Jack White Hid Records Inside Reupholstered Furniture – And People Finally Found Two Of Them
Before he was running a vinyl record empire in Nashville or rocking out on stage like a life-sized piece of peppermint candy, Jack White was an upholsterer in Detroit, making a living by ripping up couches during the day and playing in basement-level clubs by night. While the business was not as successful as White perhaps would have hoped, his upholstery days did provide the name of his current record label, with his Third Man Upholstery business and its “Your Furniture Is Not Dead” slogan living on in modified ways as part of his current venture, the Nashville-based black and yellow Third Man Records.
White’s background as an upholsterer also provided some previously lost musical endeavors as well. Along with his friend and mentor Brian Muldoon, White did in fact have yet another band pre-White Stripes which the pair dubbed The Upholsterers, who together recorded two singles in the mid-1990s entitled “The Apple of My Eye” and “Your Furniture Was Always Dead… I Was Just Afraid To Tell You.” True to White’s penchant for being a bit of a merry prankster with his musical releases, a reported one hundred copies of these singles were placed inside furniture that White and Muldoon had reupholstered, seemingly never to be seen again.
Now, ten years after yet another classic Jack White vinyl stunt, Third Man Records has reported that two people have recovered each a copy of “Your Furniture Was Always Dead… I Was Just Afraid To Tell You.” In a statement on their website, White’s label states that:
“Recently, Third Man Records has been made aware of the discovery of two different copies found by two separate individuals of the 2nd single by The Upholsterers. This duo, comprising of actual upholsterers Jack White and Brian Muldoon, pressed 100 copies of this single and proceeded to hide them in furniture being reupholstered by Muldoon in 2004, in celebration of his 25th year in the business. In celebration of these discoveries, Third Man would like to share with everyone the cover art for this single, done by noted Detroit artist Gordon Newton.”
While The Upholsterer’s work on vinyl may be virtually impossible to score, there is a YouTube recording of their track “The Apple of My Eye,” which may be viewed below:
Now to see if people all over the metro Detroit area begin ripping up their furniture to uncover any potential high-value Jack White goodies hidden in the fabric.