It’s only days until The Black Keys’ new single Lonely Boy, off the El Camino album, is released. Time enough to reflect upon Tighten Up, the first single off the Brothers album, and how it was repeatedly and endlessly remixed, mashed, and reimagined.

It’s almost a mark of a successful song that it should attract this meme-like attention. It’s something that also fostered its success. It’s certainly never occurred to any other Black Keys song to this extent. In this respect it will be interesting to see whether Lonely Boy or another tune gets the love from aspiring producers and rappers and is treated this way.

It maybe the case that Tighten Up had the sweet whistling and backbeat that lends itself to this appropriated treatment. Certainly most of the tracks on Brothers were forged with a drum and bass groove at their core.

Of course, the whole remix mentality of The Black Keys got a big kick along when DJ Wick-It mashed Brothers with rapper Big Boi’s album Sir Lucious Left Foot: The Son of Chico Dusty.

It’s difficult to wade through all these tracks below, but The Black Keys Fan Lounge thought we’d conduct our own unscientific poll for the remix/mash-up that fans most like. We’ve excluded a bazillion cover versions around and have tried to include the better mash/remixes.

Yes, there’s even a “drumstep” remix to vote for.

Vote here for your favourite here:

The Black Keys vs. Outkast – Tighten Up vs. Rosa Parks (DJ Unit Blend) by DJ UNIT

Tighten Up (Remix) – Hoodie Allen & The Black Keys by Mark Kwams

Black Bug by Wick-it the Instigator

Phrase – “Tighten Up” (Black Keys cover) by CHARTattack

Hard To Kill Back Home (The Black Keys+ Wu-Tang Clan+ Fort Minor) by renegadeEighty8

Tighten Up The Problems (Black Keys + Jay Z “99 Problems”/”Tighten Up”) by i.david.baker

The Black Keys – Tighten Up (Crunch Theory’s Mayhem Mix) *FREE DOWNLOAD* by CRUNCHTHEØRY

The Black Keys – Tighten Up (Halbnote Remix) by Basti Who tf?!

Tighten Up (DCs Finest Remint) by fortknoxfive

E-LEV-8 – Tighten up (Rmx)(Re-Mastered) by E-Lev-8

Get Tight (Roughcut) by SandySpink

Lil Wayne Vs The Black Keys – Tighten Up Sweet Girl (Swaytek Mash-up) by Swaytek

Tighten Up The Lockdown (The Black Keys vs. Kanye West) by Stan Manson

Related posts:

1. Listen: ‘Tighten Up’ Off The Black Keys’ New Album ‘Brothers’
2. Video: Watch ‘Tighten Up’ Off The Black Keys’ Album ‘Brothers’
3. The Black Keys and Blakroc Mash Ups

It might be an unconscious thing for some bands, for others a very conscious moment. The first song on an album sets a tone or sends a message of intent.

Like a setlist at a live show, album song order is usually very deliberate, someone has to ascribe the order afterall. Therefore it’s a conscious act. In thinking about the first songs on The Black Keys albums we are being conscious of the consciousness.

The album is a collection that sits together; it’s not just a random amalgam. The song order will take you on a trip through that collection, increasing the pace or lowering the tempo, changing the mood, influencing how the listener reacts. The first song is key is setting some of those expectations. As band’s grow and think more about their legacy, so too does their attention these details.

Dan and Pat were raised in a pre-iTunes era where the lore of the album experience was important. It would be surprising if they didn’t consider the first song as part of that experience.

Traditionally when listening to an album preview in a record shop you couldn’t just skip through to the next track if you didn’t have access to the record player, tape or cd player. You were forced to listen in song order. The first song therefore assumed greater importance. The online generation just has the opportunity to skip and personalise, listening to a 30 second preview before moving on, deciding to buy or otherwise. Some of the first song influence is therefore lost or not recognised, all songs become a first song.

The one-two punch, soft-loud dynamic. Part of the album experience is to draw the listener in by setting a mood, theme or simply by reducing the volume to get the listener to lean in and concentrate. The second song on an album might then be the two punch. If you think about some of the one-two combinations on The Black Keys’ albums this is perhaps prescient:

Everlasting Light > Next Girl

When The Lights Go Out > 10am Automatic

All You Ever Wanted > I Got Mine

Maybe when the new album drops, listen to the first track and try and imagine the rest of the album before listening to it.

The first songs off The Black Keys’ albums:

The Big Come Up – Busted
Listen to Busted here

Busted is a cover of the RL Burnside track Skinny Woman albeit with different lyrics. With many covers on this album Dan and Pat are adding themselves firmly to a tradition, with their own  particular identity.

Thickfreakness – Thickfreakness
Listen to Thickfreakness here

Thickfreakness is a body punch attack that doesn’t relent. This signature tune still opens live shows. The power of the song is a template for the album and representative of a clear confidence and arresting desire to be noticed.

Rubber Factory -When The Lights Go Out
Listen to When The Lights Go Out here

Slow tempo blues shakes up the generally straight ahead approach on Thickfreakness. This slow burning tune holds back, slowly showing its layers. The same could be said of the album.

Magic Potion – Just Got To Be
Listen to Just Got To Be here

Get ready to rock. Straight ahead riffage, looping around and around. The rest of the album doesn’t much change.

Attack & Release – All You Ever Wanted
Listen to All You Ever Wanted here

Reminiscent of Rubber Factory, slow tempo. I Got Mine follows up. Like a foot in both camps, the band trying to break free and then still delivering what is seemingly expected of them.

Brothers – Everlasting Light
Listen to Everlasting Light here

The album where vocally Dan risked alot and succeeded. What better way to set the mood and shake up fans old and new than with a falsetto-esque vocal treatment to Everlasting Light. You knew immediately you were about to hear something different from that which had preceeded it.

Related posts:

1. MP3: The Black Keys’ Radio Recordings 2007-2008
2. Blakroc: Instrumental Versions
3. The Black Keys: Rarities, Un-Released, B-Sides

The Black Keys Fan Lounge has long enjoyed the live sessions recorded for the This Morning Becomes Eclectic show on KCRW radio in the USA.

You can hear The Black Keys on the show in 2003 and 2008 here.

Here’s a new document for the file. The two sets and interview brings us up to date wth the Brothers offering with the addition of Chop and Change and the ever fiery Your Touch. The interview is hilarious at times. Would you expect anything less?

The version of She’s Long Gone is fantastic, as it always is live, before effortlessly segueing into a moody Ten Cent Pistol.

Enjoy.

Setlist:

• Everlasting Light
• Next Girl
• Chop and Change
• Howling For You
• (interview)
• Tighten Up
• She’s Long Gone
• Ten Cent Pistol
• Sinister Kid
• Your Touch

Listen here:

Watch here:

Related posts:

1. Listen: The Black Keys Live on KCRW Radio 2003 v 2008
2. Video: The Black Keys’ Coachella Festival Live Performance
3. Listen: The Black Keys’ On NPR World Cafe Session and New York Times Popcast Live

This is a guest post by Fan Lounge forum member GrownSoFugly

***********

The first Black Keys album I ever bought was Thickfreakness.  I popped it in and was immediately clocked in the face by the power of that gritty chainsaw guitar.  Then I looked at the track listing and laughed out loud.  “Hurt Like Mine”?  “Hold Me In Your Arms”? “I Cry Alone”?  Seemed a little… sensitive for such a badass sound.  I’ve since learned that as a lyricist, Dan Auerbach is obsessed with love.  He writes about everlasting devotion, rump-doin’, love as an anti-drug.  More often, though, he’ll write about unrequited love, love lost, and all that other distasteful stuff in between: manipulation, deception, infidelity, loneliness, uncertainty, and the pain of letting go.

Although The Black Keys like to claim that the music they make is not blues, the thematical influence is undeniable.  Working off of the blues template of melancholy and sadness, Dan specifically likes to write about the crazy shit that desperate women do.

One of my favorite tracks off of that album is “No Trust”: Listen to No Trust here

She wanna get outta the car

And she ain’t got trust in you

In the middle of the road

And her screaming and hollerin’

Is getting mighty old

She check every paper

When you step out the room

Ain’t go no trust in your mama

Ain’t got no trust in your daddy

Ain’t got no trust in your sister

The song is essentially a biography of a troubled woman whose distrust of her lover is so acrimonious that it pollutes the relationship.  It’s catchy, and it’s interesting.  Why is she so suspicious of him?  Did he do something to destroy her faith in him?  But her distrust seems to be of everybody, so was it someone else who shattered her certitude?  Is she the same girl that the narrator saved from a tumultuous relationship in “Set You Free”?

Now you look and there you go back to him, he’s gonna do you in

Tear you down and run you around

Treat you wrong and then he’s gone

Wait… so is this the same girl from “Midnight In Her Eyes”??

You never thought about going wrong

Now you wonder where your man has gone

Midnight is in her eyes

Lately you’re feeling low

Heartache on the floor

Your manic ways have got the best of you

But your heart is gonna see you through

So there’s a girl that has an old wound that refuses to heal.  Her crippled sense of self worth has resulted in an inability to trust and the tendency to, well, be a little crazy.  Oh, and she has long amber hair!  We meet her again in Rubber Factory on “10 A.M. Automatic”, a tale of a nighttime transformation “from sweet to deranged” and a next morning getaway.  To me, it describes a girl who looked for comfort (or validation?) in a stranger’s bed and found instead more uncertainty and disappointment.  Kind of a crazy-girl’s version of coyote ugly.

I see darkness cover us

And your car kicks up dust

What about my ways makes you doubt

All these words from my mouth

Sounds familiar.  This apparent theme of an unusual girl’s insecurities bulldozing a path of destruction through men continued to pop up sporadically (did she extinguish “The Flame”?  Was she one of the accusational birds on the wire in “Strange Desire”?  Was it for her that he went “The Lengths”?), until the her grand re-entrance in “Psychotic Girl” from Attack & Release:

I heard you threw your man around

Picked him up just to put him down

It’s a shame cause I always knew

It’s just the way you’re gonna do

He’s frustrated with her, but even more so with himself.  He’s let her play games with his emotions one too many times and he’s sick of it.   He’s pissed and he’s kicking himself for his naivete.  The following track, “Lies”, laments the false promises of this psychotic girl.  In “Things Ain’t Like They Used To Be”, she leaves him with seemingly heartless abandon.  The whole album reeks of break-up, contempt, and determination to never again fall for the manic ways of this girl with a path of destruction behind her.  This resolution doesn’t seem to have been set at naught, though, as her appearances in Brothers are only in hindsight.  She could definitely be the self-doubting “ex-girl” in “Next Girl”:

I wanted love but not for myself

But for the girl so she could

So she could love herself

And I’m convinced the violent jealous rage in “Ten Cent Pistol” was also the work of this psychotic bulldozer girl.  It seems as though the narrator has learned his lesson, but the girl has not.  She continues to let her insecurities send tidal waves of drama in all directions, while he’s renewing his vows to stay the hell away from her.  As an album, the motto of Brothers seems to be, “Warning:  Women are psycho-bitches and will lead to nothing but pain, suffering, and regret”.  Which is no surprise, considering the obvious destruction that this woman has caused Dan or someone very close to him.  I’m sure her story isn’t quite over yet, although I do hope that the next chapter we hear is just an Epilogue, not an oops-I-did-it-again.

Whoever she is, she’s great song-writing fodder.  For the passions she stirs, and for her relatable familiarity.  We all know this woman, and we all know a man caught in her web.  She’s insecure.  She’s whiny.  She’s close-minded and stubborn.  She creeps through his text messages while he’s in the bathroom.  She stalks every female friend of his on Facebook.  She interrogates him when he goes out with his friends.  She thinks she’s fat.  She gives ultimatums.  She’s convinced he’s cheating on her with his secretary.  And the cleaning lady.  Also the Starbucks barista, the woman in 4B, and that girl who smiled at him that one time on the subway.  She probably has Daddy issues.  She definitely has trust issues and her favorite game is one of emotional blackmail.  She makes the rest of us girls look bad.

She goes after guys in rock bands.

So what do we take from all this?  Is there a lesson to learn from the mistakes of two young, naive musicians?  There’s always a lesson, and today’s is an important one so listen up:

No matter how tempting her thickfreakness, don’t ever stick your dick in a crazy!

Related posts:

1. The Black Keys Leavin Trunk vs Keep It Hid Song Lyrics
2. Blakroc Lyrics
3. The Black Keys iTunes Essentials

These recordings previously broadcast by the respective radio stations listed span a time period in the career of The Black Keys between the Magic Potion and Attack & Release albums. They were all freely broadcast, they are reproduced here for the record.

Radio recordings are generally of a much higher quality than any other live recordings. What’s more these sessions are by their nature limited since the band cannot regularly do these type of live recordings. They either simply don’t have the time, too much of a good thing reduces their impact, and most radio stations don’t have studio facilities.

For those fans yearning for some rarities and older tunes in the current live set list, there are some treasures here.

The Strange Desire segue into The Flame is impressive. Would be great to hear that again live alike the Busted segue into Stack Shot Billy that is currently being played live.

Trainspotters will love hearing I Got Mine in its variations, previously The Black Keys’ most recognisable tune.

The cover Here I Am, I Always Am has always been sparsely played so its great to hear that again. The Black Keys Fan Lounge previously featured the KCRW session in this post which included an interview. The Black Keys Fan Lounge has also previously featured a 2003 BBC recording of The Black Keys here.

Live on NPR/WXPN – 18 April 2007

Listen to Your Touch here

Listen to You're The One here

Listen to Strange Desire / The Flame here

Live on NPR/Out Of The Garage – 23 May 2008

Listen to I Got Mine here

Listen to Same Old Thing here

Listen to Strange Times here

BBC Maida Vale Studios – 12 August 2008

Listen to Same Old Thing here

Listen to Strange Times here

Listen to I'm Glad here

Listen to Psychotic Girl here

Listen to I Got Mine here

Live on KCRW Morning Becomes Eclectic – 31 March 2008

Listen to Same Old Thing here

Listen to Remember When (Side B) here

Listen to Girl Is On My Mind here

Listen to I Got Mine here

Here I Am, I Always Am here

Listen to Oceans & Streams here

Listen to Strange Times here

Listen to 10am Automatic here

Big fat hat tip to JR

Related posts:

1. Blakroc: Instrumental Versions
2. The Black Keys’ John Peel Radio Sessions
3. The Black Keys: Rarities, Un-Released, B-Sides

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

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.

Related posts:

1. MP3: Free Download Of The Black Keys’ Track ‘Ohio’
2. MP3: The Black Keys’ Radio Recordings 2007-2008
3. Was The Black Keys’ Track Next Girl Inspired by Frankie Seay And The Soul Riders’ Soul Food?

All bands are influenced by other bands and artists. The Black Keys are no different. They sit within a broad blues legacy where to cover and re-interpret standards and licks from other artists is to pay an artistic tribute. It’s not a question of ripping off or copying; to think like this is to simplify and generalise.

In paying tribute, a band might take a riff and build upon it; they might treat a hook with their own equipment in turn changing the sound; they might take a lyric and re-write it whilst retaining a song’s musicality. The Rolling Stones effectively built a career on it, but they also added much to that tradition and to particular songs. A good example of this by The Black Keys would be Thickfreakness vs I Cried Last Night by Junior Kimbrough.

Robert Quine, guitar legend, once said to his cousin Dan Auerbach, “Everything I do is just a variation on Chuck Berry.” He was, of course, joking. But Dan might say the same thing about Junior Kimbrough, Howlin Wolf, Mississippi Fred McDowell, T-Model Ford and Muddy Waters to name a few.

Pat and Dan have always been very upfront about their musical influences from their earliest interviews. The influences are there so there’s no point in denying them for the band, it’s, in a sense, a matter of paying respect to markers on a journey:

Auerbach’s musical taste leaned more toward the blues than rock ’n’ roll. “I would raid my father’s record collection,” Auerbach says. “He had a lot of old blues albums — like Son House, Robert Nighthawk, Junior Kimbrough, and T-Model Ford — so I was into that stripped-down blues thing. I really got into it,” he adds. “I was just in my own little world with this blues music. And that’s pretty much what I got obsessed with. But my dad also had a lot of Motown, like Otis Redding, shit like that that definitely influenced me. Definitely.”

The Junior Kimbrough influence has been well documented elsewhere. Dan has consistently acknowledged the  influence that soul singers like Curtis Mayfield had on the recording of Brothers. Less well known is Muddy Waters influence on the band. Yet if you were to re-listen to Muddy Waters’ Electric Mud album you understand how the idea of taking traditional sounds and letting the influence of technology distort and re-invent a sound can be so appealing to a band like The Black Keys’. Electric Mud’s electrified psych-blues sound was radical for its time: it re-created a blues sound and artist into something recognisable but different. You could perhaps say the same thing about aspects of Brothers and how The Black keys’ have transformed many of the songs they have been influenced by.

If anything it’s important to remember that what in turn makes The Black Keys identifiably their own band and sound is that they take their influences, tip their hat to them, and then sound like something that is essentially themselves. It’s a point Mark Neill, Brothers sound engineer, has previously pointed out on this site, regarding the Mambo Sun vs Everlasting Light tracks, which bears repeating since it could be said about any of the songs noted below:

It’s in the tradition of the late-Sixties feeling. It reminds me of the best things that you would ever like about a T-Rex record – over three records worth you would pick all these little aspects you liked. But it doesn’t sound like any one song. It doesn’t really have a time stamp on it, it’s pretty timeless.

Listen to these earlier releases by artists who have influenced The Black Keys’ and The Black Keys’ own recordings. What other songs have been missed?

Mambo Sun vs Everlasting Light

She’s Long Gone vs She’s Alright

Busted vs Skinny Woman

Thickfreakness vs I Cried Last Night

Hold Me In Your Arms vs I’m In Jail Again

The Moan vs Poor Boy

If You See Me vs Sugar Farm

Hat tip to forum members mdevans and Delta King for drawing attention to these songs.

Related posts:

1. The Black Keys: Rarities, Un-Released, B-Sides
2. MP3: The Black Keys’ Radio Recordings 2007-2008
3. Blakroc: Instrumental Versions

The Black Keys being added to the Twilight movie soundtrack created some deal of angst for some fans. Black Keys’ fan Jade Luber brought some semblance of balance and reason to all the emotion in this recent post: The Black Keys Sell Out? But forgetting about all the hype, what about the actual song ‘Chop and Change’?

‘Chop and Change’ appears to be recorded during the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio sessions in August 2009. The Nicole Wray backing vocals are a give away.

No doubt it is one of those tracks that wasn’t quite ‘finished up’ or worthy to make the cut with the other 15 on the Brothers album. At 2 minutes 26 seconds it’s not exactly a slow burner, more a work in progress from the sound of it. It’s nevertheless expressive of the time and place; another song about a hard done by girl.

‘Chop and Change’ has a delicious piano line flowing through it . More interestingly, as has been pointed out by forum member Kepnerb, the original guitar riff appears to have been developed during recordings for the Blakroc album. You can hear Dan playing the riff on bass during the NOE webisode 6 (see below).

The Black Keys  never seem to be too sentimental about their music – it’s recorded, released, move on. This one just happened to be moved on to a Twilight Soundtrack for release.

Blakroc Webisode 6

Related posts:

1. Listen: The Black Keys Live on KCRW Radio 2010
2. Blakroc: Listen to ‘Keep Off The Fuckin Flowers’ featuring Raekwon with The Black Keys here
3. Blakroc: Listen to Pat Carney on Triple J Radio

Hearing an interview is always the best – I say this everytime, but it’s true. You get to understand how a conversation, in this case, can move from discussing Kalamazoo to Guns n Roses in 10 minutes.

The Black Keys Fan Lounge has featured many Triple J radio interviews over the years. This is certainly one of the funnier ones. Being a Black Keys interview it’s as ecletic as ever.

Dan talks with The Doctor on Triple J Radio’s drive show about:

• Kalamazoo
• Blakroc
• Recording Thickfreakness in 12 hours
• Frank the Dinosaur
• Music gear
• Ultimate Fighting
• Space
• High School Years
• The Brothers name
• The Black Keys’ first gig
• Everlasting Light – a one take vocal
• Guns n’ Roses

Related posts:

1. Listen: Dan Auerbach Interview on Triple J Radio
2. Blakroc: Listen to Pat Carney on Triple J Radio
3. Blakroc: Listen To A Very Cool Interview with The Black Keys on Sirius Satellite Radio

The Black Keys’ recent visit to National Public Radio and the New York Times to record live performances. Listen to a mix of interview and live performance streamed live to air.

Sit back and enjoy. Enough said.

NY Times Arts Beat:

NPR:

Have a look around Dan’s home studio, Akron Analog, while you are at it

Related posts:

1. Strange Times Live Video
2. Listen: The Black Keys Live on KCRW Radio 2010
3. Blakroc: Listen To A Very Cool Interview with The Black Keys on Sirius Satellite Radio