White Stripes Air Force Super Bowl Commercial pulled. Ditto the one that sounds like the Who.

Won't Get Fooled Again -- or will we? Before we get to the new developments in the White Stripes beef with the Air Force Reserve, we can't believe that no one else has noticed yet or pointed out the similarities between the music for the Reserve's other "Live the Extreme"...

By Dave Herrera

February 10, 2010

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Won't Get Fooled Again -- or will we? Before we get to the new developments in the White Stripes beef with the Air Force Reserve, we can't believe that no one else has noticed yet or pointed out the similarities between the music for the Reserve's other "Live the Extreme" PSA we posted yesterday and the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again"? Did you hear it, or was it just us?

Where were we? Oh yeah, White Stripes. Air Force. In the last episode, the White Stripes were pissed, alleging that the Air Force Reserve's "Grab Some Air" PSA, which ran during the Superbowl, used a interpolation of "Fell In Love with a Girl" without permission. Besides the fact that it was a completely shitty rendition of their song, Jack White and company were miffed at the implications, that they support this current war effort.

This morning, a spokesman for the Airforce issued a statement (see excerpts after the jump) responding to the allegations in which he offered assurances that the ad has been pulled from the web (ah, that explains the mysterious disappearance yesterday -- luckily Bing can fill in the blanks). The advertising agency, he explained, is the one that actually commissioned the piece and any inherent similarities were unintentional.

For its part, the agency, Fast Forward Productions out of Salt Lake City, pleaded ignorance. "What we thought we had was original," Fast Forward owner Michael Lee told EW.com yesterday. "He claims it is original. He said he didn't use ['Fell in Love With a Girl'], so that's all I know."

Sure, dude. We buy that. Gonna guess he's the same guy who did the music for the "Live the Extreme" PSA we posted yesterday -- which, of course, has also been removed now. (The "Make Some Noise" PSA has taken its place on the Reserve's MySpace page.) Guessing the proper licensing wasn't secured for that one, either.

"The Air Force Reserve commissioned an original piece of music for its one-time, 30-second Super Bowl regional advertisement," said Lt. Col. Leslie Pratt, Air Force Reserve Command director of public affairs. "As soon as we realized there was a question about our ad, we immediately pulled it and have no plan to re-use it. Our goal was only to attract the best and brightest Americans to become Citizen Airmen."

"We had no intention to use existing music from The White Stripes or any other performer," Colonel Pratt said. "Any similarity to them or other artists was certainly not intentional."

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