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The Black Keys Alfred McMoore Memorial Endowment Fund

brucini — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 05:59:01 +0000

Most of the press release follows

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Black Keys Alfred McMoore Memorial Endowment Fund supports agency that served bandmates’ friend

AKRON, Ohio (Sept. 17, 2010) – Hometown boys turned international rock stars The Black Keys are paying tribute to the man who made the band what it is: quite literally. The Black Keys Alfred McMoore Memorial Endowment Fund of Akron Community Foundation honors the life of local artist Alfred McMoore – a friend of both guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Pat Carney – whose frequent use of the term “black key” inspired the band’s name.

Community Support Services, an Akron mental health agency, established the fund in June using the proceeds from a November 2009 benefit honoring McMoore, who suffered from schizophrenia and died that September at age 59. In addition to showcasing McMoore’s artwork, the benefit featured a concert by The Black Keys. In all, it raised more than $20,000 to establish the fund, which will be grown over time to permanently support the services that helped McMoore live an active and independent life.

According to agency President Terry Dalton, Community Support Services acts as a safety net for people in the Akron area who struggle with severe and persistent mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, major depression and personality disorders. The agency supports its clients by monitoring them and making sure they get the medical, psychiatric and personal care they need.

Often, caseworkers stop by clients’ apartments to reinforce important life skills such as cooking, cleaning – and, in McMoore’s case – drawing.

“Artwork was his support system,” said security guard and Residential Advisor Darrell Hill, who became one of McMoore’s closest friends at Community Support Services. “No matter what he was going through, he would go back to his drawings and draw and draw and draw. It took him away from everything, kept him out of the hospital.”

While many people find art to be an escape, Stephanie Auerbach, wife of the band’s guitarist and coordinator of the 2009 benefit, said art is especially important for people with mental illnesses. “Having a mental disability has such a social stigma attached (to it),” she said. “Your sense of self worth may get lost in the darkness.” By channeling those feelings into their artwork, many people with mental illnesses find their identity, self-esteem and what she called “freedom from the dark.”

In the art world, McMoore was known as an “outsider artist.” His work was not defined by a particular style or era. Instead, he was recognized for his own distinctive style, which included outlining images – mostly of funeral scenes – and then coloring them in with crayon. Pieces of McMoore’s work are owned by the Akron Art Museum and a museum in France. Others have been displayed in New York City galleries.

Dalton said the fund will be used to unearth and nurture the talents of Community Support Services clients like McMoore.

“Hidden beneath the mental illness, many of our clients have terrific talents, (including) artistic abilities,” Dalton said. “Community Support Services intends to continue to sponsor an art contest and exhibition that will showcase the artistic capabilities of those we serve. Through the Black Keys Alfred McMoore Memorial Fund, we hope to expand this effort to all forms of artistic interest.”

To contribute to the Black Keys Alfred McMoore Memorial Endowment Fund, visit www.akroncommunityfdn.org/contribute. Or, to learn more about establishing an endowment fund at Akron Community Foundation, contact Vice President of Development Suzanne Allen at 330-376-8522. The community foundation can help donors create endowment funds with as little as $5,000, allowing them to impact the community – or a particular organization – forever.

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Alfred McMoore: The Inspiration For The Black Keys Band Name

brucini — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:17:51 +0000

Akron, Ohio, Artist Alfred McMoore has died aged 59. Most people have never heard of him. Those who have (like me) only know of him because of The Black Keys.

Those who have read interviews with the band have invariably seen answers to questions about where the band’s name comes from. Dan and Pat have usually explained ‘black keys’ was a description used by a “schizophrenic Akron artist”. It was something they identified with.

In a heartfelt article about Mr McMoore’s passing, Pat’s dad, Jim Carney evoked the Black Keys band connection:

Mr. McMoore traveled around town on the bus or on his bike and loved to call people on the telephone. Often, there would be 20, 40 or more messages from him on our home phone.

”This is Alfred McMoore,” he would say into the machine. ”Your black key is taking too long.”

The term ”black key” was something he used often.

When my son, Patrick, and Chuck Auerbach’s son, Dan Auerbach, formed a band in 2001, they thought of Mr. McMoore and came up with the name the Black Keys.

When the two later formed a publishing company for their music, they called it McMoore McLesst Publishing, a tribute to a term he often used to describe himself.

Dan and Pat normally just passed over the story of the band’s name and Mr McMoore. Perhaps they were just tired of telling the story in interviews, perhaps out of respect for Mr McMoore’s privacy. Probably the most descriptive and full explanation of Dan and Pat’s affinity with Mr McMoore came in this interview from 2006:

“Alfred McMoore was a retarded schizophrenic,” the soft-spoken Auerbach says from his home. “He lived in a group home and would generally wear at least four three-piece suits, all at the same time, one on top of the other, layered. My dad, who was a folk-art dealer, would try to help him out, to keep him in art supplies and things, so he was around the house a lot when I was growing up.”

McMoore also spent time with the Carney family; initial contact was made when Patrick’s dad did a story on him for a local paper. The drummer remembers McMoore phoning the Carney home constantly in 2001, right around the time he and Auerbach were trying to decide on a name for their band.

“Alfred McMoore has this weird sort of Tourette’s thing going on where he calls people he doesn’t like D Flats and Black Keys,” Carney relates. “I believe that these are things that he despises the sound of — D flats or any black key. It’s funny because, although I don’t know musical scales, I don’t think there’s a D flat [editor's note: there is]. Anyhow, Alfred McMoore had been calling my dad every single day when I was talking to Dan about band names. I said, ‘Hey, what about the Black Keys?’ — and he instantly knew exactly what the fuck I was talking about, because Alfred McMoore called his dad’s house all the time too.”

Both Carney and Auerbach describe McMoore as nothing less than a genius. (For a further sign of their affection and respect, consider that the Black Keys publish their songs under the name of McMoore McLesst Music.) McMoore, who’s still alive and living in Akron, typically worked in pencil and crayon, producing stream-of-consciousness sketches on giant, four-foot-by-sixty-foot rolls of paper.

“You’d have things like funeral trains where Jesus would be playing an electric guitar that was plugged into a Christmas tree,” Auerbach remembers. “That’s the kind of shit that I was raised on — that’s high art to me, which kind of explains my idea about things like guitar playing. It was amazing to watch him do his artwork, because it was something that he taught himself to do. He had his own style and he was completely obsessive about it.”

The rest of the interview is well worth a read. It really lays out Dan and Pat’s own artistic creed. You can see in Dan’s final comment above how the influence of McMoore is personified in his own approach to his music.

Even though most people only know of Mr McMoore through The Black Keys, it seems fitting that fans should mark his passing since he used to attend other people’s funerals – just one of his many quirks appreciated by the Auerbach-Carney families.

RIP, Alfred McMoore.

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