Jack White Releases His Latest Single Into The Air
by Mike Hsu,posted Apr 3 2012 9:39AM
This is one of the many reasons I love Jack White. He has been releasing singles from his upcoming solo album "Blunderbuss"(4/24) on-line but for his third single he really let it fly. his label, Third Man Records, pressed 1000 Flexi-Discs of his song "Freedom At 21" and attached them to balloons which they released into the air on April Fools Day. Also attached were notes instructing the lucky finder to take a picture of where they found it and submit it to the Third Man website. Just brilliant! Check out the video:
White also recently gave away a Blue Vinyl 12" record of all of it's 29 singles at it's third anniversary party. I'm sure the guests were excited until they found out it was the world's first 3 rpm record...yeah that's right...3 RPM! Basically you have to use your hand to slow down the turntable to 3 rpm while it's playing. Third Man's instructions for this are equally challenging:
"The world's first 3 RPM record is a study in contradictions — it's cut at the slowest speed yet it plays faster than anything you've ever heard. It's a compilation of 7-inch records but it's packaged like a 12 inch. But the 12 inch sleeve is made like our 7 inch sleeve (as it is one continues piece of paper folded in half and put into an acetate sleeve). A bit like a snake eating its own tail. It comes with three bumper stickers yet there is no bumper. We gave it away for free yet given what it has fetched on eBay it is proving to be fairly valuable. It's easy to play but impossible to hear. You put your finger on it to slow it down, but this is no easy task ... and we estimate it would take 333 days of 33 hours training per day for your finger, hand, and arm muscles to spin at a continuous speed of 3 RPM for X hours and X minutes."
Good luck finding one. Third Man Records have a few crazy releases for the upcoming Record Store Day. Check them out here.
