Jack White - Lazaretto (Live at Third Man Records)

#ThirdManThursday

TMR-280
Third Man Records
7"
Released: April 19 2014

Guiness
can kiss my

For this #thirdmanthursday I picked my copy of Jack White's Lazaretto 45. But this is not just any 45. This is the live version recorded at Third Man Records on Record Store Day April 19 2014. Not only is it a live version of the later released Lazaretto 45 featuring the same tracks (albeit studio tracks), but it is the World's Fastest Studio-To-Store Phonograph Record. 3hours 55 minutes and 21 seconds! That is impressive! The fastest up until this point was 1 day performed by the band Vollgas Kompanie and according to Guiness World Records they still hold that record, which is weird (more on that later).

As a tribute to Vollgas check this out:

They're pretty awesome in their own right!

Bear in mind that this was before Third Man Pressing was established, so Third Man was still using United Record Pressing as their pressing plant. (Third Man Pressing is also in Detroit and not Nashville, so maybe they should redo their show there if they were to try and beat their record :)).

The 45 was released a couple of months before Jack White's second solo album Lazaretto would be released and features the title track of the album Lazaretto and a cover of Elvis' Power of my love. It was the second single of Lazaretto (the album) with the first being the nice felt-centered "High Ball Stepper". The live tracks were recorded during a small concert held on Record Store Day on April 19 2014 in Third Man's Blue Room.

This version was only sold on the day if you were physically present at the Nashville Third Man Records store, so it is unknown exactly how many copies exist. Later you could buy the Lazaretto single with studio versions of the same track.

The record itself if beautiful. The sleeve features two shots from the day. The front is Jack White playing in the Blue Room:

And the back is a shot of the lacquer being cut at Third Man:

The record itself is not branded in the usual black and yello Third Man Records style but with the World Fastest Record written in blue text. Also the 45 does not have a stamped out center, i.e. it only have a small hole like regular 33s. I guess that extra production step would take extra time.

Funnily the matrix run-out on side A says "Guiness", and side B "can kiss my". And as I was writing this post I wanted to find the Guinnes World Records entry for this, but I couldn't find it, so I guess that explains the matrix run-out :-P

Third Man Records recently (not sure when exactly as I discovered it myself recently) published the entire concert on nugs.net. It's well-worth a listen!

Third Man Records also made a great video documenting the feat:

Fun maybe-fact: I'm 99% sure that the funny looking electric car seen around 6:30 is the Scandinavian produced Kewet, who went out of business a long time ago.

The tracks on it features a great live rendition of Lazaretto and then Power of my love. The latter is famously performed by Elvis, but written by Florence Kaye and Bernie Baum (two songwriters who worked a lot with Elvis). Listen to Elvis' version here:

I wasn't able to find the Jack White's live version anywhere else but on Nugs and a snippet of it in the Third Man Records video above (starting at around 3:40). You really need to hear it so I urge you to go to Nugs. It's interesting how Jack White kept a lot of the song intact, but adding his classic rock'n'rolle style to it. But I think the major difference between his and Elvis' is that you can really feel the pain of the lover in Jack White's voice. Personally, I really love this is about Jack White's live performances. It's the same with his Jolene covers. You can really feel the hurting, the pain, the suffering. Love it.

If you listen to Jack White's studio version: