White Striped The Greenhornes get by with a little help BY JEFF MILLER
	The product   Martin Scorsese’s No Direction Home film has been on sale as a DVD from Paramount since Tuesday, and it gets an airing (minus all those DVD "extras," of course) in two two-hour parts on WGBH Channel 2 this coming Monday and Tuesday, September 26 and 27, at 9 pm (with repeats on WGBH World Wednesday and Friday beginning at 6). Columbia has released not only a double-CD "companion" set to the film (it diverges from the film with alternate takes of some songs) as part of its Dylan "Bootleg Series" (Volume 7) but also the Starbucks-only Live at the Gaslight 1962 and the half-hour, six-track Live at Carnegie Hall 1963 (available only as promotional giveaway). Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Dylan’s memoirs, has issued a print companion to the Scorsese film, The Bob Dylan Scrapbook 1956-66, a lavish 64-page production with a slipcover case, text by Dylan archivist Robert Santelli, gatefold color photographs, and even facsimiles of Dylan’s handwritten lyrics. It includes its own audio CD of archival Dylan interviews and interviews from the film. WGBH 89.7 FM, meanwhile, will air the two-hour radio documentary The Emergence of Bob Dylan this Sunday, September 25, at 10 pm. JG

It’s 5 pm on an LA Tuesday in August and the sun is shining brightly on Griffith Park’s 5000-set Greek Amphitheater, where the Ohio trio the Greenhornes are soundchecking on a stage that’s obviously too big for them. It’s covered with gear belonging to the White Stripes, who’ve invited the Greenhornes (as well as Brendan Benson, M. Ward, and the Shins) along on a cross-country tour. This Tuesday, the Greenhornes open the Stripes’ show at PPAC. As the trio finish a song that sounds like an updated version of the Them classic "Gloria," a voice calls out from behind the drums: "You from [the Phoenix]?"

Me: "Yeah."

Drums: "Sorry we’re late."

I’ve been waiting more than an hour: "No problem."

Drums: "What’s your first question?"

Me: "What’s it like to play to an empty theater?"

Pause.

Drums: "Captive audience?"

With that, he counts to four and the band launch into another updated Nuggets nugget, all classic garage-rock grit minus any neo glitz. On this tour, they’re playing to a bigger captive audience than ever before, thanks to Jack and Meg. So far, it’s working: the Greenhornes’ new EP, the Brendan Benson–produced East Grand Blues (rushed out by V2 as soon as the tour was confirmed), has garnered national press, and drummer Patrick Keeler, 29, and bassist Jack Lawrence, 28, are recording a side-project album with Jack White.

Success hasn’t come overnight. The Greenhornes have been playing together in various incarnations since high school. When I ask what’s kept them together, they make jokes about having ruined their other options. They’re still touring without a full crew, just a sound man/van driver named T-dog. Things are looking up: they were late to the Greek because Adidas was fitting them for free shoes. But they’re not so far from the playing-for-beers-and-a-few-bucks gigs that have been their mainstay for a decade. This is a band of rock soldiers.

Although the Greenhornes are from Cincinnati, the White Stripes connection has most thinking they’re from Detroit. They played their first gig there in ’98 and were quickly embraced by the city. "Those were our college years," Keeler says. "Drunken. Rowdy. Fun. Jovial. After-parties. Sometimes we’d go up there just to hang out. That’s how we became a Detroit band."

They’re new to the media business. Lawrence speaks in a whisper-soft voice that’s barely audible over any background noise, and singer-guitarist Craig Fox often tosses off answers to questions as if he couldn’t believe that people care. But when Jack and Meg care about a band, everybody else follows suit. And as it happens, the then-unknown duo caught that first-ever gig in Detroit. The band are sick of telling the story — Keeler uses it as an example of why he’s already tiring of the press. But they realize it’s an important part of their evolution. Their favorite show wasn’t headlining a college bar in Columbus, it was playing to a massive audience with the Stripes just a couple of months ago in Mexico. "Thankfully, someone from my circle of friends made it," Keeler says of that show. "And we’ve stuck together."

That’s the thing about the Greenhornes. Despite their awkwardness, their quiet demeanor, and their bar-band attitude, they’ve been working on their upward trajectory for a long time, and now that the angle’s gotten a bit bigger, they’re going to enjoy it. "We didn’t exactly take the quickest route to success," Keeler says with a knowing grin.

The Greenhornes + the White Stripes | Providence Performing Arts Center, 220 Weybosset St, Providence | Sept 19 | 401.421.ARTS