Third Man will be giving away free Jack White RSD Ambassador Stickers with every purchase at their Nashville headquarters, The Ace Hotel Desert Gold Pop Up, and the Rolling Record Store. They will also be selling Jack White RSD Ambassador 2″ buttons and giving away a free The White Stripes poster with the purchase of an Elephant Reissue at all three locations.

In Nashville only, Third Man will be selling Jack White RSD Ambassador patches, The White Stripes Peppermint Buttons, and a brand new The White Stripes Elephant Swirl T-shirt (pictured below), which will also be available for sale in the web store beginning Wednesday, April 24th. As an extra bonus, fans who purchase the Elephant Reissue in Nashville on Record Store Day will also receive a free Jack or Meg USB Flash Drive in addition to The White Stripes poster.

In celebration of the ten-year anniversary of the White Stripes album Elephant, Third Man Records have gone searching underneath couch cushions and in shady back alleys for the perfect Vault package to accompany the label’s reissue of the album.

Of utmost excitement is a red and white vinyl 2 x LP blistering live set by the White Stripes recorded July 2nd, 2003 at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago. Titled Nine Miles From the White City, this 26-song, 79-minute, tour-de-force performance is indicative of the absolute explosiveness Jack and Meg embodied at the height of their 2003 touring. Highlights include a rare live performance of Captain Beefheart’s “Party of Special Things to Do”, an especially frenetic “The Hardest Button to Button” as well as the Stripes Christmas tune “Candy Cane Children.” Hearing “Seven Nation Army” in the middle of a set (and not as a closer or encore where it would soon find itself for the remainder of the band’s career) is a quaint reminder of the inauspicious beginnings of the future stadium anthem. The crystalline soundboard recording is best experienced through the impromptu, off-the-cuff performance of a song written on-the-spot that would come to be called “Little Cream Soda.” The song would be re-discovered (via an audience recording) by Jack and Meg during the recording of their album Icky Thump, dusted off and recorded for what would become the White Stripes final studio album.

Providing rare insight into the demo process, the 7″ in this Vault package features Jack White’s solo demos of the songs “I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart” and “Little Acorns” on opaque red vinyl with black whisps enclosed in a red, white and black die-cut sleeve. Accompanied only by his trusty piano (salvaged from a Catholic school in Detroit as it was being shuttered), Jack’s double-tracked vocals lend an otherworldly air to “…Heart.” “Little Acorns,” in the most happy of accidents, pairs a parable spoken by legendary Detroit-area news anchor Mort Crim with White’s germination of a song idea, all through the magic of recycled 1/4″ analog tape. Of special note are White’s previously unheard guide vocals…edited out of the final mix once it would appear on Elephant.

Finally, tying all previous components back to the actual making of Elephant, the “bonus” item for this package is a 56-page collection of photos taken by David Swanson during the recording of the album. With the wonderful Toe-Rag Studio in London as the setting, this peek into the White Stripes’ recording process is both revelatory and intimate. With only three of the fifty-plus images having ever been published before, such a cache of striking images only furthers to cement the depth and breadth of Third Man’s Vault. The live show, the demos and the photos all help to contextualize Elephant, the surroundings it sprung from, the resultant whirlwind it created and all the chaos in-between. Ten years later, it’s a time that still resonates very deeply with everyone at Third Man and we hope you feel so too.

Sign up for this package before subscriptions close on April 30th.

The White Stripes Nine Miles from the White City tracklist: (LP one on red vinyl, LP two on white)
-When I Hear My Name
-Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground
-Love Sick (Bob Dylan)
-Hotel Yorba
-Aluminum
-Cool Drink of Water Blues (Tommy Johnson)
-The Hardest Button to Button
-I Want to Be the Boy to Warm Your Mother’s Heart
-Stones in My Passway (Robert Johnson)
-Stop Breakin’ Down (Robert Johnson)
-Do
-In the Cold, Cold Night
-Seven Nation Army
-The Same Boy You’ve Always Known
-Black Jack Davey (traditional)
-We Are Going to Be Friends
-Offend in Every Way
-Little Cream Soda
-Cannon/Party of Special Things to Do (Captain Beefheart)
-Candy Cane Children
-The Air Near My Fingers
-Screwdriver (tease)
-Ball and Biscuit
-Screwdriver (reprise)
-Let’s Build a Home
-Goin’ Back to Memphis (Henry & June)

RSD @ THIRD MAN RECORDS in NASHVILLE

Blue Room:
- A limited number of Elephant Reissues on colored vinyl (link) will be available beginning at 11am, and lasting until 2pm or the last copy is sold in the Blue Room. Each purchase of Elephant will include a free White Stripes poster while supplies last.

12:15pm Mark Watrous acoustic set
1:15pm Karen Elson & Fats Kaplin acoustic set
+DJ Baby Mama (Jemina Pearl) to DJ in between sets

Back Patio:
- Local vendors to include…
Hot Diggity Dog (serving up an off-menu “Detroit Dog.”)
Fat Bottom Brewing Company
Bang Candy Company (with a specially concocted treat just for RSD)
Las Paletas

Store & Novelties Lounge:
- From 11-2, the store will be selling loads of new merch, including new T-Shirts, iPhone 5 cases, RSD Ambassador patches, a new aluminum 45 adapter, buttons and the lenticular poster made for the Coachella pop-up shop.

- Beginning at 2pm, the store will be selling 100 of each of the exclusive, colored Volume 2 Document Reissues (1 per customer).

- The Monkey Band will be loaded with a brand new secret track from a mystery artist for you to take a stab at recognizing… (we’re looking at you, out of towners!)

+ One more surprise that they’re keeping close to their chest for now, because believe us when we tell you… it won’t disappoint.

RSD @ the POOLSIDE POP-UP

Record Store Day lasts all weekend at the Ace Hotel. The poolside pop-up will have a limited number of exclusive, colored vinyl Elephant reissues for purchase (with a free White Stripes poster, while supplies last), as well as 100 of each of the exclusive, colored vinyl Volume 2 Document Reissues for sale on Saturday, the 20th. The Pop-up will also offer tons of brand new Coachella-themed merch available only to the folks who make it to their oasis during Desert Gold.

Free poolside and indoor performances for the weekend of the 20th/21st include Eagles of Death Metal, Redd Kross, White Fence, Dirty Ghosts, White Mystery, Gap Dream, The Dough Rollers, Carly Ritter, and more, with mind bending DJ nights in the Ace Hotel’s Amigo Lounge Friday and Saturday late night… Details and times TBA. Come on out and lose your mind in the desert!

Years ago someone told me that 1,200 high school kids were given a survey. A question was posed to them: Have you ever been to a stand-alone record shop? The number of kids that answered “yes” was… zero.

Zero? How could that be possible? Then I got realistic and thought to myself, “Can you blame them?” How can record shops (or any shop for that matter) compete with Netflix, TiVo, video games that take months to complete, cable, texting, the Internet, etc. etc? Getting out of your chair at home to experience something in the real world has started to become a rare occurrence, and to a lot of people, an unnecessary one. Why go to a bookstore and get a real book? You can just download it. Why talk to other human beings, discuss different authors, writing styles and influences? Just click your mouse. Well here’s what they’ll someday learn if they have a soul; there’s no romance in a mouse click. There’s no beauty in sitting for hours playing video games (anyone proud of that stop reading now and post your opinion in the nearest forum). The screen of an iPhone is convenient, but it’s no comparison to a 70mm showing of a film in a gorgeous theater. The Internet is two-dimensional…helpful and entertaining, but no replacement for face-to-face interaction with a human being. But we all know all of that, right? Well, do we? Maybe we know all that, but so what?

Let’s wake each other up.

The world hasn’t stopped moving. Out there, people are still talking to each other face-to-face, exchanging ideas and turning each other on. Art houses are showing films, people are drinking coffee and telling tall tales, women and men are confusing each other and record stores are selling discs full of soul that you haven’t felt yet. So why do we choose to hide in our caves and settle for replication? We know better. We should at least. We need to re-educate ourselves about human interaction and the difference between downloading a track on a computer and talking to other people in person and getting turned onto music that you can hold in your hands and share with others. The size, shape, smell, texture and sound of a vinyl record; how do you explain to that teenager who doesn’t know that it’s a more beautiful musical experience than a mouse click? You get up off your ass, you grab them by the arm and you take them there. You put the record in their hands. You make them drop the needle on the platter. Then they’ll know.

Let’s wake each other up.

As Record Store Day Ambassador of 2013 I’m proud to help in any way I can to invigorate whoever will listen with the idea that there is beauty and romance in the act of visiting a record shop and getting turned on to something new that could change the way they look at the world, other people, art, and ultimately, themselves.

Let’s wake each other up.

- Jack White III