On Friday night, Third Man Records’ new Detroit location threw a swanky private party to celebrate the opening of their long-promised pressing plant. Invitations specified that attendees wear “semi-formal attire,” which divided the crowd in two camps: people looking legitimately fancy, and employees clad in classed-up takes on Third Man’s signature yellow and black palette. On Saturday morning, the general public flooded the store in search of free concerts and 180-gram, multi-colored “made in Detroit” vinyl. But on Friday, the scene was all exclusivity and free cocktails.
Third Man garage-rock weirdo and native Michigander Kelley Stoltz wailed on a tiny saxophone from the store’s stage, while a thick industrial smell wafted in from the pressing plant down the hall. All night, employees in jumpsuits pressed records in a roped-off area while the fancies looked on with their drinks and hors d'oeuvres. As Stoltz played, Jack White raised his champagne glass in the air. “We’re all one family,” he said, “and remember this moment, because we’re making things beautiful last for the next generation.”
Third Man Pressing’s opening weekend—both the private and public parties—offered a surreal composite of industrial prestige, uncompromising ambition, and rock’n’roll slime. Jack White was truly on his Charles Foster Kane shit, presiding over the black-tie event as its figurehead while promising a great big beautiful tomorrow on the backs of new machines, manufacturing jobs, tightly curated aesthetics (seriously, matching jumpsuits), and very loud music. Attendees laughed at his jokes and tried to get pictures with him. The next day, a slightly humbler crowd gleefully shoved while the Mummies put on a wild, unbelievable rock show. Here are a few scenes from a weekend of both champagne and spit.
Danny Brown Meets a Hero
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Since the invitation didn’t specify who would play the private party, the early buzz at Friday night’s event was that Danny Brown was scheduled for a surprise set. Tipped off by friends who work at Third Man, members of Protomartyr and Wolf Eyes showed up on the promise that they’d get to see the rapper perform. (During Kelley Stoltz’s set late in the evening, Wolf Eyes’ Nate Young appeared concerned: “So is Danny Brown going to sit in with these guys or what?”) Sure enough, Brown closed the night with a brief discography-spanning set, including Atrocity Exhibition highlights “Really Doe” and “Pneumonia.” The crowd, somewhat thinned by that point, mostly featured the party’s younger attendees.
The bigger story, perhaps, was a simpler one: Danny Brown got to meet one of his heroes. He once told Pitchfork of seeing the White Stripes at the Old Miami, a bar two blocks from Third Man Detroit: “It changed my life in that sense of knowing that I seen these guys play in a dive bar in Detroit and now they on MTV and they was winning Grammys after that. They really gave me that inspiration that I could do it on my own terms.” Shortly after Danny’s performance, someone walked up to Jack in the hall and asked what he thought of the set. “Fucking great,” he replied.
A Secret Recording Studio
Third Man’s operation in Detroit is massive, with more retail space than the Nashville shop and a giant pressing plant in the back. On Saturday, Ben Swank—one of the big three at Third Man—offered Pitchfork a quick behind-the-scenes look at the operation. Walking through a kitchen where musicians and employees lingered for coffee, cookies, and beer, he opened a heavy door that looked like it might lead into a closet or pantry. Nope. Immediately we faced another heavy door, behind which was a sound-proof and temperature-controlled recording booth. It’s a legit, professional studio setup with mixers, reel-to-reels, and a bunch of other recording equipment. Monitors looked out onto the stage, and throughout the weekend, they made some direct-to-acetate prototype recordings. The team are still ironing out the kinks, but it appears that Third Man’s Detroit location is gearing up to make live records out of their shows, just like they do in Nashville. But with a pressing plant just a few steps away at the Detroit outpost, it also seems feasible that Third Man could bust their own “world’s fastest record” record with ease.
Get in Line
While VIP guests filed into the shop on Friday night, tents were set up outside for people waiting to get their hands on exclusive records the next morning. By Saturday afternoon, three long lines wound around outside—two out front and a third in the alley out back. When asked about the purpose of the back alley line, an employee clarified that they were also “slangin’ records out the back door.” Up for grabs were locally made, multi-color pressings of the Stooges, MC5, White Stripes, Destroy All Monsters, Derrick May, Carl Craig, and Johnson Family Singers records. On a day that’s neither Record Store Day nor Black Friday, the palpable demand for these homegrown reissues is proof positive that Third Man continue to lock down the exclusive vinyl economy game.
Meet Detroit’s New Country Star, Craig Brown
Attendees of both parties got the chance to see one of Third Man’s newest signees, the Craig Brown Band. Brown is something of a local institution, best known for his work in the punk band Terrible Twos (and also for tending bar at some of Detroit’s better venues). Now, the rock’n’roll mainstay is fronting his own country band, with a debut due out March 31. In a way, the pressing plant’s opening party felt like an industry coming-out for Brown, who commanded the stage with just as much magnetism as the more established folks who played throughout the weekend. Like Margo Price before him, Brown’s getting Third Man’s country-star rollout—a look he wears well.
Sweaty + Bandaged: the Oblivians and the Mummies Take Over
To close out the plant’s grand opening, Third Man flew in two iconic garage rock bands, the Oblivians and the Mummies. If you want to throw a great party, you can’t do much better than booking two of the all-time budget rock institutions. The Oblivians played some of their best songs (older and more recent) and got joined at one point by the Detroit Cobras’ Rachel Nagy. Their shout-along rendition of “Memphis Creep,” invoking the slime of Detroit’s unofficial rock’n’roll sister city, felt especially powerful. (Jack White watched from the balcony, eventually disappearing after a bunch of people in the crowd turned their phones skyward to take his photo.)
Then the Mummies emerged—yes, in full mummy regalia—for a nut-so and sweat-soaked set, in which members screamed and playfully talked shit about one another. Keyboardist Trent Ruane started spitting on the rest of the band while Russell Quan sang “My Girl.” At several points, Ruane threatened to throw his organ into the crowd, instead balancing it on his neck. When they covered Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge,” Detroit punk hero Timmy Vulgar ran into the center of the crowd and feverishly shoved everyone in arm’s reach. An elated pit broke out, capping a weekend of rock’n’roll commerce with rock’n’roll chaos.
