Print Tease | The Raconteurs - Rob Jones

I had the chance to catch The Raconteurs this weekend with my buddy Dave from Earvolution. I was definitely psyched to see Jack White and co. again, but I must admit, when Dave said he had an extra ticket I was almost equally excited to see what Rob Jones had in store for the gig poster.

I know I’ve posted about it before, but Rob Jones and Jack White just have that special connection. For a few years Rob has been the exclusive artist behind the image of The White Stripes, and fortunately for art lovers that connection transfered to The Raconteurs.

On the Raconteurs first go around, Rob crafted a pretty incredible series of posters capped and highlighted by two stunning posters for the band’s NYE stand in Chicago. Featuring the four band mates as old cowboy kids aboard a spaced out locomotive bound, through space and time, for Nashville. The real knockout in these year-end prints for me was in the beautiful color scheme. Rendered in copper metallics on steely gray/blue sky, these posters really popped.

All that description is to say that I was really excited to see Rob bring back a similar scheme for his NYC print. Instead of an incredible cloudscape, Rob has now moved the intrepid Raconteurs to old Europe. With a dodo as his co-pilot, the always smiling cowboy cruises the city aboard a tricked-out passenger pigeon. Despite that unwavering grin though, all my not be completely copacetic. One astute Expresso Beans member hypothesized that the print might be suggesting that humans are going the way of the dodo and and passenger pigeons. Add that to the old European town in the background and we may be looking at the golden age of human history from the perspective of a much bleaker future.

And that is what is so fun about Rob Jones prints. Trying to surmise what he’s going for, following the hints and leads and looking for hidden clues. His current crop of posters for this Raconteurs run has been a little more hit and miss for me (there’s been more variation on themes, colors and paper), but his most recent prints, especially this one, are outstanding in my book.

For those of you who read the site for the music, I’ll have the full show review up this week.