Music Talk: A Contemporary Record of Rock ‘n’ Roll – Ben Blackwell

ADMISSION

$10 MFA members, seniors, and students

$13 Nonmembers

Ben Blackwell, vinyl collector, musician, and archivist for The White Stripes
Michael Marotta, journalist, The Phoenix – Boston

Having spent more than half his life consumed with all things vinyl, Ben Blackwell’s experience spans everything from first employee and current archivist for the rock duo The White Stripes, recreational Detroit music archaeologist and historian, drumming fool in rock ‘n’ roll juggernaut the Dirtbombs and envelope-pushing vinyl idealist for Third Man Records in Nashville. He can (and will) talk about all these topics and more with interviewer Michael Marotta.

Ben Blackwell oversees the vinyl distribution and manufacturing at Third Man Records and does some A+R for the label. Ben’s official job title is “Pinball Wizard.”^[14]

I totally respect the mutual admiration we both share for The Bob Seger System. Here is Ben holding the second 45 r.p.m. single from the first Bob Seger System album in 1968, Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man, “2+2=?”

Blackwell’s poem The World’s Most Important Swimmers was selected by members of the Guerilla Poetics Project to be printed as a letterpressed broadside for the November 2008 installment of their program.^[9]