Willie Nelson "No Place For Me" b/w "Lumberjack"

 

No Place For Me b/w Lumberjack

scum stats: estimated 300 copies pressed, supposedly 3-5 known in collections

Gotta say I was pretty wowed to find out that Willie Nelson's first record came out of Vancouver, Washington. Not Texas? Not Nashville? I'd known that Loretta Lynn's career had started in the Pacific Northwest, but I thought that was an anomaly, not something that had any parallels.

Kinda goes without saying that this single is hard to find. Rumor has it that the disc wasn't even available for purchase back when it was made in 1957. Supposedly people had to write in to the radio station KVAN where Willie was a DJ at the time (Vancouver which is right across the river from Portland, Oregon) and say how much they loved the record and then a copy would be mailed to them.

Damn...doesn't that just sound crazy thinking about? It certainly doesn't happen like that any more.

The a-side "No Place For Me" feels like a pretty solid, of-the-era country tune, Willie's voice rich and sonorous and strengthened by reverb, buoyed by picky guitar and with some fiddle buried deep in the mix. Before you know it, the damn thing is over in less time than it takes for me to microwave popcorn. That feels a little bit strange, could be good or bad depending on your mood or the day I suppose.

The flip is written by another DJ at KVAN at the time, Leon Payne, supposedly written about a local timber faller named Ray Norris. The stop-and-go, gas-and-brakes chug of this song feels pretty remarkable and noteworthy. The verse vocals presented largely without any accompaniment, the heavy-breathing intro and outro...just feels like there's something beyond the "old hat" vibe that most independent, Starday-pressend country singles from this time. Almost bordering on spoken jazz, Ken Nordine vibes. Heady stuff for '57, at least for me looking back 65 years later.

While it might be absolutely NO indication of what Willie would do come the rest of his career, man, first records with tales like this behind them just get me excited. Good times and good vibes.

The White Stripes at the Detroit Institute of Arts

 “That was the best thing we’ve ever done. It was also the worst thing we’ve ever done.”

 

So were the thoughts expressed by a long-forgotten big wig at the Detroit Institute of Arts. What they had “done” was bring in the White Stripes to perform two sets in the hallowed Diego Rivera Court. When booked, the White Stripes were moderately ascendent. By the time of the performance on November 2nd, 2001, they were stratospheric and lava hot. The performance, all guts and glory and emotion and resplendent joy, had pulled in THOUSANDS to the Beaux Arts-style building that day, the museum’s largest single-day attendance in over seventy years of existence. That was the best part.

 

The “worst” part was those thousands, many of whom had not set foot in the building since grade school field trips, really had no idea about the space they were occupying. Completely enveloped by 27 larger-than-life scenes conceived and executed by Diego Rivera in 1932-33, the Detroit Industry Murals stand as one of the most breathtaking and important displays of art in the city, if not beyond. As a stylized near-deification of automobile plants, communal labor, racial harmony and vaccination, the murals themselves (done as frescoes, paint applied to wet plaster) once dried, form an integral part of the wall.

 

But rock and roll fans of 2001 cared not. With the court well beyond capacity and the overflow crowd spilling deep into the adjacent Great Hall, over-eager attendees were climbing the planters in front of the massive expanses of both the north and south walls. Desperate for a better view, a clear line of sight or just caught up in the electricity of the moment, people were carelessly touching, casually rubbing and leaning against these priceless works of irreplaceable art at the heart of the literal, metaphorical and historical cultural center of Detroit. Risking the destruction of valued fresco history all just for the hope of catching a glimpse of what was, in 2001, the NOW cultural heartbeat of the city.

 

Thankfully, the only noticeable damage done on that evening was the ringing of eardrums. 

 

The White Stripes’ performance was nothing short of impeccable. The 33-song cavalcade ceremoniously kicked off with Jack White literally waving a Detroit flag, knowingly singing “Little Room” in the biggest room it had ever been performed in. The incongruity was immediately pushed further with the trilling screech of “The Big Three Killed My Baby,” as intensely critical a song as has ever been written about the industry that built Detroit. All performed in a room that, save maybe the Rouge Plant’s blast furnaces, is as close as to a temple as exists for the automobile industry. No sacred cows here. Iconoclasm exemplified. 

 

Jack and Meg fully hit their stride and power through a medley fueled by another renowned Detroit commodity...rock and roll. Their assertive take on Iggy Pop’s stomping “I’m Bored” weaved seamlessly into the Gories’ hypnotic “Omologato” and by the time they were crushing on the MC5’s atomic anthem “Looking at You” the result was maddeningly perfect, a daft tribute to the oft-overlooked local cultural fuel that helped ignite and launch the White Stripes to the perch where they could ultimately propel themselves globally.

 

Jack urged attendees to go check out some beloved home-grown Gordon Newton art before the set break then he and Meg came back all taut and attitudinal with impassioned takes on gems like  “Let’s Shake Hands” and “Fell In Love With a Girl” sitting comfortably amongst covers of Robert Johnson (“Stop Breaking Down”), Loretta Lynn (“Rated X”) and Blind Willie McTell (“Your Southern Can Is Mine”) before tying it all together succinctly with the White Stripes blasting through their bona fide set closer “Screwdriver.”

 

Knowing full well the gravity and importance of the 50th installment of Third Man Records’ Vault subscription series, here in its entirety is the White Stripes legendary night at the Detroit Institute of Arts. With striking soundboard audio that wonderfully captures the energy radiating off the band that evening while subtly balancing the cavernous BOOM of tube amplifiers in a room with only bodies to deaden the sound, the two LPs here are lovingly pressed on red and white vinyl. All sounds were painstakingly mastered, cut, and pressed at the Third Man Cass Corridor premises, less than a mile down the road from the marble fortress of the DIA.

 

Utilizing said audio as its bedrock, the package also features a pro-shot DVD of the complete White Stripes performance, sourced directly from the previously untapped video archives of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Vibrant and captivating, the footage manages to bring the viewer into the room, transported to the time and place where such magnetism unfurled.

 

The artwork here utilizes a cache of previously unseen images shot that day by noted Detroit photographer Steve Shaw. Capturing the band at delightfully opposing tableaus...the strikingly empty soundcheck where skylights find the sun dappled mise en scene of Rivera’s murals as a humbling backdrop to the hauntingly dark and imposing mid-set overhead spotlit vignette of Jack and Meg....the imagery here is among the best we have ever had the luxury of using for such an important moment in the White Stripes’ history. Gracing both the LP and DVD covers, the choicest Shaw images are reproduced here in a collection of four stunning photographic prints.

 

The White Stripes' at the Detroit Institute of Arts was an exercise in inherent juxtapositions. The best and the worst. High art and low art. Big rooms and little rooms. Past and present. Respect and irreverence. Hyper-local and widely global. Emptiness and overcrowding. Darkness and light. The White Stripes embody and attack all of these. A mess of contradictions laid bare for all to see and listen and love.

Jack White Live at the Garden Bowl Lounge June 3rd, 2001

Listen here!

The weekend had been a whirlwind...the slightly odd outdoor college gig on the Columbus campus of Ohio State at dusk on Friday night followed by the third time in nine months that the Stripes were onstage at the Southgate House in Newport, Kentucky on Saturday evening...pretty sure it was the first run of gigs in the brand new 2001 model Dodge van that Jack and Meg had bought from the dealership for straight cash. I sold merch out the back of the van in Columbus, Weezer's "Green Album" was listened to on the drive, the band goofed on the Gories' "Rat's Nest" on Friday night...these are the few memories that are still retrievable two decades on.

We made our way back to Detroit with a tad bit of urgency, as there was an interview with Ralph Valdez on WDET radio on Sunday night followed by this performance at the Garden Bowl Lounge, booked under the name “John Gillis” with hopes of notifying some people while not tipping off ALL people.

In my memory Brendan Benson was doing sound or at least some approximation of it. There may have even been a newly purchased PA for the occasion, but still, that room is a hard one to get the sound just right. Compared to previous Jack White performances in this spot, it felt a hair more subdued...no other musicians, no feral screaming, still that same electric hum, but more a calming exercise than some attempt to prove something or win folks over.

Jack first played the Garden Bowl Lounge, solo, in November 1998 and in the intervening three years he would play there no less than five additional times in various configurations. The June 3rd, 2001 show is, seemingly, the last time he’d play this intimate setting where he’d spent so much time, both socially and on stage, that time and the experience gained used to propel himself from local up-and-coming musician to internationally renowned ROCK STAR.

That being said, I am hard-pressed to find or recall ANY set by Jack White, in any incarnation or band, that is as varied and unique as this Garden Bowl gem. A layover, stopoff, way station...in my eyes, something that just had to be done as a means to get to the better things in the not-so-distant future. The metaphorical closing of one door so that fifty more could open.

All these years later, I’m legitimately surprised to find out that this evening is likely the first-ever live performance of “I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman.” The take here is charmed...almost as if Jack had never even tried to tackle it without the beating heart electric piano that pumps throughout the recorded version...having to find his footing on the fly but never tipping his hand to the struggle. 

Coupled with an early live outing of “We’re Going To Be Friends” and solid runs through tried-and-true (at least in Detroit) songs “Hotel Yorba” and “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” along with “You’ve Got Her In Your Pocket” a good two years before the band would record it and those are the only de facto White Stripes songs shared this evening. The majority of the set is a phalanx of covers which almost reads as a road map as to where the future would lead.

Like “Rated X”...the Loretta Lynn-penned polemic here is plain but pointed, the live from the Hotel Yorba version would be recorded within a week and end up as a b-side from the Stripes come November. 

Or “Cold Brains”...on this evening all contemplative and compelling, while just over a year later and an hour up the road Jack would perform it live with its writer Beck at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor. 

Or “Baby Blue”...the 1958 Gene Vincent rockabilly gem, which soon after this performance found its way into Stripes sets and in seven weeks time would wrap up, on a lark, their first ever session for John Peel, as earlier that evening Peel had mentioned his appreciation for Vincent in passing.

“Who’s To Say…”  had been a staple of Two Star Tabernacle’s sets during their brief 1997-1999 existence. The song was written by White’s Two Star band mate Dan Miller and would see its debut release via Miller’s group Blanche on a 7-inch on my imprint Cass Records. Released “summer 2003” (I’m terrible with non-Stripes timelines) and complete with a stellar guest guitar solo from White, the Stripes’ version would follow close behind as the flipside to their “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” single in September 2003. 

“Fragile Girl” was originally written by Dean Fertita and performed in his group the Waxwings, who joined the White Stripes on their West Coast tour in July 2001. Fertita would later perform with White in the Raconteurs and then as bandmates in the Dead Weather. White’s pre-song anecdote speaks to his endearing mishearing of the lyric “to unveil a vision” as “television” and its ability to break up a couple or bring them closer together.

The middle of the set is thick with blues and folk covers. White’s tackling of “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” is arguably the highlight of the entire performance. The daft deathbed storytelling is accompanied by insistently accelerating guitar...from slow, to trot, to rollicking...as the listed litany of last requests piles up, the specter of impending death is palpable, as if there’s a rush to get all these thoughts out before Death wields its mighty scythe. 

The folk standard “Black Jack Davey” tells its tale with an austerity of words, which would later make an appearance as the b-side to “Seven Nation Army” in roughly two years time.

“In My Time Of Dying” likely shows up on White’s radar via Zeppelin’s 1975 version. In the context of his performance here, both Blind Willie Johnson’s 1927 original (titled “Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed) and Dylan’s well-known take from 1962 seem to figure prominently.

White’s version barely hits the ninety second mark when, right before the start of the third verse, he pivots into Blind Willie McTell’s “Lord, Send Me An Angel.” Curiously, the first word of that third verse is “Lord” and I can’t help but think this was a purposeful connection between the two done on Jack’s part.

For me, being in the crowd for this performance was a treat...these were all songs that kinda felt like they’d just been floating in the ether for the past couple years. Things that’d be goofed on, messed with, maybe never fully explored yet. In the spirit of that, at approximately 3:14 mark of “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known” you can hear my distant voice yell “Hypnotize!” from the bar.

Jack had written the song roughly three years earlier as a “gift” to local band the Hentchmen. He’d come up with the idea that was vaguely in their musical wheelhouse, recorded a demo where he played all the instruments, and then shared it with them to ultimately...end up having the White Stripes do a version for “Elephant.”

Having heard that demo at the time and likely nothing of itin the intervening three years...I was just hoping to hear it again. My request went unanswered and I’d end up waiting another eight months or so before the Stripes started playing it live. 

A recording of this show made by taper Brian Rozman seemed to be available in trading circles pretty quickly after the performance. The quality is solid. A few years back when gathering disparate master tapes for our vault, a DAT of this show recorded by Brendan Benson landed on my lap. Having been previously in the dark about its existence, I was happy to hear it was even better quality than the respectable audience tape...yet failed to capture the entirety of the performance.

So with the help of our crack mastering engineer Bill Skibbe, we stitched those two recordings together and gave the whole thing a proper mastering clean up for the audio you listen to today. 

The Garden Bowl Lounge looks largely unchanged now from how it was back in 2001. There’s a new coat of paint on the walls, the random black and blue linoleum flooring has been replaced. But if you get in the cozy little nook where Jack was set-up on that calm Sunday night in 2001 and look up, you’ll see the same checker pattern black and white ceiling tiles, having held that spot for Lord knows how long.