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.
In my college days, my buddy and I decided we need to go visit a retail outlet to pick up some supplies for the weekend. The store we were going to was a good 25-30 minute drive from campus, but it was a nice day and, what the hell, we had nothing to do, so jamming to some tunes and taking a drive sounded like a good idea. We hop into his ‘91 Honda Prelude, hit the tunes to some Jurassic 5 (or possibly some 2 Skinnee J’s) or the like and set out. Our college was big into Sportsball…like the sportsball stadium held more people than the 3rd, 4th, and 5th biggest cities in the state combined…and it happened to be a Sportsball weekend so traffic was thick. On top of that they were tearing up the main road we always took to get to the retail store we were headed to. Moving at about an inch per hour, I joked that it would have been faster to go to the big city that was just 50 miles away compared to what we were doing in traffic. The next turn he could make, my buddy takes a left, gets us out of traffic and sets us on our way to the ‘Big City’. We’re jamming away, moon-roof open, cruising down the interstate. We rarely went to the “Big City” so neither of us really knew where we were going. This was pre smart-phone days and we didn’t have a map in the car. So we made our best guess as to where we needed to be and couldn’t have ended up further from where we needed to go. Once we realized which direction the store was in that we were heading to, we pulled off the road into a stripmall so we could turn around. As we started to descend down the little hill into the parking lot the car dies. Just flat out, “I’m not doing this anymore,” is done. The dash is lit up like so many doobies twinkling in the dark at a Grateful Dead concert, but the engine is gone. We sit there for forever trying to think of what to do, neither of us with a cell phone, and 5 minutes on an AT&T calling card we can use at a payphone. We call another friend of ours who we worked with at a retail pet store back in the college town and who lives in said “Big City”. He was in town visiting his folks and agreed to come pick us up. We have no idea where we are at, have about 4 minutes left on this calling card, and cannot seem to get him to understand where we are at. After about 2 minutes he finally recognizes the area we are talking about. We wait about 20 minutes, as he is pretty far away from where we are, and he picks us up. Luckily, we know the manager of the retail pet store in the “Big City” and he drops us off there. We ask to use the phone so we can call my girlfriend to come pick us up. The manager says sure as long as it’s not long-distance. Damn. We have 2 minutes for me to call my girlfriend who is 50 miles away and explain the situation. My girlfriend at the time hated driving in the “Big City”. Abhorred it. I knew it was going to take a lot to get her to come get us. Plus, she was at work and wasn’t going to get off for another 3 hours or so. With my 2 minutes left on the calling card I dialed her work. The conversation went something like this: GF: Hey, what’s wrong? ME: I don’t have a lot of time so please just listen because we are kind of screwed. GF: What happened? ME: I can’t explain, but I need you to come get us in the “Big City” at the retail pet store. The car died. GF: What? How did the car die? ME: I DON’T HAVE TIME TO EXPLAIN! Can you get us or not? GF: Well you know I hate driving in the “Big City”. ME: I KNOW! CAN YOU DO IT? I NEED TO KNOW BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT ON THIS CARD! GF:DON’T YELL AT ME YOU ASS! ME: Ok. I’m sorry, but we’re screw….dial tone. We went across the street hoping she would show up. We knew she got off later so we decided to hit the extra large furniture store across the street. This place is like CostCo on steroids and only contains home furniture. We examined and sat on every couch they had, almost falling asleep on several of them. Our 3 hour journey had turned into 8. Eventually my girlfriend came and picked us up. It was a quiet ride home as she was pretty pissed at me. My buddy had his parents drive 150 miles to get his car, have it towed, just to find out the timing belt broke thus throwing a rod and that his car was dead for good. My buddy lost his car, I (a month or so later) lost the girl, and we never made it to Old Navy.
Correction: I was 5. LOL
Ford Escort Diesel – I remember this being my families main vehicle. We sold it when I was 4 in 1995 and I remember riding in it with my Dad to the new owner hand-off (lucky them) with our dog, Fred. I was super small but I still remember thinking “hmmm, this feels like a moment” so I started singing “Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind…Memories…”. As a huge Elvis fan it felt like an appropriate honor. I can still see the seat fabric (+ dog drool, again, lucky them). My Dad still gets a chuckle about me giving the car a farewell Elvis tribute at the age of 4.
I just graduated high school and my girlfriend and I decide to go to cedar point out of the blue. We spend the whole day there until they close. I am completely exhausted but still have to drive home (near Flint). About 30 minutes into the drive my 88 Pontiac Bonneville starts vibrating like crazy. I also don’t know shit about cars and knew I was way overdue for an oil change so I pull over and pop up the hood trying to look like a man in front of her. Put a little bit of oil in and figured I’m golden, just gotta make it a couple more hours home. It’s know vibrating super hard and only getting worse. It’s about 2am so my only option is to get it home no matter what. Then the right front wheel and tire pop off and goes flying by my window as I look over in total disbelief as the sparks from the rotor dragging across the pavement from my now 3 wheeled car illuminate this lonely patch of US 23. I manage to pull it over and slide to a halt. We flag down a trucker who drops us off at the next exit ramp and as we walk up to a payphone (1999), a cop pulls up and takes us to the station and we call her parents. We spend the night in a holding cell sleeping on the floor in Milan. Her step dad shows up around 6am and drives us home. I go to the junk yard and find a wheel and tire that will work and drive down with my dad. We couldn’t find the wheel anywhere so good thing I went to the junk yard. We put it on and drive home. A couple months later it got smashed in an intersection and I went to art school without a car, probably for the best, that thing was cursed.
We were crossing Canada from east to the west (Quebec – british Colombia) using the trans Canadian road. we were traveling in a safari campwagon , it was also our room for the summer . All our cloths were packed in a luggage rack on the roof and our third stop was in the middle of nowhere in Saskatchewan province. Took the time to wash our self , change cloths and call it a night. So next morning we start the van and left straight to the west , we stop at a steak house in alberta to eat and we saw that we forgot to close the luggage rack lid … and nothing was in there anymore (FUUU**) So we turn back and make the road back to Saskatchewan, to at last find some stuff (we were young and broke we need our cloths lol) and we found nothing at all , NADA … without any other choice we go to the closest salvation army and spend the last 50$ we had on second hand cloths . So we spent the whole summer in ugly cloth and shitty shoes to pick up prunes and cherries in the okanegan valley . Thinking about it now ,we laugh about it , but on the moment we saw that we lost everything , we were between angriness and panicking.
I had to drive from Louisiana to west Texas one cold winter day in December with two co workers. Not used to very icy conditions in Louisiana, we were very surprised when we got into Dallas and the interstate looked like a scene out of Mad Max. There was caution signs saying beware of “Black Ice”. One of my coworkers thought they were talking about some kind of bad meth. I had no idea what black ice was either but soon found out as we hit a icy patch and was thrown into the grass. We sat for 5 hours waiting on help. It was too cold and dangerous to walk and the nearest store was miles away. We finally got pulled out and were on our way again. Apron arriving at our destination we unloaded our bags and I discovered my bag was no where to be found. During our meeting with the black ice and grass on the side of interstate I guess it was thrown out. I lost 3 months worth of contacts, a iPod Touch, a pair of nice headphones and all my clothes. I’m more cautious of ice now and check my bag at every stop.
When I was 16 and just got my license(thought I was a pro driver), I went to pick up my friend from his aunt’s house at night. She had this tall and windy uphill driveway… I drove up, my friend Jesse got in, and I was too lazy to turn the car around, so I decided to drive in reverse down the entire driveway… About 90% of the way down the descent, I unknowingly went off the concrete driveway road and RIGHT into a giant ditch. The kind that are man made drain systems at the bottom of huge hills for water runoff. My car was literally at a 45 degree angle with the front side up in the air… We were totally fine, but the neighbor called 911 and an ambulance came to check on us and asked me all these questions like if I was drinking or anything. No I was not drinking… I was just a terrible and way overconfident sixteen year old driver. Then a tow truck had to pull my car out… My plans with my friend that night we’re obviously canceled. And then I had to tell my mom what happened and get in trouble… Most embarrassing car story of my life lol
Tossed in a boom box with mostly manifest cds and hit the road. Tour started in Penn. I think. It made it down the east coasts down to florida eating oil the whole time. Broke down in Florida where I had to hitch hike for the first time in my life. Before finally firing in the Florida panhandle. Where I dumped it in a gas station parking lot and hitched a ride with of members on tour. Never heard anything from Florida about the car.
Bought a $400 k car near the intersection of 8 mike and Hoover. Put the car in a friends name so I could get plates for it(since I couldn’t legally do so myself due to driving infractions). Tods
First, congratulations: it’s great to become a dad (for the first, second or whichever time)! I, myself, am battling with a 10-month old girl and a 9 year old boy, so I can completely relate to your struggles. Unfortunately, I can also relate to many automotive-related frustration cases (lights breaking down in the middle of the night, front glass fogging in the middle of a tunnel leaving me driving blindly, etc.). Now the funny part, we can mix both worlds: babies and cars. Did I tell you about the time when my then two-year old boy proceeded to projectile-vomit all over his car seat, back seat (his mom, obviously, who was sitting behind) and the (back part of the) driving seat as well? Or about how after washing the car I don’t know how many times, even with a couple of air fresheners in use, the car still smelled so awful that I had to drive with the windows open (in the middle of the winter… or I would vomit myself). Oh, and that we were merely 5 minutes in the car (not a long trip). But, hey, after vomiting, he said “now I feel much better, don’t worry”.