Record Stores

You have to hand it to Jack White. The multi-talented multi-hyphenate — probably best known for his prior band, The White Stripes — has created his own brand of stylistic flair alongside his own multifaceted music and musical tastes. Arguably, he’s also known as the force behind Third Man Records, which he co-founded with Ben Blackwell and Ben Swank in 2001. Recently, I had the chance to drop by a Third Man Records store during a visit to Nashville for the Making Vinyl conference in early June. (Stay tuned for more on that.)

It also must be said that White (born John Anthony Gillis) understands branding. On my way inside, I was “greeted” out front by Manny, the store’s signature mascot man, a smiling yellow fellow with black trim — a nod to White’s appreciation for retro fun via a plethora of colorful visual and sonic elements. Plenty more examples of those aesthetics fill the store, including a jukebox, vintage TV, antique recording booth, and listening booth — the latter two complete with wooden enclosures.

Manny also appears in a variety of forms inside the store as a small wind-up toy and other figurines — and in 2D forms, too, such as gracing pint glasses, and adorning other amusing memorabilia both new and old school. The sense of delight seems to be almost as much about the fun tchotchkes as it is about the records and music.

There’s a little bit of kitsch and a lot more black-and-yellow gear — in Pantone 109C, to be precise — and Third Man Records black-and-blue album art. Although the vast majority of records here are — unsurprisingly — on the Third Man “house” label, some carefully curated selections from a few other analog-first labels round out the displayed records.

Given that White is a fan of all things analog and vintage generally, his commitment to old-school, all-analog recording and production methods has been well-documented. He’s long been an outspoken proponent of vinyl records, taking his support of the format as far as adding a record pressing plant to their mix in 2017 — namely, the aptly named Third Man Pressing in his Detroit hometown. (Detroit is also home to another Third Man Records store location.) Since then, that facility has added mastering and lacquer cutting services.

Of course, all of this serves most of the vinyl records sold at Third Man Records’ stores, including their most recently opened location in London. Not too long ago, Third Man Records also joined the Europe-based Vinyl Alliance, as I reported in a recent Re-Tales column in Stereophile. (Said column is expected to post soon on that stellar sister site of ours, and we’ll add the link here once it goes live.)

New vinyl records don’t come cheaply these days, but perhaps handling pressings in-house helps keep those record costs in check. The SRPs pleasantly surprised me at the Nashville store — for the Third Man releases, at least — so I picked up a few label-made goodies, including their 2016 reissue of The Detroit Cobras’ 2001 LP Life, Love and Leaving (TMR372), and a couple of live recordings as well. One was from Nashville’s own Woods (TMR384, as seen above), recorded live to tape in early May 2016, and The Shins, captured live to acetate (TMR184) — apparently Third Man’s first-ever recording to that material — in June 2013. I also grabbed a 7in single, something I almost never buy anymore (in the physical format, at least) — of This Is The Kit’s “Cold and Got Colder” b/w “Earthquake” (TMR568), which was also recorded live. I also made note of a few other LP titles to pick up on a return visit at a later, more budget-kind time.

The Nashville store wasn’t huge, but it housed a few distinct areas with interactive displays — though not in the modern digital sense of the term. The only in-store digital element that I noted — well, apart from point-of-sale — was an iPad inside the listening booth, on which users can peruse Third Man’s full catalog and create wish lists.

One interactive area is a little listening booth equipped with two setups — two very basic turntables, each connected to a separate tube amp and headphones. Some record stores offer pre-listening options for used vinyl, but it’s certainly unusual for new vinyl records. Many, if not most of the Third Man titles, are available via designated “listening booth copies” so customers can listen to selections before making purchases. This seems to be a great idea for a store/label with so many proprietary and specialty recordings. The only downside was a few listening-booth gems I enjoyed checking out in there — including offerings from Beck, Stephen Colbert, and Gina Birch — weren’t in stock for purchase. While checking on those items and other stock, the store reps were friendly and knowledgeable, and made worthwhile recommendations.

An additional in-store novelty was one that debuted in 2013 — a Third Man Recording Booth in the form of an antique wooden record-your-own-vocals booth. It’s a “refurbished 1947 Voice-o-Graph machine that can record up to two minutes audio and press it onto 6-inch phonograph discs,” according to a Spin article. Sadly, it was out of order at the time of my visit. Of course, it still looks cool, at least. (Maybe next time I’m there, it’ll be up and running.)

Another even-more-hands-on interactive area is one guitar mavens will surely dig — getting to audition a handful of Third Man Hardware guitar effects pedals hooked to a Framus guitar (as seen above). The store also carries a few Pro-Ject products, including a Pro-Ject RPM 1.3 Genie Pearl turntable (below), and a Pro-Ject Head Box S2 headphone amp that I spied during my visit.

I wish I could have stayed at Third Man Records longer, but my time in the store was sadly at an end. On a future trip to Nashville, I hope to visit other Third Man-related places — such as the Third Man Live music venue that’s next door in that downtown-adjacent, urban turnaround area. Upon leaving the shop, I thought about how the visit had started, as I had walked to the Third Man Records store from my Airbnb next to Music Row on that hot, sticky early-June day. Without a doubt, it was all well worth the trip.

For more about the Third Man Records Nashville location, go here.
For more about Third Man Records in general, go here.
For more about how to subscribe to the Third Man Records VAULT vinyl series, go here.

Author bio: Julie Mullins, a lifelong music lover and audiophile by osmosis who grew up listening to her father’s hi-fi gear, is also a contributing editor and reviewer on our sister site, Stereophile, for whom she also writes the monthly Re-Tales column. A former fulltime staffer at Cincinnati’s long-running alt-weekly CityBeat, she hosts a weekly radio show on WAIF called On the Pulse.