Rock, Metal

Black Keys - Rubber Factory (2004)

2012-05-23T16:27:12Z

Black Keys - Rubber Factory (2004)


1. "When the Lights Go Out"   	3:23
2. "10 A.M. Automatic"   	2:59
3. "Just Couldn't Tie Me Down"   	2:57
4. "All Hands Against His Own"   	3:16
5. "The Desperate Man"   	3:54
6. "Girl Is On My Mind"   	3:28
7. "The Lengths"   	4:54
8. "Grown So Ugly" (Robert Pete Williams) 	2:27
9. "Stack Shot Billy"   	3:21
10. "Act Nice and Gentle" (Ray Davies) 	2:41
11. "Aeroplane Blues"   	2:50
12. "Keep Me"   	2:52
13. "'Till I Get My Way"   	2:31

Personnel
    Dan Auerbach - guitars, vocals, fiddle, lap steel, hand claps
    Patrick Carney - drums, percussion, hand claps

It's easy to think of the Black Keys as the flip side of the White Stripes. They both hail from the Midwest, they both work a similar garage blues ground and both have color-coded names. If they're not quite kissing cousins, they're certainly kindred spirits, and they're following surprisingly similar career arcs, as the Keys' third album, Rubber Factory, is neatly analogous to the Stripes' third album breakthrough, White Blood Cells. Rubber Factory finds the duo expanding, stretching, and improving, coming into its own as a distinctive, original, thoroughly great rock & roll band. With 2003's Thickfreakness, guitarist/vocalist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney delivered on the promise of a raw, exciting debut by sharpening their sound and strengthening the songwriting, thereby upping the ante for their next record, and Rubber Factory doesn't disappoint. Instead, it surprises in a number of delightful ways, redefining the duo without losing the essence of the band. For instance, the production has more shades than either The Big Come Up or Thickfreakness -- witness the creepy late-night vibe of the opening "When the Lights Go Out" or how the spare, heartbroken, and slide guitar-laden "The Lengths" sounds like it's been rusted over -- but it's also harder, nastier, and uglier than those albums, piled with truly brutal, gut-level guitar. Yet through these sheets of noise, vulnerability pokes through, not just on "The Lengths," but in a lazy, loping, terrific version of the Kinks' "Act Nice and Gentle." And, like their cover of the Beatles' "She Said, She Said" on their debut, "Act Nice and Gentle" illustrates that even if the Black Keys have more legit blues credentials than any of their peers, they're nevertheless an indie rock band raised with not just a knowledge of classic rock, but with excellent taste and, most importantly, an instinct for what makes great rock & roll. They know that sound matters, not just how a band plays but how a band is recorded, and that blues sounds better when it's unvarnished, which is why each of their records feels more like a real blues album than anything cut since the '60s. But they're not revivalists, either. They've absorbed the language of classic rock and the sensibility of indie rock -- they're turning familiar sounds into something nervy and fresh, music that builds on the past yet lives fearlessly in the moment. On a sheer gut level, they're intoxicating and that alone would be enough to make Rubber Factory a strong listen, but what makes it transcendent is that Auerbach has developed into such a fine songwriter. His songs have enough melodic and lyrical twists to make it seem like he's breaking rules, but his trick is that he's doing this within traditional blues-rock structures. He's not just reinvigorating a familiar form, he's doing it without a lick of pretension; it never seems as if the songs were written, but that they've always existed and have just been discovered, which is true of any great blues song. Carney gives these songs the production they deserve -- some tunes are dense and heavy with guitars, others are spacious and haunting -- and the result is the most exciting and best rock & roll record of 2004. ---Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

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The Black Keys - Attack & Release (2008)

2012-05-17T15:51:41Z

The Black Keys - Attack & Release (2008)


1. 	"All You Ever Wanted"   	2:55
2. 	"I Got Mine"   	3:58
3. 	"Strange Times"   	3:09		play
4. 	"Psychotic Girl"   	4:10
5. 	"Lies"   	3:58
6. 	"Remember When (Side A)"   	3:21
7. 	"Remember When (Side B)"   	2:10
8. 	"Same Old Thing"   	3:08		play
9. 	"So He Won't Break"   	4:13
10. "Oceans & Streams"   	3:25
11. "Things Ain't Like They Used to Be"   	4:54

Personnel
    Dan Auerbach - vocals, guitars and lots of other instruments
    Patrick Carney - drums and lots of other instruments
    Danger Mouse - Hohner bass 3, Korg and Moog synthesizers, piano, organ 
    Carla Monday - harmony vocals on "I Got Mine", "Psychotic Girl" and "Lies"
    Jessica Lea Mayfield - harmony vocals on "Things Ain't Like They Used to Be"
    Ralph Carney - jaw harp on "I Got Mine", contra bass clarinet on "Lies", clarinet on "Remember When",
     flute and concert bass harmonica on "Same Old Thing"
    Marc Ribot - guitar solo on "Lies" and "So He Won't Break", rhythm guitar on "Remember When (Side A)" and
     slide guitar on "Oceans and Streams"

Back in 2002, it seemed easy to discern which of the Midwestern minimalist blues-rock duos was which: the White Stripes were the art-punks, naming albums after Dutch art movements, while the Black Keys were the nasty primitives, bashing out thrilling, raw records like their 2002 debut The Big Come Up and its 2003 follow-up Thickfreakness. Six years later, the duos appear to have switched camps, as Jack White leads the Stripes down a path of obstinate traditionalism while the Black Keys get out, way out, on their fifth album, Attack & Release. Evidently, their 2004 mini-masterpiece Rubber Factory represented the crest of their brutal blues wave, as ever since singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney have receded from the gnarled precision of their writing and the big, brutal blues thump, they started to float into the atmosphere with their 2006 EP-length tribute to Junior Kimbrough, Chulahoma. Ever since then, the Black Keys have emphasized waves of sound over either ballast or song, something that should be evident from the choice of Danger Mouse as the producer of Attack & Release, a seemingly unlikely pair that found common ground in the form of Ike Turner. Danger Mouse worked with the rock & roll renegade when he produced the Gorillaz's Demon Days and the plan was to have the Black Keys cut an album with Ike but Turner's death turned the project into a full-fledged Keys album.

That's the official story, anyway, but the timeline doesn't quite seem to fit -- Ike died December 12, 2007 and a finished copy of Attack & Release was out in February, which is an awfully short turnaround to complete an album -- nor does the sound of the album seem to fit that timeline, either, as it's elliptical, open-ended, and reliant on the spacy sonics the Black Keys have sketched out since Rubber Factory, so it's hard to imagine where Turner would have fit into this. But it's not hard at all to see how avant guitarist Marc Ribot fits into this elastic mix, as this is the kind of restless, textural roots-aware rock reminiscent of the spirit, if not quite the sound, of Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, two mavericks Ribot has played with in years past. This shift to sound over song has been so gradual for the Black Keys that Ribot's cameo doesn't seem intrusive, nor does Danger Mouse's hazy production feel forced upon the band, it's filled with details so sly they're almost imperceptible. As always, Danger Mouse encourages the band to intensify what's already there, and so Attack & Release willfully drifts, as dreamy, artfully sonic sculptures are punctured by Auerbach's rumbling guitars and Carney's clattering drums. But where the interplay of the Auerbach and Carney always felt immediate in their earliest work, there's a bit of a remove here, with the riffs used as paint brushes instead of blunt objects. The same can be said of the songs, where even the most immediate tunes -- "Psychotic Girl," the B-side "Remember When" -- don't grab and hold like those on the group's earliest records, and they're not really growers either, as the point here is not the individual tunes but rather the greater picture, as everything here weaves together to create a mood: one that shifts but doesn't stray, one that's nebulous but not formless, one that's evocative but not haunting. To be sure, it's an accomplishment and one that showcases the Black Keys' deepening skills but at times it's hard not to miss how the duo used to grab a listener by the neck and not let go. --- Stephen Thomas Erlewine, allmusic.com

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The Black Keys - John Peel Show 2003-05-07

2012-07-17T16:31:37Z

The Black Keys - John Peel Show 2003-05-07


    Plus System - 'Na Na Na (12")' (EvolutionPlus)
    Luciano - 'Love and Devotion (7")' (PowPow)
    The Cranebuilders - 'You Can't Get at Her (EP- Just Idleness)' (Ten People Tall)
    The Black Keys - 'Set You Free' (Peel Session)
    The Soul Lifters - 'Hot, Funky and Sweaty (7")' (Funk45)
    Glenn Phillips - 'Angel Sparks (LP- Angel Sparks)' (Gaff Music)
    Henry Fiat's Open Sore - 'Wanted: Petite Female Born 1972 (EP- Patmos Or Bust)' (Wrench)
    Jindri - 'Jatt Hanio (LP- Jindri)' (Kizmet)
    Of Arrowe Hill - 'Grandmother's Steps (LP- The Spring Hill Penny Dreadful & Other Tales of Morbid Curiosity)' (Must...Destroy)
    Agent Cooper - 'EVA 01 (LP- We Are)' (UnGleich)
    The Black Keys - 'Hard Row ' (Peel Session)
    Carroll Gibbons - 'I'm Stepping Out With A Memory Tonight' (Columbia) - Pig's Big 78
    Smylyssina - 'We Can Fake It (LP- We Can Fix It Remixes)' (Vertical Form)
    Gary Numan - 'Hybrid (LP- Hybrid)' (Jagged Halo)
    Caruso - 'Anna's Dream (EP- You Heard Me)' (Pickled Egg)
    Black, Rock n Ron - 'That's How I'm Living (12")' (Next Plateau)
    The Crimea - 'White Russian Galaxy' (Double Dragon)
    The Black Keys - 'No Trust' (Peel Session)
    Cowcube - 'Sprite'
    Stakka - 'Metalaw (EP- Clockwork)' (Underfire)
    Calamateur - 'Bad Day (EP- Autocity)' (Timshel)
    Beenie Man - 'Bring it On (7")' (South Rakkas Crew)
    The Gay - 'Fishin' Jim (7")' (Mint)
    Laura Cantrell - 'Queen of the Coast (LP- Not The Tremblin' Kind)' (Spit )
    The Black Keys - 'The Moan' (Peel Session)
    Appliance - 'Fruits of the Sea (LP- Are You Earthed?)' (Mute)
    Spectre - 'Brain Damage (LP- Combat Dub)' (Bangarang)

The Black Keys are an American rock duo consisting of vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer/producer Patrick Carney. The band was formed in Akron, Ohio, in 2001. As of October 2011, the band has sold over 2 million albums in the U.S.A.

Peel was an early supporter of the Black Keys, playing their first three albums often during the last two years of his shows. In 2003, the band recorded two sessions, including one from Peel Acres, and also performed a live set in Brighton that was broadcast on the show. Introducing them at the event, JP recalled their earlier visit to his home: "They seemed we thought a little reserved, you know. But afterwards, when they’d finished and we’d finished and the wine started flowing, we got into one of those things – that kind of, 'Hey, but have you heard the b-side?', that kind of stuff, and 'Oh, there’s a track on the LP' – and frankly we wished they’d stayed all week."

On his 24 December 2003 show, after playing their debut Festive Fifty entry, Peel mentioned that he had sent the band Christmas cards. The following year, the Black Keys were traveling to record a further Peel session when they heard of the DJ’s death.

During the band's set on the John Peel Stage at the 2010 Glastonbury Festival, Auerbach paid tribute to the DJ, telling the crowd: We never had anybody like John Peel in the States. You people are really lucky.

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