“Fever” is a definite twist on the classic Black Keys sound, which has become very recognizable over their past seven albums. The song has a lighter, poppier feel than most fans are used to and it skips along at a constant level, never reaching above a dull roar. Driven by a prominent electro riff, the track introduces new synthetic instrumentation to the band’s traditionally guitar- and drum-based sound. With a curveball like this, there’s no knowing what’s in store for us on the rest of the album. I can’t say I’m not excited, though. 

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“Fever” appeared first on Jonk Music.

“Lonely Boy” MP3 El Camino 2011 iTunes

Forget about that “Evolution of Dance” guy or the “Double Dream Feet” dude. The real Internet dancing sensation may very well be Derrick T. Tuggle, the 48-year-old actor/musician/part-time security guard currently setting the Web ablaze with his smooth moves in the Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy” video.

For the uninitiated, the clip stars Tuggle — and only Tuggle — as a herky-jerky dance machine who grooves to the Keys’ new single while standing outside a motel room. Over the course of three-plus minutes, as the sleeves of his dress shirt become increasingly unrolled, he cycles through a series of rather amazing moves (and even mimics a few of the lyrics) before triumphantly thrusting his fist skyward as the song comes to a close. It is a decidedly odd, strangely compelling performance, and because of it, the “Lonely Boy” video — the first clip from the Keys’ upcoming El Camino album — racked up nearly 400,000 views in less than 24 hours. It’s also made a rather unwitting star of Tuggle, even though (up until right now), no one knew his name.

But what’s even more amazing is the fact that his star-making turn almost didn’t happen at all, as Tuggle told MTV News on October 27.

“I was cast as an extra, and there were maybe six or seven other people who were supposedly going to be in the video. … I was the first one to perform in the video. It was a motel shot where the guys from the Black Keys come and give me the keys to their motel room,” he said. “The director just sort of noticed me dancing and asked me, ‘Can you perform?’ I said, ‘I can dance, anybody can dance,’ so I took some moves from everybody: John Travolta from ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and ‘Pulp Fiction,’ the Carlton Banks dance from ‘The Fresh Prince’ and a little bit of Michael Jackson, so it was a smorgasbord of everybody in there.

“It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing,” Tuggle added. “My acting teacher Mark McPherson, he has us do this thing before we start class called ‘Song and Dance,’ where he’ll have us sing one of our favorite songs, and then while we’re singing it, he’ll have us do a crazy dance, or a sexy dance, and I guess it spawned from that.”

The end result is most definitely crazy — not to mention rather incredible, considering Tuggle nailed the routine in a single take (“As an actor, you have to know your lines, you have to be ready, so I was,” he explained). And though he’s had music-video experience in the past (he’s done background work in clips for the Dave Matthews Band, Lenny Kravitz and Lloyd), he’s never experienced anything quite like the reaction to “Lonely Boy,” and he’s hoping it will translate to more roles in the future.

“I’m elated, and I’m still in shock, to be honest. I’ve been out [in Los Angeles] for 10 years, pursuing acting and music, so hopefully this will lead to more work,” he said. “Honestly, I just went down there to do my part and see what would happen. Who knew I would take over the whole thing?”

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Right down to the cover art that winks in Howlin’ Wolf’s direction, Brothers is downright dripping with respectful nods to blues and soul past. Yet this is clearly no nostalgia trip. The lithe sounds of The Black Keys’ latest album come hungry and ready to stamp out their place at this very moment. The coarse blues rockers and raw soul grooves are presented in skeletal mixes where the instruments and vocals can spread out as they will and every other crumb of noise settles into its good place.

The bare production style definitely takes influence from Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney’s work with hip hop royalty like Mos Def and RZA, and they seem to have learned much from time spent with Midas touch collaborator Danger Mouse who helmed the recording of Brothers‘ predecessor, the excellent Attack & Release.

But despite one last collaboration with Danger Mouse on the excitable and surprising “Tighten Up” this time out Auerbach and Carney handle the production details personally, and their fare is straightforwardly unsimple and deeply emotionally present. Matching the immediate musical intensity of opener “Everlasting Light” in a surprising way, Auerbach digs up an enticing falsetto that reappears on “The Only One” to glide along nicely with interplay between organ, bass and snippets of guitar. Lyrically hopeful moments like those (and the well crafted Jerry Butler cover “Never Gonna Give You Up”) may show off a positive take on love, but the more contemptuous thoughts on the subject are certainly not shortchanged here. “Next Girl” is a hearty slice of getting past love gone bad, “Ten Cent Pistol” is a classic tale of the scorned seeking revenge and “She’s Long Gone” and “I’m Not the One” certainly make the points implied by their titles. In every case the mood and intensity of the lyrics gets accented and augmented by the dynamic musical lead with which it’s paired. Everything fits in place to up the game of something else, and no part of these finely made blues and soul creations gets a pass on pulling its weight. That’s just how it works for Brothers.

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In its best moments, The Black Keys‘s Brothers is as ferocious and soulful an exploration of contemporary blues as anything in recent memory. It’s also a record that speaks to the duo’s fearlessness, and, at least on initial impression, it suggests that they have moved beyond their “transitional” phase with a new clarity of purpose. For an act as accomplished and progressive as the Keys, that kind of focus and vision makes Brothers one of 2010′s strongest albums.

Having brought in Danger Mouse to produce their previous outing, Attack & Release, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney ventured to the legendary studios of Muscle Shoals for this largely DIY project. Danger Mouse’s sole production credit here, “Tighten Up,” is one of the set’s highlights, underscoring Auerbach’s ragged wails of “honey child” with a scintillating funk groove. But the bulk of the album proves that Auerbach and Carney are at their best when they rely on their own pinpoint-precise instincts. Their production is one of Brothers‘s strengths: Inspired flourishes like the harpsichord on “Too Afraid to Love You” fold effortlessly into the blues aesthetic. The percussion lines are really incidental to the deep rhythm guitar riffs, while the lead electric guitar lines always have ample breathing room.

Brothers gives the Keys plenty of space to roll around in the Alabama clay, and the overall dirtiness and lived-in soulfulness of the album’s sound is perfectly matched to the songwriting. Standout cuts “Next Girl” and “Unknown Brother” trade equally in heartbreak, rage, and regret. Songs like “Afraid” and a jaw-dropping cover of Jerry Butler’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” draw heavily from the vintage R&B sides that made Muscle Shoals famous, and they demonstrate the phenomenal growth in the Keys’s writing. “Ten Cent Pistol” toys with blues conventions with its twisted narrative and vivid imagery: “There’s nothing worse in this world/Than payback from a jealous girl/The laws of man, they don’t apply/When blood gets in a woman’s eye.” Fully coming into their own as songwriters, the Keys do traditional blues tropes better than just about anyone.

The tempo and the quality drag just slightly in the album’s middle section thanks to the sludgy instrumental break of “Black Mud” and the canned backbeat of “The Only One,” but that’s a minor compliant that ultimately speaks to how extraordinary the material that bookends the album is. An album that works as both a blisteringly smart genre study that combines classic and contemporary perspectives on blues, soul, and R&B and as just one hell of a rock record, Brothers reaffirms that the Black Keys belong in any serious conversation about America’s finest bands.

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Ah! What’s that high-pitched needling? Oh, yeah. The purists. They’re put out that The Black Keys are flirting with an out-and-out pop ditty with “Tighten Up,” the whistling-’n’-reverb first single off the duo’s new Brothers. Yet another collaboration with Danger Mouse (who polished up the Akron, Ohio boys’ rubber-city scuzz on 2008′s Attack & Release), it’s held as further evidence that the band is straying from its gutbucket roots.
Further investigation reveals there’s scarce chance of that. The Keys are just diversifying.

Producing the rest of Brothers themselves while soaking up the fatback juju that permeates Alabama’s Muscle Shoals studios, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney dig into the broader continuum of psychedelica, hard R&B, and that great sugar-shack prophet, Marc Bolan, whose glammy T. Rex swagger inhabits the opening “Everlasting Light.”

True, much of Brothers flaunts the retro feel of something off ’70s AM radio, but we can’t imagine how that’s a drawback — especially when it results in swamp dramas as bewitching as “Ten Cent Pistol” or a beautiful chitlin’-circuit homage as committed as “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

It’s a slicker sound, but it’s weird slick. Check out the narcotic haze of “Black Mud” and the blown-tweeter buzz on “The Go-Getter.” It’s a sonic wonderland, we say. As that old blues magus Swamp Dogg would say, they’re not selling out, they’re buying in.

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“10 A.M. Automatic”
from the album Rubber Factory
Original release date: September 7, 2004
iTunes

November 4, 2004:
It’s certainly tempting to write off Akron, Ohio-based group the Black Keys as another one of the seemingly hundreds of the garage rock bands that have sprung up over the last few years. They’ve already drawn many comparisons to the White Stripes, as their band has only two members, Dan Auerbach (guitar and vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). Yet when I walked into the Sahara tent at Coachella earlier this year, I was shocked to see only two men on stage, because it sounded like there was an entire army of instruments on stage. Between Auerbach’s wailing voice, his throaty lyrics, and Carney’s ever-present pounding of the drums, they more than make up for the lack of band members.

On their third album, Rubber Factory, the Black Keys continue their militaristic assault on modern music. In “10 A.M. Automatic,“ Auerbach questions the ever-changing demeanor of his significant other: “What about the night / Makes you change / Oh, from sweet / To deranged?” The duo from Northeast Ohio even attempts a cover of the Kinks’ “Act Nice and Gentle.” Auerbach provides a nice walking bass line that feels like a stroll through the park, while Carney taps the drums in the background. Auerbach’s voice is one of the most unique in recent memory; at times it’s difficult to discern what is being said through the slurring sounds of Auerbach’s throat. But therein lies the band’s main appeal; the raw, unpolished sound gives the album its charm. Rubber Factory manages to bring the soul of the blues to indie rock, thanks in large part to Auerbach’s unique vocals and guitar.

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In practice and in principal The Black Keys consist of just two people, the guitarist-singer Dan Auerbach and the drummer Patrick Carney. But on Attack & Release, their fifth album, they welcome an interloper: Brian Burton, the producer better known as Danger Mouse (or in some circles, as the nonsinging half of Gnarls Barkley). Happily, the results are not just evident but potent. While the sound of this blues-rock duo has been fleshed out, none of its grit has been glossed.

The collaboration originally began when Danger Mouse drafted the Black Keys to write songs for an Ike Turner album, a project that folded after Mr. Turner’s death last year. Signing on later as their record producer, Danger Mouse nudged the duo ever so slightly from their comfort zone. Mr. Auerbach and Mr. Carney, who have recorded much of their previous music in dank basements around their hometown of Akron, Ohio, consented to upgrade to a dusty studio near Cleveland.

Some of the album’s tracks — including a turbocharged lead single, “Strange Times” — bear the ghostly keyboard filigree and ominous drones that have become Danger Mouse trademarks. Others, like “Psychotic Girl,” incorporate a dry twitter of banjo. And a few guests make useful contributions, including the guitarist Marc Ribot and the bluegrass singer Jessica Lea Mayfield. Ralph Carney, Patrick’s uncle (and like Mr. Ribot, a musical compatriot of Tom Waits), plays jaw harp and assorted woodwind instruments.

Of course the meat of the album is in Mr. Auerbach’s searing vocal and guitar work, and to a lesser extent in Mr. Carney’s solid drumming. On a song like “I Got Mine” they get to the core of the Black Keys sound, which has as much to do with Led Zeppelin as it does with the Delta blues. The heavy riffs and boiled-down lyrics flatter both members of the band, and the shifting canvas of the production acts as a shield against monotony.

Intriguingly, the album includes two back-to-back renditions of the same brokenhearted complaint, “Remember When.” One can safely be called a Danger Mouse special, with its moody cadence and murky atmospherics. Then comes the straight-up Black Keys edition: a savage, bitter concoction built on a snarling punk-rock riff.

There’s no question that this second version of the song is better, but it also builds naturally on the first. It’s clear that both readings belong on this record, which could reasonably be considered a shared achievement.

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April 8, 2003:
While the vast majority of post-punk bands who have an obvious taste for the blues seem to enjoy taking the style apart and messing around with the bits and pieces, The Black Keys are the (relative) traditionalists within the subgenre. With their two-piece, no-bass format, there’s no room for clutter or wank, and the raunchy fuzz of Dan Auerbach’s guitar (and drummer Patrick Carney’s production) owes more to the Gories/Blues Explosion/White Stripes school of aural grime than anything else, but look past all that and The Black Keys are a straight-up blues band who could probably cut an album for Alligator if they were willing to clean up their act and fill out the lineup. And Alligator would doubtless be glad to have ‘em — the Black Keys’s wail is hot, primal, and heartfelt, and Auerback’s lean but meaty guitar lines and room-filling vocals drag the blues into the 21st century through sheer force of will without sounding like these guys are in any way mocking their influences. In short, if you’re looking for irony, you’re out of luck; if you want to hear a rock band confront the blues with soul, muscle, and respect, then Thickfreakness is right up your alley. Points added for the fact that The Black Keys performed, recorded, and produced Thickfreakness all by their lonesome in a single day — further proof these guys are not messing around.

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Download an MP3 of “All Hands Against His Own” from Fat Possum Records
[right-click/save-as]

A couple of former lawn care guys in their mid-twenties, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney have somehow stumbled across the formula that combines Morphine’s lyrical economy and mood with the American-bred musical sensibilities of Uncle Tupelo and its feuding offspring. On their third full-length, the Black Keys’ performance sounds like it’s coming from bluesmasters who’ve lived twice as long and seen three times as much.

Rubber Factory — a title that references the former tire manufacturer’s offices in which they lived and recorded the album, but which also calls to mind the songs’ resilient, junky flavor — is a raw, dirty blues and rock romp, with Dan Auerbach’s gruff vocals slurring and slicing their way through stripped-down tales of heartache, bitterness and toughness.

From the hammer-and-anvil, drum-and-guitar plodding beginning of opener “When the Lights Go Out,” we are thrust onto this gritty, dimly lit path. Among the watering holes of modern music, Black Keys is definitely a dive — but it’s a dive with a finely aged bottle of whiskey stashed under the bar. These songs are bitter brews, but they’re easy on the ear and catchy in a worn-down, comfortingly familiar sort of way.

Rubber Factory covers a full spectrum of moods. “Just Couldn’t Tie Me Down” and “All Hands Against His Own” display a rootsy infectiousness, with killer licks and melodies set against tales of solitary defiance. “The Desperate Man” and “Girl is On My Mind” spill over with sultry “hey hey”s and fat bass lines. Meanwhile, “The Lengths” is a wistful, desperate song in which Auerbach utters the ultimatum “Hold me now / or never hold me again” against the whine of a steel guitar. The duo’s cover of the Kinks’ “Act Nice and Gentle” is a loping, twangy tribute.

The blues influences here are heavy — “Grown So Ugly” is a cover of a song by bluesman Robert Pete Williams, also once covered by Captain Beefheart — but modern rock flavors bubble to the surface as well. “10 A.M. Automatic” strongly evokes Wilco’s “Monday,” and there’s a strong sense that Morphine’s Cure For Pain was playing during some of the songwriting sessions.

Rubber Factory wasn’t manufactured — it was home-brewed in the winter-hardened soil of Akron, Ohio. This may be why the Black Keys have swagger without ego. They’ve lived the hardscrabble, up-from-your-bootstraps rock n’ roll life, but they have no pretenses about saving rock music. Whether we let them do it is up to us.

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“10 A.M. Automatic” appeared first on Jonk Music.