recently i received an expected yet unexpected item in the post. when i got notification of a parcel for me i was expecting it to be the Art Garfunkel Across America CD & DVD set that my cousin Andrew had kindly posted to me. whereas that turned up a few days later, what this parcel was took me by surprise, going on previous experiences with ordering things from America (more on that later).
it was the much anticipated debut solo single from Jack White.
here are a load of pictures of the single. i am not sure i have all that much to say about it, really, but i would suspect or imagine that collectors and music fans would like to see what one got when ordering this.
it is rather smart, although oddly the single is housed in a "fold over sheet" rather than a traditional single package. oh sure, it's in a white envelope inside, but one may accidentally "drop" the single, expecting the outer cover to be a standard sealed one. consider that a warning or advice!
and it would be a great shame for one to drop and damage this single, for as you can see it is rather smart looking!
i am assuming the colour scheme applied to the 7" relates to the colours of Jack's Third Man record label rather than any artistic statement?
as for the songs themselves, well, solid Jack White stuff really. to be honest the single itself leans more towards his country taste than it does his devastating rock sound as perfected with The White Stripes. not my first choice of music vibe to get down to if i am honest, but it is certainly not bad.
included in the single was something that i initially mistook for a postcard, presuming it to be some sort of odd promo flyer for other Third Man releases. well, it could be, but there is more to it than that.
the back of it seems to reflect a part of an email between Mr White and someone else, concerning an auction item - presumably the one on the front of the card. i am throwing it out here into the world on the off chance that others got a similar but different one; you never know.
i will, of course, be getting a second copy of this eventually - i am led to believe by the ways of electronic mail that my copy from the UK is on the way too. it will be interesting to see if it is the same.
as for the surprise at getting this, well, the surprise is that it arrived so quickly. it came to me from the States within 11 days of shipping. this is comparable to the times i experience for stuff from the UK, but unheard of from the States.
my only other experience with American orders has been amazon.com, and those have been very limited. why? because whilst amazon America offers some great deals, they offer equally ridiculous shipping costs.
for the Jack White single i used the cheapest shipping option, which came in at less than US$5.00, not bad at all. for that i got the single in less than two weeks.
amazon.com take a different approach. here is the cheapest (most modest) shipping cost offer by them :
yep, a couple of cents shy of US$14 for one item, increasing by US$6.99 for every item added. add to that they state an "expected delivery time" of 18 to 30 days, and in my experience it never arrives in less than 30 days. what a shame that amazon, who apparently seek to dominate the online market, cannot offer better pricing and better delivery times.
ho hum, just don't use amazon.com is the answer i guess. in the mean time, do not hesitate to order from Jack White and Third Man, great service and excellent product!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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