Dex Romweber was and is a huge influence on my music. I owned all of his records as a teenager, and was thrilled at the fact that we were able to play together recently on tour. [He is] is one of the best kept secrets of the rock n roll underground.

- Jack White

Dex Romweber and Crow Smith, on guitar and drums respectively, were known as Flat Duo Jets. The pair played raw and raucous rockabilly, with tremelo surf licks and pounding punk chords, and it's very likely that Jack White used their innovative attack as one of his templates when he formed the White Stripes.

Flat Duo Jets sprung out of Athens in the early 1980s and made a series of hugely influential low-fi records before falling apart, acrimoniously, in 1998.

Ah, but Romweber remains! With his sister Sara on drums (she was a member of Mitch Easter's fabulous Let's Active in the ‘80s), he's now the Dex Romweber Duo - he's older, maybe a little wiser, but still rocking just as hard as ever. They're based in their hometown of Chapel Hill, N.C.

The Dex Romweber Duo headlines the next Savannah Stopover-sponsored show, June 23 at Cha Bella Restaurant (trust me, it's a nice venue). Jon Lindsay, who played the Stopover festival in March, will open with his newly-minted band.

Dex, who also has a bigger band called the New Romans, has recorded and performed live with Jack White over the last couple of years.

More details on this show are coming soon.

That's R. Kelly!

Tickets are on sale now for a July 30 concert by R&B semi-legend R. Kelly, with Marsha Ambrosius & Miguel, at the Savannah Civic Center. They’s $53.50-$95 at etix.com.

Now it belongs to the ages

For those people who can't get enough of Robert Redford's The Conspirator (I'm not one of them, but news is news), make a note of the Savannah-made movie's imminent DVD and Blu-Ray release: Aug. 16.

Both editions are double-disc sets, featuring this groovy stuff: Audio commentary from Bob Redford (on the Blu-Ray, it's video commentary); a feature-length documentary called The Conspirator: The Plot to Kill Lincoln; a "making-of" featurette with cast and crew interviews; featurettes on Mary Surratt (two of them), costume, props, effects and production design, and on James Aiken; something called Introduction to the History Behind the Film and a few others.

Hmmm ... it sounds to me as if the bonus material might be more interesting than the movie itself.