The most I've paid for a single record is a 45 by a
Detroit garage band from the '60s called The Kegs
and that was 2500 and change.
They only pressed a hundred of um.
The studio they recorded it at burned down in the
Detroit riots.
A whole kind of legendary backstory behind it.
I bought it in 2005?
So, I've had people before say, in regards to eBay.
Cause I bought it on eBay, "I would never trust
anyone from Italy.
They're postal system is so screwed up.
So many people get dicked over by Italian
transactions, I would never do anything like that."
That's where this single was.
But then I mentioned the username or the name of
the guy who was selling it and that person said
"Oh no, that guy's cool.
The one person you can buy from in Italy is that guy."
So, I had faith in sending it off and, for me, I was
still living at home, I was playing in The Dirtbombs.
I didn't have any bills or anything like that and I
had just gotten back from a tour and so I think it
was a little stretch for me.
But it was also a record that I, one, had never
even seen in person and two, never thought I would
ever have an opportunity to buy one.
Since then I've had the opportunity to buy a
second one and for some reason it really, really
hurt saying no.
Like "what if I need it!?"
[Laughing]
Hi, my name is Ben Blackwell.
In addition to working at Third Man Records and
playing drums in The Dirtbombs and running my
own label, Cass Records, and working as official
archivist for The White Stripes, I've also been
known to collect records.
I don't know why
you are watching
♪ ♪
I don't have solid numbers but I like to think each
of those white boxes is a hundred and fifty-seven inches.
And so last time I counted there was more than,
there's maybe about forty of those boxes.
So, I think the last count there was a couple
thousand 45s and that's my main focus.
LPs don't really excite me that much.
To me, if it's just me and my personality,
I'd rather, I'd play 45s all day.
An LP you have to search for the groove and like
"What track is it?"
and looking back and forth.
And I get why people like um or twelve-inch singles even.
But to me the 45 with a picture sleeve is kind of perfection.
It's never really been improved upon.
Take that into consideration, that's
probably why people are still using it.
Is because it is so perfect.
Two songs, two sides, two images, front and back cover.
If you can't do that right you should probably just
not do it.
This one, I love this record.
This is the first, if you ask me, the first rap
record from Detroit.
"Rock Down" parts one and two, parenthesis
"Schoolboy Rap" under the name Paris
This was pressed in 1981, basically all handled by a
dude by the name of Daryl Nicholson who was a
teenager at the time.
He was working at McDonald's.
It sounds like really good early live band backed hip hop
and not too many people know about this
record but, again, I only came across it because it
was from Detroit and realize a lot of people
weren't talking about early Detroit rap records
and so I tried to find out more and more about stuff
like that and kept on coming back to this and
I couldn't find anything that really pre-dated this.
So, until someone proves me wrong, this is the
first Detroit rap record.
Uh here's one I won't even talk much about but
everyone just needs to see what Greasy Records presents:
Poncho C. Saint Fingers.
If you're not down with that, you can get out of
the house.
♪ ♪
So, this is my collection, mainly the 45s which
is the bulk.
This is where I choose to spend my time.
Organization is kind of all over the place.
I feel like I've gone off the deep end.
Geographic which is Detroit, Michigan.
Each kind of little subgenre has it's own...
Subgenre and era have their own things.
Detroit Rock Music from the 1970s
Detroit Funk Electro Hip Hop
Detroit Not Punk Rock From the 1980s
Post MC5 is kind of everything else.
Barring geography so Michigan stuff is not in
there but this whole stack here is basically
everything post MC5.
David Bowie "Under Pressure" 45 in here
Nirvana records in here
A new single by the OCs would all be in this range
I don't even..."
Post MC5" is the best thing to call it.
There's some interesting stuff here.
This is...
These can and will survive a house fire.
And I can say that from experience.
Here's a great record, I love this.
This is a record by a band from Detroit called Nick
and the Jaguars.
"Ich-I-Bon #1"
So, it's on the Tamela label.
Tamela was the first record that Gordy started
in the Motown family.
But this was also the first white band that
Gordy ever put out.
And I guess the rumor is one of the guys in the
band was Gordy's lawyer.
And he said "Hey can you put out my kids band..."
you know like...
They probably only pressed like three hundred copies
of this.
They're really, really crude.
1959
Kind of like greaser like in the vain of like
"Tequila" or "Dwayne Eddie" Instrumental Surf
But it's got no bass on it.
It's two guitar players and a drummer.
And this came from the record store I was working
at in Detroit, Car City Records.
I came in one day to get paid and someone behind
the counter said "Hey did you see that weird Motown
single that came in?"
"No what Motown single"
And they pulled thiis out and I was like "holy ----"
I'd never seen it before and you can see the price
tag on there, the price tag.
This was May of 2004,
based on the Car City tag code.
And the price on it is 200 bucks.
Um, the boss owed me $75 for working and I said,
"Well, I want the record," and he said, "Okay,"
he said, "Give me a hundred bucks for it."
I said, "With pleasure."
The record, you know, if you ever try to sell it,
is probably like a 6 or 700 dollar record.
♪ ♪
So this is kind of the deepest pit
of weirdo, one-of-a-kind, shouldn't exist
White Stripes stuff.
You're not gonna find any of this anywhere else.
So, this is their first single, Let's Shake Hands.
Um, this is a copy of the record
without any of the red ink printed on the sleeve.
Um, so it's all white and black.
That's one of a kind.
Dave Buick, who ran Italy Records,
um, was a sweetheart and an awesome enough guy
that he would've done something like this for me to kind of dig.
Also in the same vein of that was this printing,
which is- at the same time that
The White Stripes put out their first single,
a band from Detroit called The Henchmen put out a single
with Jack playing guitar on it.
So what Dave did specifically for me
was he printed a version of the sleeve with both sleeve arts
so you can see the front cover of The Henchmen
and back cover of The White Stripes on there,
and then you can see the back cover of The Henchmen
and the front cover of The White Stripes right there.
Um, as an unpaid intern, I would...
I'd take payment of that any day of the week.
There's another one...
where is it?
This was clearly an error at the pressing plant.
United Record pressing back in 1998
didn't have the most stringent quality control as it does now.
That showed up in a box at Italy and, uh,
again, as the resident teenager who was excited about anything,
they just handed it to me and said, "Hey. Hey Ben, keep this."
Rare White Stripes double B-side label 3/14/1999.
So that is the work of a budding archivist.
So here's another White Stripes single, um,
with some chicanery in regards to the pressing plates.
Now, runout grooves in this single say "LP-9-A".
I put that up on some White Stripes collectors board of, uh,
you know, this was a copy that I got from the band
right when it came out.
This would've been in, uh, October of 2000.
And everyone else posted- no one could find a copy of it,
no one could find- people that bought it on the tour.
No one could find any information about it.
I was like, "Well, this is the copy I've got, I know,"
and uh, years later, maybe ten years later-
nine or ten years later, I finally played it,
and it's not The White Stripes on there.
It was a completely different-
it was like some hardcore punk band.
Um, and so it was one of those where it's like, okay,
it is a version of a White Stripes record,
it's got the labels on, it's got the red vinyl,
but it's not actually the music.
This is actually, uh, you can see right there:
"Fake Euro pressing."
Um, this is actually a bootleg version.
You can tell because the labels are more gray,
and uh, it's pressed onto red vinyl.
This record actually never came out on red vinyl.
♪ ♪
If money's not an object,
I'd probably like to buy a copy of,
um, the kind of rarest Motown single, which is
a record by Frank Wilson called Do I Love You?
Parentheses "Indeed I do."
Um, and I think there's 3 known copies of that
and that sold for I know as low as $20,000
and maybe as high as, like, $35.
But basically, you know,
one really hardcore Motown collector found one
in the early 80s from a guy that worked at the pressing plant.
And then I think someone kind of snuck some out of Motown's,
uh... Motown's Vault.
So I think there's three known copies.
But uh, that would be-
I mean that would just be a pure wall hanger.
This is a nice and rare Detroit garage 345,
a band called the Bottom Company,
and the song is called "Lives for No One."
Um, this was actually produced by pre-Eagles fame Glenn Fry.
Um, he was active in the Detroit garage scene in the 60s,
but this is kind of the hardest to find, a hideout single.
Ah. Very, very exciting and important record.
This is the sole release,
while they were still a band, by Death.
The single "Keep On Knockin'" and "Politicians in My Eyes".
One of the best singles of all-time.
So Death was a group from Detroit, uh,
three black guys who are all brothers
recorded just some really, really amped up, crazy.
They didn't call it punk rock music.
They just thought they were playing hard rock.
But this record actually came from a friend of the band.
A guy by the name of Don Schwink, who, back in the day,
um this came out in '76,
the band gave Don a box of records, 25-count box.
They said, "Hey, spread the word,"
you know, "Help us out," whatever.
Don never did anything with them.
When he came to the record store that I was working in,
in Detroit, called Car City Records,
um, and started handing copies out to the guys working there,
um, he handed out a handful of copies and this was,
you know, at the time people would pay $800 for this record.
♪ Last night in Detroit ♪
Moving away from Detroit and moving to Nashville,
for me, became a real eye-opener of like,
"Wow, everything from Detroit
"was really, really great, really amazing."
And I kind of felt like, oh s---, like I blew my chance.
I lived in Detroit,
like that's where you're gonna find Detroit records.
That's where you're gonna find interesting stuff,
and so since I've moved
it's been kind of been my way of dealing with homesickness,
is thinking a lot about Detroit records
and um, just learning about them.
♪ The landscape of Detroit. Woo! ♪