What is your name, where do you live, and what do you do for a living?
My name is Ara. It’s pronounced “AIR-ah". I live in the burbs of DC. I teach and sing among other things. Asking someone what they do for a living in Washington is the undisputable champion of conversation killers. It also means you are at the wrong party.
Do you remember when you first got into music?
That’s a lot like asking someone when they realized it’s nice to breathe (which oddly I have a moment for.) “The soundtrack to your life before you were listening,” as a friend would say.
What was your first vinyl record? How did you get it? Can you describe how you felt during your first dip into vinyl?
I had a Fisher Price Music Box as a tyke I dragged everywhere. Near wore out Au Clair de la Lune, though perhaps that’s melamine not vinyl. Then I tried to play it backwards because I overheard my aunts doing it on their swank turntables. Such was the end of my first record player. When I was five I received the Mary Poppins ST. Mom played show tunes every Saturday morning until I left home at 17. In one of my favorite dreams I led a flash mob to the soundtrack of Bye Bye Birdie, before flash mobs were a thing. I’d love to redux “One Boy” as a garage rock ballad.
I remember leaning against the window of my kindergarten bus singing “It’s My Party” incessantly. It was on that same bus that some punk-ass kid told me Elvis had essentially killed himself the month prior because he took too many drugs I’d never heard of. I was perplexed and inconsolably morose. A morose six year-old. I must have been buckets of fun. Then at eight my uncle let me tag along to Peaches. The must and the vinyl and oak crates. Mmm. I bought my first 7-inch off a handbill covered end cap. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice”, by a group of fellas who all dressed alike and looked nothing like the revolving door of hippies at my house. Ever since then it’s been virtually impossible for me to separate the visual components of an album (promo collateral, jackets, inserts) from the music. Just last month I bought an album from one of my favorite artists and am still personally wounded by what I perceived as an inexcusable artwork fail. Anyhoo, that 7-inch could arguably be the first “dip".
My musical tastes a swung wildly as a teen: Duran Duran, The Shirelles, Chuck Brown, Procol Harum, The Exciters, Johnny Cash, Public Enemy, Kate Bush, The Bongos, The Clash, Basia, Grand Master Flash, Squeeze, New Order, Roberta Flack. When my mother remarried, Herman’s Hermits, Fleetwood Mac, Cat Stevens and The Moody Blues crept into the stacks of Beatles and Seeger. In my junior year I won a dance contest on some cable access TV show a la Corney Collins and suddenly I had 20 compact disks that were shiny, new, and seductively high tech. My best friend copied The B-52’s, REM, ABBA, et al to cassette tape so I could listen to them. Senior year my apartment flooded. I bought a CD player, a Walkman, and kicked my soggy vinyl collection to the curb. [/me winces] In the 90’s my music proclivities became increasingly polarizing. I was a junkie for the DC gogo/punk scenes, and British new wave. By the end of the decade I listened almost exclusively to classical and had season tickets to the opera. We had a yard and some spare time. We had kids. For the longest time all I wanted was quiet.
In 2008 my better half and I went to see The Raconteurs at the 9:30 Club. Jack stepped up on Blue Veins and my skull split open and the contents oozed out my ear and spilled on to the floor, generally making a mess of my chucks. I went home, changed all my radio presets, and bought every Rob Jones lobby card series poster I could get my hands on. I scoured the used bins at Soundgarden and Joe’s Record Paradise to make up for lost time. The next month I submitted some vacation fueled poetry to a radio contest and won a trip to Nashville to catch the Racs at the Ryman. I already had tickets to The Tabernacle show as a surprise for the Mister. This hullabaloo leads up to what could be called the second dip.
What inspired you to join the Vault?
Before the Vault came along limited vinyl mainly signified a memento of an unrepeatable experience. The thrill was in the chase. But Icky Thump Mono? That’s a no brainer. Then unreleased covers, live shows and alternate takes? The perks helped too. I’ve benefited from early entry twice and there have been a couple Vault sales I’ve luckily caught. For some inexplicable reason I’m also on the moderation team at WhiteSwirl.com, Third Man Records' unofficial vinyl collectors forum, and membership is an unspoken requisite. The forum is essentially a group of people whose vinyl OCD tendencies were not being fully sated by The Little Room. As with any forum it has it’s cringe-worthy moments but it is an unparalleled fount of information on Third Man collectables for those who don’t have a direct feed from Ben Blackwell’s brain. And, for every troll who thinks sarcasm is the new wit there are 20 solid human beings who would hold your place in line if you had to hit the head. I highly recommend a visit, a few searches, and if you’re so inclined, an introduction.
What is your favorite Vault release, and why?
TMR 127 The Raconteurs Live at Third Man Records. I was at that show. If I close my eyes I can hear myself sneeze at 26:06.
What is your favorite Third Man memory?
Impossible to pinpoint as I’m fortunate enough to have a rucksack full. But it’s safe to say each one involves stellar people and it starts in London.
In 2009 I caught a last minute flight into Heathrow for TMR’s Halloween pop-up (think GITD singles with killer artwork by Todd Slater.) I pinged a woman I’d met in New Orleans months earlier and within hours we had finagled a spare ticket and were on the rail at Brixton. (Wistful Anglophiles should hit up Miss Lucifer on IG.) We stood with a guy who spun a yarn about a guitar he’d met in a dream then flew to California to have made from plans sleepily hashed out on a napkin. The next morning I queued up for TMR’s Shoreditch pop-up, and “Linus” showed up with a gorgeous all-steel James Trussart riddled with bullet holes. The line grew. I appeared to hold the record for furthest traveled until “Irish Peter" showed up (via LA.) You’ll remember him as the Vault’s rapturous first interviewee. Years later, after the first fan-initiated Vault Party, he and I would terrorize Nashville with a 5’ paper mache face. If you’re clever you’ll find the escapades documented on Facebook. “Tikiman" was the brainchild of artist/musician Ben Lowry. (If you alternately love indy bluegrass and face-melting guitar you’ll check him/Bang OK Bang out.) But I digress. Ben Swank strode up with his patented warm disposition and we all loaded sundries into the church. When the shop opened it was a frenetic mad dash for Wonka bars. Afterwards I lingered dizzily, said goodbyes, and hopped a plane. The show, the people, and the vinyl made for 22 hours of epic.
There are a slew of other experiences (Blue Room shows, listening parties, queue mischief, concert meet-ups with ace friends & absolute strangers) that probably qualify too but TMR’s 2015 Record Store Day is a standout and poses a nice bookend. I missed the initial signup for the blue room recording content to sit it out out, but thanks to a network of musicians/fans/friends people started gathering lost sheep and I was tapped for background vox. After a couple days volleying audio clips and hashing out an arrangement, I drove 11 hours to meet the mastermind behind The Blueprints. After quick adrenalized introductions the four of us ran through the song, were ushered onto the stage, and found ourselves behind the “Elvis mic” laying down a cover of The Quarrymen's “In Spite Of All The Danger” as the record was simultaneously cut to acetate. Think about that for a moment. That’s freaking insane! Who does that?! TMR does that. And thanks to yet another Shoreditch compadre, I now own a pretty convincing bootleg of that recording (check out Dasrecordautomat.com.) If you’ve been around a while you may have been lucky enough to catch some of his TMR-related animations (Laura Marling’s “Needle and the Damage Done” being a clear standout.)
Now, it’s quite something to have your voice committed to vinyl. I highly recommend it. My grandkids will come across it someday and they will think me much cooler than my own offspring do. A thought that is deeply gratifying because at that very moment they will in fact be a good deal cooler than my sons. I am just biding my time for this karmic payout.
RSD 2015 Blue Room Recording:
What are your interests outside of music?
I am deeply passionate and my attention span short so they are many and far between. Quite a few relate to music though. I enjoy playing on stage. I’ve performed off-broadway. I write songs, am a teacher, collect port wine, play soccer, read, build things, photograph gravestones, open doors, scribble in journals, and I scare the bejeezers out of children. I took up singing and guitar a few years back and am shocked to find I’m not bored by it already. So for the first time I’ve decided to actually work on mastering something rather than simply having it under my belt. As it turns out, mastering something takes a boatload of time and focus, so I’m working on that as well. It’s my own brand of ambition. Some day I’d like to weld and work with neon, drive across country, buy a motorbike.
What is your favorite record you own, and why?
An impossible question Ask me tomorrow and you’ll get a different answer. But it is today, so in no particular order:
David Bowie’s Let’s Dance - It was my first Bowie record and it reminds of my first concert with my mother. Consequently it was also the first time I saw her as a person, and a person that I liked at that.
Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water - So emotionally voluptuous given its simplicity. I don’t know what I’m talking about, I just do.
Link Wray & His Ray Men’s The Swan Singles Collection, ’63-67 - It kicks ass front to back. I never tire of it. It’s also an excellent litmus test for anyone who implores me to spin a record.
Jack White’s The Liquid Filled Sixteen Saltines - Admittedly this is more of a novelty than a record, and a collectors’ nightmare as it was a ticking bomb from the point of sale. I love it because so many people hate it. But as you can see I’ve spun it and procuring it was legend.
The Liquid Filled Record:
I just returned from Detroit hopelessly sleep deprived but with a pocket full of TAMLA releases I’m pretty stoked to hear. The Cass storefront is magnificent to the power of rad; the attention to detail truly mind-boggling. Get there. However, the forthcoming pressing plant is meaningful in 93 ways, not the least of which is that an obscure band in Detroit is about to press a 7” record of songs they’ve plucked from the ether, and through some fantastic quantum entanglement of third man fans that single is going to make it’s way into the hands of someone in Kastoria, Greece. That record isn’t going to be heard because an upholsterer is selling it, it’s going to make its way across the universe because someone listened to it and shared it. (Your adolescent bedroom floor meets social media.) And while TMR didn’t invent the small record label, between Halloween parties, concerts, The Vault, recording opportunities, exclusive vinyl, blood drives, and general kindliness, they’ve nurtured a groundswell of devotees who care about the music and how it is made. I can’t say enough about the people I’ve met who so badly deserve mention (if you’re smiling right now you’re one of them.) I never cease to be inspired by the creative output and generosity of fans. The music community around the house that Jack built is tops and just may prove to be Third Man Records’ greatest legacy. It is very likely already bigger than them and that is a beautiful thing.
I should probably go to bed now.
