Third Man Records Label Tour

Jack White launched Third Man Records in Detroit in 2001 and opened the Nashville flagship in 2009, and the building at 7th Avenue South has become as much a working monument to analog recording as it is a record store. Behind the retail floor sits the Blue Room, billed as the world's only live venue with direct-to-acetate recording capability, along with label offices, a distribution center, and a photo studio — the whole operation built around White's insistence on physical formats over digital convenience.

The label tour is deliberately small and short: guided groups of 10 (occasionally 15) get 30 to 60 minutes moving through the recording facilities and label offices, with a strict no-photo policy inside. It runs Fridays at 2pm and 3pm only, for $20 a person, and it is not a walk-up experience — tickets are released monthly and go quickly given the limited slots. It's less a comprehensive factory tour than a rare glimpse behind a curtain most visitors only see from the retail floor.

Even without a tour ticket, the store itself is worth the stop — the 1947 Voice-o-Graph booth (when working) cuts a one-of-a-kind 6-inch phonograph record on the spot, and the Blue Room hosts live shows Thursday through Saturday nights. For music fans who care about how records actually get made, though, the tour is the reason to plan the trip around a Friday.