only have a Gopher site.
posted by GuyZero at 6:53 AM on May 3, 2006

This is cool. It would be fantastic if some band were to take this beyond the gimmick level and make a website where every technology used, except the ones necessary to support the web presence itself, were from the early eighties: pictures from a 1982 SLR (or a Polaroid? or a 70s Kodak with that yellow glow?), videos from a VHS cam or Super 8, etc.

Oh yeah, and songs from analogue tape. :)
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:01 AM on May 3, 2006

zozo: that was directed at smackfu

smackfu: Myself and the 300 other people on that public torrent are certainly amongst the critical elite. You should be thankful I've already told you it's not worth buying.
posted by Adam_S at 7:01 AM on May 3, 2006

You are so cool to get albums before their release date.

I'm sure he knows that already. I used to get albums on the Friday before they came out cause I worked in a record shop. I was so cool... then the internet made me uncool cause I sold records.

But now I make websites and get my music months before it's release. The internet has made me super cool.

Thank you internet, for making me cool again.
posted by twistedonion at 7:11 AM on May 3, 2006

I hate being the guy who says this, but- haven't I seen this style interface before? Like, recently? On someone elses website? Problem is, I can't remember. And it was probably something obscure. Anyways, it's a neat interface.
posted by SmileyChewtrain at 7:13 AM on May 3, 2006

SmileyChewtrain, I have too. It was on a different band website, maybe a year-and-a-half, two years back. Their interface was hella annoying.
posted by Anonymous at 7:19 AM on May 3, 2006

SmileyChewtrain: same reaction here. Wasn't it a site that had an archive of lyrics for novelty songs? That site was set up with a DOS graphical menu style interface with pull-down menus for navigation.
posted by hangashore at 7:22 AM on May 3, 2006

twistedonion: That's exactly right. Bragging about getting records before their release date became redundant about 5 years ago.

Smackfu, you really should have directed your "you are so cool" comments to the fact that I slagged an album by an uber-hip artist.
posted by Adam_S at 7:32 AM on May 3, 2006

Ah... i like what i've heard of the album so far, and Jack White has never been above Gimmickery (if that's a word), so if he's living the dream i say we all live it with him.

Also, re:

Haruspex writes "By Hollywood movie logic, we should be able to utilize this website (after an impressive flurry of Van Cliburn-style keystrokes) to compromise our entire national defense system."

just remember, according to that same logic, the text that appears on the screen would be projected in reverse on our faces, scrolling upwards as we h4x0r the mainframe in a dark room.
posted by indiebass at 7:42 AM on May 3, 2006

I like this way more than I should. Thanks, neat post.
posted by selfmedicating at 7:56 AM on May 3, 2006

It looks cool. I wonder how much someone got paid to design and build it.
posted by OmieWise at 7:57 AM on May 3, 2006

This exactly like the interface the New York Public Library Card Catalogue still uses.

I would like to have a long, uncomfortable conversation with the librarians who made the choice to go to electronic catalogues before the systems were decently mature. So many public libraries are still saddled with this error-filled, slow, awkward, painful-to-navigate style of interface.

The card catalogue, as a search tool, still proves damn hard to beat.
posted by Miko at 7:58 AM on May 3, 2006

It's just a rip off of Kraftwerk's awesome site.
posted by banished at 8:16 AM on May 3, 2006

Haruspex: You might like a nice article Monday by the Wall Street Journal's Andrew Lavallee on that subject (via CBS Public Eye).
posted by allaboutgeorge at 8:46 AM on May 3, 2006

Meh, it was alright, but I would have been more impressed if it had been done HTML/CSS/Dom scripting. They didn't utilize any features that flash has that don't exist elsewhere. And the site has a truly annoying feature that took me a bit to figure out: if you click anywhere outside the movie (but still in the page) then the access key strokes don't work. I thought the navigation was just completely broken until I tried clicking on a word (which of course didn't do anything) and then found that the keystrokes finally worked.

Stylish idea...mediocre implementation.

Oh and minus a whole bunch of points for the site not working in Lynx at all. Go to a bunch of work to make the site look like a VT320 application and then not have the site work in a text browser? Totally poseur.
posted by afflatus at 8:59 AM on May 3, 2006

Their first single is the iTunes "free download" of the week right now.
posted by Bear at 9:00 AM on May 3, 2006

That is one sweet site of nostalgic goodness.
posted by JanetLand at 9:02 AM on May 3, 2006

Wonder how much of Jack White's reported hatred of technology had to do with the design of it. It is very similar to the Kraftwerk site...and it would have been neat if it would have actually worked in Lynx. Oh the irony...
posted by rmm at 10:10 AM on May 3, 2006

The free single on iTunes is a different (acoustic) version of the single on the web page, actually.
p.s. I heart Brendan Benson & this song
posted by obloquy at 11:06 AM on May 3, 2006

Cool. All it needs is a easter egg to get to a RUN prompt.
posted by StarForce5 at 12:33 PM on May 3, 2006

Eh, iTunes doesn't even let you download a free track from the US store if you're not in the US. How much more stupid can licensing rules get?

Anyway, for interested parties, here's some universally free downloads: live on radio 1, on XFM, more here.
posted by funambulist at 1:53 PM on May 3, 2006

I downloaded the free track from itunes this morning, i played it a couple times because I kept forgetting to listen to it past the first couple seconds while it was playing. That can't be a good sign
posted by muddylemon at 2:19 PM on May 3, 2006

I didn't like the free version nearly as much as the album one.
posted by smackfu at 2:23 PM on May 3, 2006

I hate being the guy who says this, but- haven't I seen this style interface before? Like, recently? On someone elses website? Problem is, I can't remember. And it was probably something obscure. Anyways, it's a neat interface.

Yeah, my man Strong Bad has mined that territory fairly extensively.

And more cleverly I might add.
posted by stenseng at 2:33 PM on May 3, 2006

Wow, lots of haters in the house. I'm actually enjoying the album quite a bit.
posted by dig_duggler at 2:34 PM on May 3, 2006

Wonder how much of Jack White's reported hatred of technology had to do with the design of it.

well, I worked on the backend of this site, thus worked with the designer, and I can tell you that it had nothing to do with Jack White's preferences initally. That it's stayed that way probably has something to do with the fact that Jack White loves it, apparently, but that's it.

And for those who think we should have made it work for lynx and stuff, I agree. But the record label was none too willing to pay for that, believe me.

If you want to check out some of the other work by the same designer it's at http://royalmagnet.com/

(again, I had nothing to do with the design, I just worked on the newsletter)
posted by lumpenprole at 2:53 PM on May 3, 2006

(oh and if you liked this site check the first one on the royal magnet blog at the link above, the company asked the same designer to go totally wargames. Which he did.)
posted by lumpenprole at 2:57 PM on May 3, 2006

Everything I've heard from The Raconteurs has been undeniably great. From their shows on BBC Radio to the tracks on the vinyl single sitting downstairs. I'm really looking forward to the singles releasing next Tuesday and their album releasing the Tuesday after. Their music is like The White Stripes on steroids - just think of Barry Bonds and that's how good they are.
posted by ashcan at 4:44 PM on May 3, 2006

I'll just say that I found "Store-Bought Bones" (the B-side) much more compelling than "Steady As She Goes". At least its more White Stripey.

Phish and Chips has a bunch of live tracks this week.
posted by dhartung at 11:19 PM on May 3, 2006