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Third Man Records
NASHVILLE, TN • 627 7th Ave S, Nashville, TN 37203
Jack White launched Third Man Records as a paper entity back in 2001, but it sat mostly dormant until 2008. That September, on a flight, White pitched the idea to Ben Swank of the Soledad Brothers, then called his own nephew, Ben Blackwell of The Dirtbombs, to round out a three-person starter team. In 2009, the label opened a physical location in a then-rundown corner of Nashville known as Pie Town. The building holds a record store, a novelties lounge with the Third Man Record Booth, label offices, a distribution center, and a photo studio.
What sets it apart is the Blue Room, the only live venue in the world built for direct-to-acetate recording. An artist plays a set, Grammy-winning engineer Vance Powell mixes it live on a Rupert Neve 5008 console, and master cutter George Ingram cuts it straight to acetate in real time on a 1953 Scully Lathe that once cut masters for Cincinnati's King Records. The audience watches the lathe turn through glass, with video monitors on the cutting head in case the view's blocked.
Walk in for the vinyl. Stay because there's genuinely nowhere else where you can watch a record get made while the band that made it is still on stage.
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