The Black Keys Fan Lounge

The Black Keys Do New York: 2 Nights, 3 Concerts

Aug 1st, 2010 by brucini

Never thought too much of The Black Keys was enough, but after a steamy New York affair of 3 shows in 2 days any fan might feel a bit puffed.

The Black Keys’ played Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 July at Summer Stage in Central Park, NYC. On Wednesday night after the Summer Stage show they completed a double header playing after midnight at Terminal 5. To see all the shows was a privilege.

These then are some rambling notes on those shows. It’s not a review. More fumbled reflections in the days after the nights before.

Summer Stage is a festival site, without being at a festival. The stage area is crowned by over-hanging trees. Dragon flies and butterflies flit in the dimming light.

Dan Johnson, Dan Auerbach’s guitar tech, calmly walks the stage preparing the instruments.

Gawd bless the American sense of personal space. It’s easy to squeeze in relatively close to the front of the stage. Each fan likes to be at least another body width away from the next. Odd, but welcomed.

You can buy like 10 beers at once and they even give you a tray to carry them with. Should be enough to last the show, it is broiling hot after all. Too bad each beer costs $7 each.

The sample of GZA’s “Liquid Swords” used to herald The Black Keys’ arrival on stage is inspired. A good heads up before the cheers of the crowd start a surge of excitement that ripples through all.

A different set list is played for each show. The three shows build upon themselves in tempo and reaction to the crowds and venue.

Pat plays the first song of each set with his glasses on. From then on, glasses removed, he never again cares to look at the drums.

The Wednesday show at Summer Stage for some reason is more intense than the Tuesday. The crowd is much more demonstrative.

Tuesday the band break down the tempo and jam, groovin’ through the mid-tempo numbers, where as the Wednesday shows increase intensity and offer a harder/faster dynamic.

At times it looks like Pat is playing jazz licks on his symbols on the slower grooves, just pacing time waiting for the next moment to smash another stick.

The Black Keys are like a New York Hot Dog – they keep their schtick at street level; they don’t pretend to be what they aint; every now and then they change up with a little sauerkraut or extra sauce to keep things fresh.

The Black Keys’ have no groupies. All the fans are rounded up and shooed away at Summer Stage. No one tries to hang back. A Security guy says there were heaps of Groupies for The Flaming Lips the night before.

The Security guy also says the guy who sweeps up all the beer cans at the end of the shows a while back used to be real quick – so many cans, means good money for a dude with a crack habit.

The Summer Stage shows are probably the first/last Black Keys’ shows you’ll ever receive free Zinc pure coconut water with pomegranate berry as you leave the venue.

Jumping a cab to Terminal 5 and being dropped off on a freeway, because the cabbie has no idea where the venue is and doesn’t care, is a perfect NY kiss off. He must like us in a NYC kinda way.

Terminal 5 is a bunker, proper heavy concrete in contrast to the light green leaves of Central Park. Walk inside and it’s a cauldron. Fans hanging from the three levels. The floor-bound fans pressing forward – gone all principles of personal space.

The crowd is so ravenous at Terminal 5. The only way forward for The Black Keys is to seemingly meet the energy, draw from it and re-present it to the fans. They do so.

Dan Johnson still seems calm. Different drum kit set up. Any problem with any gear is dealt to with a fast-paced walk, never a run.

I’m not sure how Dan and Pat are feeling after coming off stage at Terminal 5, their bodies no doubt sapped but hearts’ aglow. 13,000 fans in 2 nights sated.

The band are in such a groove that every show has seemed so dialled in to the moment; it’s clinical but not by rote.

You know you are getting somewhere when the NY Times does a review and photo of your show for the Arts section the day after. Equally, Time Out had a double page spread the previous week.

It’s not all downhill from here, but it’s certainly not going to be as uphill for The Black Keys.

Tags: terminal 5, the black keys summer stage

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MP3: Dan Auerbach Provides Vocals To Freddie Gibbs’ Track ‘Oil Money’

Jul 22nd, 2010 by Jade Luber

It’s not quite Blakroc, but Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys has contributed vocals to Freddie Gibbs’ new track ‘Oil Money’.

Listen to Freddie Gibbs' Oil Money feat. Dan Auerbach here

The Freddie Gibbs track features Chuck Inglish of The Cool Kids, Chip Tha Ripper, Bun B and Dan. Freddie has been compared to Tupac Shakur, and listening to his other tracks, you can hear where the comparison draws from.

Gibbs, Chuck Inglish and Chip Tha Ripper are fairly young artists all having emerged in the last 6 years at most, and Bun B has been active since 1989. Chip hails from Cleveland, and though that may not have anything to do with how Dan became a part of this project, it’s quite interesting — they are all from the midwest (Bun B hails from Texas). All of these artists have a following and have collaborated with artists such as The Bloody Beetroots, Ludacris, Kid Cudi, and M.I.A. Also, it was reported in February that Raekwon is developing a biopic where he wants Chuck Inglish to portray him.

It’s always great to hear about the side projects that Dan Auerbach contributes to. He admits that he is a workaholic, and in the last 9+ years of making music, it would not be surprising to hear a confirmation of Dan alone working with over 20 artists.

In an interview Dan is asked which artists inspire the ‘boxiness’ and ‘crunchiness’ of the Black Keys’ produced sounds, Dan explains:

It’s Wu-Tang. It’s The RZA. Those are those hip-hop records we loved. That’s the reason Pat and I started playing, because we wanted to make recordings on the four-track that sounded like RZA productions. It was literally what we wanted to do. It was our goal. Later on, we realized that a lot of the sounds we heard were late ‘60s recordings that were sampled, like drum recordings. And it was all like this circle, and it all made sense when you picked it apart. For us, it was about the groove. The groove was king and things are still like that for us.

It’s a pleasant surprise to see Dan’s name attached to this track, and hearing it with its lyrics and little things like the keys suggests Dan may have had some creative input. Most rappers and musicians would probably credit the luminaries of Wu-Tang as major influences, so it’s awesome to see 5 artists collaborating and mixing their sounds.

It’s great to see Dan and The Black Keys more involved and exposed within the hip-hop community, and fans seem to be embracing them.

From an interview in November 2009 about Blakroc, Dan states:

Hip-hop is the new rock ‘n’ roll, and anyone who doesn’t think that is living in the past. It’s all just American music when you get right down to it. It all comes from the same place.

Freddie Gibbs’ new album entitled “Str8 Killa” drops on August 3rd.

Tags: the black keys

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The Black Keys: Blues Rock or Rock and Roll?

Jul 15th, 2010 by brucini

What’s in a name? Or a label? Classification of music reflects how society operates. Understanding is seemingly bequeathed by describing something in relation to something else or grouping apparently similar things together and giving this group a name.

A thoughtful musician might better describe a style of music by saying there’s either good music or bad music. For years, or at least their early years, The Black Keys were commonly described as a “blues” band or a “blues rock” band.

It’s been the role of reviewers and journalists to describe or pigeon-hole The Black Keys’ music for their readers. Considering The Black Keys a blues rock band or a rock and roll band is surely an irrelevant and lazy debate to have. Indeed, hadn’t everyone moved on by now? Who really cares? Well, apparently The Black Keys care.

Two recent events have recently peaked The Black Keys Fan Lounge’s interest.

Firstly, Dan Auerbach recently commented in an interview:

“When I listen to our records, I don’t hear blues music,” he says. “It’s ridiculous to say we play blues music.”

It’s been some time since such a clear expression of how Dan perceives The Black Keys sound has been noted. Irrespective of your views on the merits of music classification, a fan could be excused for wondering what they had indeed been listening to all these years.

Secondly, upon scrolling through The Black Keys Facebook page at the bottom of Wall section it is noted, as at 15 July 2010, that:

This might otherwise seem insignificant if it wasn’t the case that the new Genre is now “Rock and Roll”. Unfortunately it’s not possible to note the exact date of this change. However, The Black Keys Fan Lounge did upload a screen grab of The Black Keys Facebook page on 15 November 2009 for a post which clearly shows the band’s Genre as stating “Blues Rock”.

Clearly The Black Keys, or their Management, have:

deemed it important enough to re-position the band’s classification on such an important fan platform as Facebook
the incongruity of recent and past comments about not being a blues band was pointed out in relation to their Facebook Genre
someone just made an error in the classification of the band’s Facebook page and didn’t get round to changing it for a few years.
the band’s sound has now evolved so far, especially in relation to Brothers, that Rock and Roll is now certainly the best description

The Black Keys Facebook Genre – 15 July 2010: