Guest Post: Third Man Records - 5 records you need from Jack White's label

Guesting on this post is fellow music blogger Sean Earley. You can find him over at http://seanear1ey.wordpress.com where he blogs and podcasts regularly. He also writes for HeinekenMusic.ie, is a contributor over at Culch.ie and co-runs a Dublin events blog http://todayindublin.wordpress.com

You can follow him on twitter on @seanear1ey

Jack White's Third Man imprint was originally established as the brand name for a pubescent Anthony Gillis' furniture re-upholstery business, Third Man Upholstery. Based in Detroit, Gillis [a.k.a. Jack White] spent his late teens covering, filling and reviving old armchairs and sofas, all while wearing trademark yellow and black clobber. Between then and now; Gillis has become White, White has become a guitar virtuoso rock icon and the Third Man motif that began it all has been altered slightly but still Jack White's signature style.

White has always had a passion for exposing bands and performers he likes to a wider audience through the vehicle of his influence and production skills. An early example being Sympathy For the Record Industry's 'Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit' where White took it upon himself to gather and produce an LP of Detroit's local garage bands who were knocking about, just when the White Stripes were gathering steam. In the years thereafter, the duo brought old Detroit friends on tour with them to expose them to global audiences; the Greenhornes, Brendan Benson, the Von Bondies, the Dirtbombs and Blanche all accompanied the White Stripes across the US and around the world.

Now, in his third band, White decided to establish a physical location for Third Man Records, a previously fleeting interest, previously used to publish his previous albums and fund smaller ventures including a single and album in conjunction with Cass Records by the Muldoons. However, Third Man is no longer a fleeting interest. Serious thought, planning and money has been invested into this store, label and venue all-in-one venture. A professional relationship with Nashville's famous United Record Pressing has been fruitful for Third Man and has resulted in the pioneering of Tri-Colour records, "Three-sided" records, Glow in the Dark 7"s, and 8" singles/13" LPs. (A peach coloured and SCENTED LP is planned for Karen Elson's debut album due out this month)


Third Man's aim is to put interest back into vinyl and physical, tangible music that you can hold. Store-only editions, pop-up stores and live recordings of in-store performances all add to the store's appeal. A veritable Mecca for the Jack White enthusiast. There is a lot more to come for sure and we definitely haven't seen the best yet-

For now though here's a run-down of my top 5 most desirable releases from the Third Man Label so far -

BP Fallon - Fame #9/I Believe in Elvis Presley/BP Fallon Interview 7"

All rock and roll roads lead to BP. The Irish music mogul has been in every musical circle worth mentioning over the years. He worked at the Beatles' label Apple Records in the sixties, became Thin Lizzy and T-Rex's publicist, toured with Led Zeppelin as their entertainment manager and wrote a book on his experiences with U2. Now, Jack White is BP's new interest. The photographer / journalist / Death Disco-jockey recorded a 7" with the folks at Third Man Records down in Nashville.

The A-side is a spoken word monologue, where BP considers and muses over the fickle nature of Fame. Fantastical imagery is portrayed in a smashing line about Elvis Presley

"I'm hungry he says and the door is jammed with the Memphis mafia. Each one trying to be first to return to the king with a triple cheeseburger covered in molasses and lard, the food that killed him. No one had the balls to say 'Elvis I love you, you're a bit fat. Have an apple."

The B-side is two tracks split left and right in mono: Third Man Records' patented 'three-sided record'. 'I Believe in Elvis Presley' BP's first musical outing, is a nice little ditty with slide guitar and brushed drums. BP tells us through song what he believes in, the cornerstones of his musical faith. 'BP Fallon Interview' is a stark and honest conversation between BP and Jack White's disembodied voice, hovering like a spectre. They discuss Chuck Berry, touring with Zep and the appeal of the Blues.

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Wanda Jackson - You Know I'm No Good / Shakin' All Over 7"

First Loretta, now Wanda. Jack has a penchant for ageing Country music ladies. This 45 features two covers performed by grooving and shaking Wanda Jackson plus backing band. First is Amy Winehouse's 'You Know I'm No Good' which Wanda bellows amid blasts of Mark Ronson-esque trumpets. Imagine Amy being 30 years older and more bitter. 'Shakin' All Over' originally performed by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, Jackon's version is a little more modern featuring some Jack White guitar solos and some dramatic pauses which breathe new life into the track.

The first pressing is now sold out but we are assured that Third Man is repressing the single and orders will be honoured.

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The Dead Weather - Jawbreaker/No Horse 7" [Fanclub only]

One of Third Man's most innovative money spinners is a fan-club delivered through Modblast.com The site founded by Blink-182 guitarist Tom DeLonge. Modlife allows a band to charge for a subscription to exclusive content including streaming video and audio, live webcam feeds, ticket pre-sales and band blogs. As part of Third Man Records' Vault subscription you not only get access to exclusive content but also a package of exclusive releases in the form of unreleased 7"s, live LPs, t-shirts, slipmats and silkscreened posters.

It was in the first subscription to the Vault that subscribers were treated the first takes of cuts from the new Dead Weather album 'Sea of Cowards' on an exclusive 7" a full 3 months before the album was released.

On the album 'Jawbreaker' is one of the Dead Weather's finest, start/stop organ with some blistering guitar in the bridge from Fertita. Mosshart is on flying form spitting too "I'd call you a heart breaker but I reserve that for nicer things." This version is more laid back with piano replacing the guitar in an almost stripped down, acoustic version. 'No Horse' is a personal favourite from the album, but the first take version is far less evolved than the finished track.

This 7" is pretty much like listening to a Beatles Anthology track from White, Mosshart & Co. Great stuff, but only exciting/interesting to hardcore fans.

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Black Belles - What Can I Do / Lies 7"

Seemingly plucked from obscurity in local Nashville, the Black Belles are a four-piece girl band. All four girls have black hair and pale skin, clearly in the Jack White fan club themselves. Appearing as part of Third Man's on-going 'Blue Series' (a series of singles in the genre of garage-blues-rock with artists photographed on a blue background) the ladies are clad in what appears to be witches hats on the sleeve.

'What Can I Do' sounds like something completely at home on 'Icky Thump' with organs reminiscent of 'I'm Slowly Turning into You' although Meg's vocal talents couldn't match these bombshells'. It must be said that there is nothing cooler than a girl who can pull off a slick blues guitar solo. The flip features a reworking of Knickerbockers' garage gem 'Lies' which features some crazy blasts of space echo and would lead you to believe it was an original track of their own.

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Carl Sagan - A Glorious Dawn 7"

This is a funny one. Carl Sagan was an American Astronomer and TV personality in the 1980s . He mused on the meaning of life, the nature of the universe and the biggest questions that the galaxy posed. A Youtuber, by the name of John Boswell, remixed an episode of Sagan's 'Cosmos: A Personal Voyage' television show with a snippet of Stephen Hawking talking about the Universe. He autotuned the voices and added some trippy, cosmic music and hey presto- 'A Glorious Dawn' was born.





Issued by Third Man on one-sided vinyl, the reverse etched with the diagram as seen on Voyager's Golden Record. A limited number were also issued on 'cosmic' coloured vinyl; black with specs of glow-in-the-dark, resembling the view from the cockpit of the millennium falcon entering hyper-space.

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So, if any of this interests you you can buy the tracks from iTunes if you're new-school and from Third Man Records online store over at Thirdmanrecords.com OR if you find yourself in the Nashville area why not drop by the store? There are plenty of exclusive items available there that you can't buy online.

Third Man Records
623 7th Ave South
Nashville, TN
37203

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Like this?
Check out my Dead Weather 'Sea of Cowards' review on Culch.ie
Check out my Flight of the Conchords Live review on Heinekenmusic.ie

Guest Blog: Official Secrets Act Part 4

The sun is shining down hard and full on the hills of North Wales as OSA head home from their first Irish tour. Tired, happy and not as eager to get him as they thought they'd be after a month on the road.

Dublin was pretty perfect yesterday. The sun was shining as we rolled into Grafton Street, the Liffey was all shimmery and thick and we could have almost hear Joyce's words leaping off the street. THe only problem being that they were all in crazy grammer experiments and only Alex could decipher them cause he's clever like that.

Pulling up at the venue there were 20 or so 15 year old girls milling around and looking fan esque. Now we're building a fan base and taking our time to play every place we can get to, but I don't think that we have had a massive breakthrough in the 10-15 year old pop market yet. Low and behold we find out that upstairs in the academy tonight a new boyband called clozure are playing. (What is wrong with an S I wonder?). If there could be a more graphic demonstration of the difference between the pop world and our world it was this. 1000 screaming girls, choregraphed dance routines, tribly hats and no live band in the venue, and then upstairs you had Clozure. (ArfArf)

We supped Guiness down the road with some fans/friends who had come up from Galway and over from London and Al finally got to sample the delights of the Super Macs. We also got some lovely One Euro Fifty sunglasses which i would later have pickpocketed while walking through Temple Bar later that night.

The gig was probably the sparsest attended of them all, but we did have some people going pretty crazy for it all at the front, and we tried to give everything for our final show including the most aggresive version of Girl From The BBC ever. It was like Metallica up there or something. When we'd finished and guitars were strewn around the stage and some in the audience someone was heard to shout with solid timing"You Don't Get That With The Kooks!". Too true sir, too true!

After load out, and signing some OSA posters for frustrated Clozure fans (Anyone wanting to launch a pop band, two tips. 1) People love free stuff. THe minute we got out free posters we were suddenly flavour of the week, 2) Let your act go out and see the fans after the show. There must have been 30 kids waiting for 45 minutes and no one came out to see them. If we ever start selling out big venues then I will do my best to still be on the merch stand. Even if i just get in the way.)

Then it was partying at Thomas Reids till stupid o clock with some fine folk who had come to see us play, and then an hours sleep on a sofa in Waterlooville and a ferry back home.

We are now driving through the most insanely beautiful scenerey I think i have ever seen in the North Of Wales. Sun shining through the trees, lambs in the field, steam trains rattling by. You do get to see some amazing crazy stuff when touring in a band, and we definitely got our share in Ireland and are pretty keen to come back, so hopefully see you in Autumn. Please come check our stuff out at myspace.com/officialsecretsact if you haven't already, and I will leave you, sitting comfortably in the van, somewhere in North Wales with The Decemberists playing so beautifully on the stereo. Good times, definitely good times.

Kind Regards
Lawrence
OSA

Guest Diary: Official Secrets Act Part 3

Galway/Belfast:

Sat Navs are the gift of all time to bands. Letting 4 guys argue over which road is the right one to take when 3 are nursing hangovers and the other hasn't showered for 3 days and is desperate to find the nearest hot water supply is just not any fun. HOwever yesterday OSA experienced the hell that is a machine finding the fastest route to a place without the use of any common sense. Galway to Dublin via what seemed like 3000miles of winding country roads was enjoyed by almost no one in the van. We saw some lovely villages but not even rolling green fields were enough, and at one point it seemed like Belfast was a mystical floating city that we would spend all our lives looking for but never find. It got desperate. We were carrying no maps of the SOuth or Ireland in our van and all phones and apparel of that nature had gone in a EUropean huff so that was that.

Arriving in sunny Belfast at last, definitely improved feelings, though I was hung over, nauseas and not in a very very good place at all!! Auntie Annie's is a very cool place though, and they had made the coolest Penguin Cover themed poster for the gig (Our debut self release Snakes And Ladders was released in a Penguin Esque book cover design). Our name had been spelt Offical Secret Act though, without an I. Slilghtly Spinal tap, but the poster was so so cool we didn't mind.

We have some fans following us around Ireland for these gigs so we had a chat with them which was cool and got some corporate pizza. Due to sunny weather and club night action the promoters put us back to 10 o clock and we ended up pretty much playing to half the club crowd and half our fans. Despite the hangovers, the ltae stage time and all the jazz of the day, we ended up playing one of the best shows of the tour. We always give everything to every gig but sometimes something happens and it all clicks into place. It wasn't the tightest gig ever, and after 3 songs I was just sweating Tuborg, but it was glorious. People were singing and dancing and during our last song me and Tom decided to go dance with them on the dance floor. It would have been rude not to.

Afterwards we were talking to all the guys and girls running the club nights and at the gig and they were pretty much the coolest people. The DJ was spinning some of the best tunes and the only thing I could think of was the Sex Pistols gig at the lesser free trade hall. It might not have been the most rammed gig in the world but everyone who was there was either in a really cool band, managing a really cool band or a brilliant DJ. We danced and danced away and arranged for house parties later that night. Our resolutions to get an early one wereout the window and Stuart, Sabrina, Stephy and the fine people of the Belfast were whisking us off to a house in the burbs to party on.

I really don't think we've been to a city with such a vibrant scene, everyone seems to be in bands, have awesome and intersting taste in music and up for partying and supporting each other. It's like a mini Portland and we are definitely pretty eager to come back.

We're now sitting in a car park outside Belfast about to go and get breakfast and spend the alst of our sterling before re-entering Dublin. In terms of amazing crowds and cool people the gauntlet has definitely been laid down.

P.S While some of us were partying Our tour manager Mario and Alex our keyboard player came back to the van to watch a DVD and chill out. Alex is still recovering from his car accident and can't drink at the moment so it seemed the perfect way to unwind. A couple of people from the party went with them and as we left them watching the DVD everyone was settled down for a nice evening watching some Ferrel based comedy. Unfortunately it was a little bit late for Mario and he gently slipped off to sleep on the bunk half way through the movie. No problem except that he started snoring like a water buffallo and kicking out in his sleep much to the discomfort of everyone in the van. Bless Alex as a true OSA team player he tried his best to pretend it wasn't happening and continue to engage everyone in the movie. He too then fell asleep and by the time he woke up everyone else had gone to bed and he couldn't remember what house we were in and ended up sleeping on the floor of the van. It was probably more chilled out at the party.

Regards
Lawrence

www.myspace.com/officialsecretsact

Guest Diary: Official Secrets Act, Part 2

16th of April

Galway

So Galway, wow. after a 13 hour commute we finally bedded down in the palace of joy that is the travelodge. We try to tour on the most tightest of budgets (For reference see the awesome documentar "We Jam Econo") and it's rare we even have a hotel for the night, prefering instead the pleasures of friends couches, but we've never been to Ireland before and we haven't made the relevant connections, and it's 10 past midnight....so travelodge it is. I don't think i've ever slept so well in my life.

Back in Galway we are walking through town when a finely attired gent come up to us and asks if we're in Official Secrets Act. His reasoning being that he knew we were in town and no men in Galway wear boots with such high heels. Turns out he is from a local band Disconnect 4 and his guitar player is playing with us in the support band tonight. It really is a small world once you get out into it. He points in the direction of a good pub and we settle down to sample the famous Irish Guiness.

One of our most reliable couches in Britain is in Brighton at the abode of one Matt Harfield, journalist, librarian and all round hero. His Girlfriend is from Galway and by pure chance they are here tonight. They come and join us in the pub and we discuss W.B Yeats, the availability of good oysters, and Aoife (for that is his girlfriends name) teaches us fokl songs about Galway (The Galway Shawl). We have to say that we're rather keen on Galway by this point.

In Britain, venues treat you with varying degrees of respect, but in Europe, and Ireland definitely has a continental feel to it, it's so different. One of the main things you notice is the band flats that are sporadically made available to you. There were some beautiful ones in Germany, but the riverside flat we get given in Galway is pretty lush too. We load the fridge with beers, crack open the buckfast and head down to the Roisin Dubh to play our show.

Despite malfunctioning keyboards it's a great set and we keep to our band law of not saying stupid things about the country your in. (How many british bands must go to Amsterdam and make jokes about how cool it is you can get stoned....BORING, grow up). Alex also debuts his plastic crow which will now accompany him around Europe, sitting safely on his keyboard stand. A big Thank you to everyone who came down,w e really made some good friends and definitely intend on being back soon.

Then it was back to the flat to listen to Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper (Voted best song ever by Lawrence Diamond in a poll taken just now) and drink till 5 in the morning. Buckfast is a dangerous thing. A many dangerous thing.

April 17th, Galway/Belfast

I sit at the kitchen tabel, hangover in hand and type this to you. we have a 5 hour journey to Belfast begining the minute i finish typing. We are heading North by the coast road and fully intend on getting some fine oysters and maybe reading some Yeats to each other (ALex wanted to go to Cole Park-please correct me if i'm spelling that wrong) but we partied a bit to long and our culture has suffered. Till Belfast....

Kind Regards

Lawrence

OSA
www.myspace.com/officialsecretsact

Guest Diary: Official Secrets Act

For the duration of their three stop Irish tour, Lawrence from Official Secrets Act (OSA) will be writing a tour diary for my lovely blog here. It starts today! Enjoy!

Wednesday April 15th

So our dear old transit Denise died at the weekend. After a year of pretty much no stop touring her head gasket went boom, and the end of a long and fruitful love affair was upon us. Crawling back from Milton Keynes at 30mph we all shed an OSA tear for our beloved girl and prepared for a Deniseless future.

Mario our tour manager and all round OSA hero bartered and haggled and got us a rather tasty Merc splitter in which to get to Wales and Ireland, and now here we sit, traffic surrounding us on a trunk road into the promised land of Wales, en route to Holyhead to catch that fabled ferry over to Ireland. We've never sailed across that salty wind swept sea before and anticipation is high. We start in Galway tomorrow night at the Roisin Dubh (16th of April), then hit Auntie Annies in Belfast (17th) before finishing in Dublin at the Academy 2 (18th).

When we got talked about among the great and the good we always get called a North London band, but this is confusing for us as we all met in Leeds, formed the band in a deep dark squat in Manchester one rainy summer a year and a half ago, and half of us come from Scotland. Factor in that we've been to 11 countries in the last 2 months and we feel like we come from nowhere. So after 2 days in Galway we'll probably start putting down roots, it'll be the longest we've stayed in one place for 6 weeks (Leipzig is a beautiful town but it's hardly home).

Here are hopes for our short stay in Ireland.
1) To play some lovely shows and bring some star shining escapism to the stages we grace
2) To not be total tourists while we're traversing the lands of the emerald isle (Using the phrase "emerald isle" probably immediately puts us in that category!)
3) Make some friends for life, cause we plan on coming back many many times.

At times like this you end up sitting in the van making up stupid lists about the places your going (The famous Belgians list is always the hardest, especially if we ban sports stars). The big in Germany list is pretty normal, famous Scottish female actors was good fun (CLARE GROGAN I STILL LOVE YOU!) and bands from Birmingham lasted a very long time. (Ocean Colour Scene, Black Sabbath, half of led zeppeling, sort of). Actually bands from London is a much harder list than you think, so many people move there but so few are actually from there. Even half of Blur come from the south coast. We'll work on some Irish Band Lists, but it's pretty easy cause like Scotland and Wales it's always produced so many amazing bands and singers. (Our scottish band list started last december and is still going so the gauntlet is thrown).

We're stuck in a traffic jam somewhere near Birmingham at the moment so we'll love you and leave you till tomorrow.

Love and Respect of Soviet Proportions

Lawrence Diamond
OSA


www.myspace.com/officialsecretsact