The White Stripes
"The Big Three Killed My Baby" b/w "Red Bowling Ball Ruth"
scum stats: original SFTRI pressing was 500 on red vinyl (I think), a shit ton on black, TMR version is 150 copies on tri-color and a shit ton on black
Week one of living in a world of three little girls crawling around this house has me generally optimistic about how the next 18 years of my life will play out. While some folks response to my having a three month paternity leave is "wow...no work!" it hardly plays out that way.
It should come as a surprise to no one that running a record label is FAR less work than wrangling a 5 year old, a 2 year old, and a newborn. Three months paternity leave is three months deep in the trenches. School pick-up and drop-off, pediatrician visits, ballet class, coordinating mattress deliveries, hanging on the telephone with customer service, runs to the pharmacy, grabbing carryout food, play time activities director, homework assassin, second string burper, furniture assemblyman, sleepy time therapist are all things I've tackled in the week since Navy Eleanor was born.
I just try and GET SHIT DONE as much as I can when I'm here. Don't let tasks pile up. Smile every once in awhile.
Woke up this morning to a dead battery in my car. Let my mother-in-law borrow it to run to the grocery store the other day, but had to back it out of the driveway because she felt uncomfortable doing so herself. It was raining, I turned on the headlights and she never turned them off. Ugh.
Usually this is something I would let fester, Uber in to work for a couple of days before finding the time and energy to address it. But on leave, I waste NO time.
Battery wouldn't jump and the most complicated thing I can do re: car maintenance is replacing a dead battery. So I am on top of this. I pull out my sorry excuse for a tool box, disconnect the terminals, throw the dead, ten-year-old battery in the back of my wife's car and ramble on down to Autozone to get a replacement. $140 something later I'm back in business. There's still some alert lights pinged on the dash, but hell, I really just drive this thing to work and back. I can wait those out.
So as I type here with fingers still greasy from the transplant, I can't help but think of how much the early existence of the White Stripes was tied to car troubles. "The Big Three Killed My Baby" was not tongue-in-cheek, it was a frustrationary tale firmly rooted in real life. The Third Man Upholstery van had no windshield wipers and woudn't start if it was rainy. But Jack figured out some way to wrap tinfoil around SOMETHING under the hood to get that sucker humming. I never did figure out what that was. Pretty sure that van only went out of town once, to Chicago in '98, for Two Star Tabernacle opening for Jeff Tweedy at Lounge Ax and then two days later the Stripes opening for the Sadies and the Waco Brothers. Jack and Meg sat in the two front seats and since there were none in the back (it WAS a delivery van) I sat on a bean bag. So dangerous. Oh yeah, there was no radio! We had to use a boom box on that trip (listening to demos by Poopy Time) but most of the time in that vehicle it was just the low hum of the wheels on the road. Meditational silence.
A two day tour in January 2000 was side-tracked as Meg's Ford Escort just stopped moving on I-94 right outside of Chicago. Had to cancel the gig in Youngstown, OH that night. Yes, the White Stripes did tour dates in a FORD ESCORT. Well, one date. Then the car died.
The first "official" vehicle of the band was a maroon van used starting around spring/summer of 2000. It ran well most of that tour, but something went haywire in Los Angeles. I'm pretty sure a large portion of the profits from that tour went to the $800 worth of repairs in Denver to fix the incorrect work done by the crew in LA.
So much uncertainty, so much resignation to the fact that the mechanic could say "you need a johnson rod" and ultimately having to be beholden to them and whether or not they decided to screw you that day. Cars still seem overwhelming to me, but I'm not as scared of them as I used to be.
"The Big Three Killed My Baby" was originally written for Andre Williams to sing with Two Star Tabernacle and we released the fruits of those sessions back in the Vault however long ago. But to me, it was always perfect when Jack and Meg tackled it. The b-side to their version was originally supposed to be "Stop Breakin' Down" and was pitched as an "anti-automotive" single. But "Red Bowling Ball Ruth", the song "inspired" by AC/DC's "Have a Drink On Me" seemed to be more appropriate here. Song title came from a bowling ball that was kicking around Jack's house at the time that was inscriped "Ruth" and was red. It may have come from the burned out East Warren lanes, but I digress.
The typeface on this single was originally set to be something different, but the designers (Andy and Patti Claydon) found out that it was $500 to use it, so they just ripped it off free-hand, or so I was told. The logo on the original SFTRI edition was a re-appropriation of the Tucker Automobile logo, and instead of it's slogan "The Symbol of Safety" it was labeled "The Symbol of Sympathy."
The huge photograph of a motor on the cover was something left over from a photo shoot or film shoot that Jack had worked on as a production assistant and years after he'd moved out of his Ferdinand house, I found the "insert your money here" tag underneath the rug in that room.
Whomever tells the best story here regarding car breakdown, car repair or anything in the car realm gets a tri-color version of this record. Cool? Cool. Back to diapers for me.
Just curious- which story won?
In October 2016, I took my kids to my in-laws for Fall Break. On the 90-minute drive back, I blew a tire on a busy interstate about 20 minutes outside of Bloomington, IN. It was late in the afternoon on a Sunday, but fortunately there was a Pep Boys open until 6 PM. I put the spare on and headed to their shop to get a new tire.
It just so happened that right next to the Pep Boys was a Half Price Books Outlet. Great news for me as I could go flip through some CDs while the techs worked on my car. As I was milling about through the Pop/Rock section, I came across the CD single for George Michael’s “Jesus To A Child” that featured a live gospel version from the ’90s of “One More Try.” They had a couple copies, so I noted it in the back of my mind and left them on the shelf. Maybe another time.
The next day I sent a YouTube link of the song to my brother, Matt, someone who loved music dearly like I do. A few hours later he responded, “That was amazing.”
A week later, my family happened to be going through Bloomington again. We stopped to grab a quick bite to eat near that Half Price Books Outlet. My wife took the kids into the restaurant, and I said I had to go run a quick errand and I’d be back in 10 minutes. After hearing how much Matt loved that version, I thought to myself, “I’ll go grab that single as one of his Christmas presents.” $2.14 later, it was in hand and I had a head start on my Christmas shopping for him. He would have done the same for me. We would always be on the lookout for music for one another when we’d be out used CD shopping.
As it turns out, it was the last thing I ever bought for him… and he never even knew it. I was going to keep the surprise until our gift exchange at Christmastime. 8 days later, and he was gone, the victim of murder. The ex-boyfriend of his girlfriend, the ex’s niece, and her boyfriend broke into his apartment. The ex (who had been stalking them for the prior year unbeknownst to either of them) had orchestrated the break-in, and the niece’s boyfriend picked up a mic stand in the apartment that Matt used occasionally at DJ gigs. Matt died of blunt force trauma to the head while sleeping.
https://www.wthitv.com/content/news/50-years-Featherstone-sentenced-for-the-murder-of-DJ-Matt-Luecking—478792793.html
Years ago when I was 17 we were all into driving our cars as fast as they would go. I had just received an old Buick Skylark from my grandma that had sat for almost two years. We were driving down the highway at an unacceptable speed when all of a sudden something in the car blew. My friend in the car ahead of me kept driving unaware of what had just happened. I walked from the highway to a gas station, and called them to come back since not everybody had cell phones yet. They came back and we noticed there was a trail of oil on the highway. We went back to the gas station and purchased a liter of oil. We filled the oil tank and watched in horror as the oil leaked right out. Being young and smart we found some electrical tape and tried to tape up the oil pan which made no difference as the oil leaked out again. Turns out we blew the rod and it dropped into the pan and cracked it. Car was totaled. Lesson learned? Never drive a Bucik Skylark that has sat over a year at 95mph.
I was driving down to college to begin my senior year, and an hour out my front driver side tire flies off and bounces past my driver side window. I probably drove at least a quarter to a half mile on 3 tires, and was able to get my car into the medium grass area between the 4 lane interstate. Luckily, it was pretty early in the morning so there was not any collision that was caused, and I was safe. I had to call my parents down to get my stuff out of the car, and get a tow driver, who the insurance agent misunderstood and thought I just had a blow out, so it took over an hour for the tow to get there. Luckily, it took so long that we had the car unloaded with my college gear, and into my parents car, and we followed to the repair shop close by, where they had to order a new tire, since we could not find it anywhere in the corn fields off the interstate. A week later I was able to get my car, after bribing a friend with a case of beer to drive me an hour north to get my car, and my parents stayed down and drank and played flippy cup with the college students on the first night back.
My car stopped suddenly while driving. Motor stopped, fuel tank was half full. Friend towed away the car to my home and we tried to find the problem. Found out there’s no fuel at the carburetor. So we thought fuel pump is broken. Removed it and saw, its all dirty inside. Cleaned it…nothing. Then we thought “if fuel pump is so dirty, mayby filter in the fuel tank is as well”…
Removed fuel tank and found out, it’s all empty. Fault was, that the fuel gage was full mechanic and the Bowden cable was locked…
True story, early 80s, NSU Prinz 4, germany
The best truck i ever owned was a 83 ford f150 with an in line 6, loved that truck, robins egg blue, made in Detroit, it never broke down, roofing for 6 years, man where did the time go, anyway GO LEAFSSS ( sorry we stole your coach )
The big 3 killed me~
I don’t have one, but I was driving outside Fargo, North Dakota once when I saw a guy having car troubles on a deserted highway during a snow storm! He was holding his neck and it looked like he had blood on his jacket. He was running in the snow towards a fence. Pick me and I’ll tell you the exact location of where he buried something in the snow.
I was driving back to Santafe from Flagstaff Thanksgiving Day. I just had a fight with my dead beat dad. My stepmother was nice enough though to pack a meal for my travels.
I get on I40 heading east back to Santa Fe. There is a good 150 mile stretch in Arizona where there is a boudoir shit. There cool name’s of Towns like Two Guns.
I ended up pulling off the highway in Knife City. The only thing there were some trailers and a shut down old knife store. I opened my trunk and grabbed me a big ol’ turkey leg. I was blasting some Gary and the U.S. Bonds. I slam the trunk and head back to the drivers seat with my turkey leg in hand. There was one problem. I locked my keys in the trunk grabbing that turkey leg.
All of a sudden a man steps out of a trailer.
“ Something wrong boy?” He yellled
“ I locked my keys in the trunk.” I replied.
“let me grab my friend will help you out. First shut that nigger music down!” He said with anger in his voice. He went back inside. A few minutes later he comes out with a shotgun in hand. “I’ll be right back with my partner. Don’t go anywhere.” He laughed. He got in his truck driving like a bat out of hell down a dirt road.
I start freaking out. This guy wanted more then to get in my trunk. I try my cell. Dead. I start taking things out my back seat. I finally force down the middle small seat. I reach all over the trunk feeling for those damn keys.
In the distance a truck comes speeding back words me on that dirt road. The passenger hanging out the window with a shotgun. I start looking franticly. Score. I feel them. I grab them, run around to the drivers side and get in. I turn on my car and skid out of there. The passenger starts shooting. I jump the curb back into I40 and left knife city in the dust. I have a feeling those boys didn’t want turkey for Thanksgiving.
Ahhh my first car. A 1964 red Ford Falcon w/ black bumble bee stripe, bucket seats and 3 on the column.Paid like $350 for it in 1972. Had a lot of skin cancer being a mid-westerner. Senior year the freakin’ muffler falls/rusts off. I remember(barely) driving around school and revving it up as far as I dare go in 1st gear and then pulling my foot off the accelerator. Wow what a sound bouncing off those brick walls….just like “funny car Sunday”. Even more impressive than the 2 classmates that had identical Camaro IROC Z’s.