Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

This week I received the 21st set of exclusive vinyl items offered to platinum members of Third Man Records’ Vault service. For those who are unaware, Third Man Records is the label owned by Jack White, who is the leader of the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, and the Dead Weather, and is now a solo artist as well. The Vault service promises to deliver exclusive vinyl-only records (one full-length album and one 7” single) to its platinum members every three months. According to the postal service, my package was sent on October 24th. I received it on the 27th. This twenty-first set of items includes a live double-LP from the White Stripes recorded in Japan in 2000, and a single with two new studio tracks from the Dead Weather. The live White Stripes double-LP Live Under The Lights Of The Rising Sun captures two October 2000 club shows performed in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Japan, marking Jack and Meg White’s very first overseas concerts. (The cleverly designed gatefold sleeve...

Eat your hearts out, hipsters! All of you hipper-than-thou alternative and indie artists who release recordings of white noise and think you're so cool and defiantly anti-mainstream for doing it -- guess what? Taylor Swift, of all people, has now one-upped all of you, without even trying. This past week, Ms. Swift (accidentally) achieved a new avant-garde milestone: she briefly had a #1 hit on the Canadian iTunes chart with something called "Track 3", which only consisted of eight seconds of white noise. And how did the American country-pop darling pull off this feat? The existence of "Track 3" was caused by an iTunes glitch, which made it appear to be an actual recorded musical track from Swift's soon-to-be-released new album titled 1989 . The accidental eight seconds of TV-static-like sound then became the top selling track on Canadian iTunes. Don't believe me? Here is the MSN article: http://www.msn.com/en-us/music/news/taylor-swift-tops-canadian-it...

I have just learned that White Duck's In Season , the rare 1972 album on which John Hiatt made his recording debut , is now available on CD in South Korea. The distributor is Big Pink Music, which specializes in CD-sized album replicas of rare '60's and '70's singer/songwriter, country and folk LP's. It makes perfect sense that a label with that name and specialty would take an interest in White Duck, because the band bore some musical resemblance to The Band, as well as to the Flying Burrito Brothers, although their tone was more upbeat than either. This is the first time that In Season has ever been issued on CD anywhere. (Thanks to Perfectly Good Cigar: The Unofficial German John Hiatt Page for this information). In Season was the second and final album from White Duck. (Their self-titled debut album White Duck from 1971 has also been reissued in South Korea by Big Pink, but Hiatt was not involved with that album -- and I do not recommend it). Hiatt...