THE BLACK KEYS
The Black Keys is an American rock duo formed in Akron, Ohio in 2001. The group consists of Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums). After signing with indie label Alive, they released their debut album, The Big Come Up (2002), which earned them a new deal with Fat Possum Records. The group’s commercial breakthrough came in 2010 with Brothers, which along with its popular single “Tighten Up”, won three Grammy Awards. In 2014, they released their eighth album, Turn Blue, their first number-one record in the US and Australia. (More from Wikipedia)
Bomp! Records would qualify as a mostly underground record label in their early decades; but with the May 2002 release on Alive Records of The Big Come-Up, the debut album by the Black Keys, their artists have a higher profile these days. Not surprisingly, Alive Records has made several special reissues of their hit album, such as the above copy that was released on gorgeous hand-mixed colored vinyl.
Each album by the Black Keys seemed to be more popular than the one before, with 2010’s Brothers (and its top single “Tighten Up”) winning three Grammys and a #2 spot on Rolling Stone’s list of the best albums of 2011; El Camino (2012) leading to the band’s first arena tour; and their eighth and most recent album (and third collaboration with Danger Mouse), Turn Blue (2014) reaching the top of the album charts in the US, Canada, and Australia.
Among the rock bands that have arisen since the Garage Rock Revival began in the early 2000’s, the Black Keys has attained a prominence in the American consciousness that Queens of the Stone Age, the Hives, the Strokes, and even the White Stripes never quite managed. As an example, I have noticed the band mentioned in our local paper twice in the past two or three months. Suzy Shaw of Bomp! Records told me that she was eating lunch in Los Angeles once and overheard several suit-clad businessmen talking about the Black Keys a few tables over.
I have previously noted that the Black Keys were profiled on CBS Sunday Morning several years ago. During their interview, they mentioned that they frequently allow their music to be used for commercials and other similar purposes. They kept expecting to hear cries of “sellout!”, but they never came. Wikipedia mentioned: “The band continued to gain exposure through continued song licensing, so much so that they were Warner Bros. Records’ most-licensed band of the year [2010].”
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Dan Auerbach (guitar, vocals) and Patrick Carney (drums) both grew up in the Akron, Ohio area and met when they were 8 or 9 years old, becoming friends in high school. Auerbach was beginning to make a name for himself in local clubs and asked Carney to help him with a demo so that he could branch out into other communities. None of the other musicians that had been invited showed up for the recording session, so the two jammed together instead, eventually forming a duo called the Black Keys in mid-2001.
In an interview on the National Public Radio radio program Fresh Air, as reported in Wikipedia: “The group’s name ‘the Black Keys’ came from an artist diagnosed with schizophrenia, Alfred McMoore, that the pair knew; he would leave incoherent messages on their answering machines referring to their fathers as ‘black [piano] keys’ such as ‘D flat’ when he was upset with them.”
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After making a six-song demo and sending it to a dozen or so record labels, the Black Keys signed with Alive Records, since they were “the only label that would sign [them] without having to see [them] first” (according to Wikipedia). Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney recorded the entirety of The Big Come-Up on an 8-track tape recorder in Carney’s basement, accentuating their raw blues rock sound. They released one single from the album on Isota Records, the blues standard “Leavin’ Trunk” backed with their cover of the Beatles song, “She Said, She Said”. At a later date, another track from their debut album, “I’ll Be Your Man” was used as the theme song for the HBO series Hung.
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The Black Keys signed with Fat Possum Records for their next two albums, Thickfreakness and Rubber Factory (I picked up a copy of the latter album on vinyl in Atlanta a few years back). Continuing their lo-fi ways, Thickfreakness was recorded in a single 14-hour recording session and again in Patrick Carney’s basement. Wikipedia notes: “Time later named Thickfreakness the third-best album of 2003.” For their third album, the Black Keys set up a recording studio in a former tire-manufacturing plant in Akron (hence the name, Rubber Factory).
Even with the resources of a major record label available to them (Nonesuch Records – associated with Warner Bros. Records and originally founded as a budget classical music label), the Black Keys returned to Patrick Carney’s basement for their fourth album, Magic Potion (2006).
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The cover of their breakthrough album, Brothers has a plain appearance and simply states: “This is an album by the Black Keys. The name of this album is Brothers.” The cover of their hit single “Tighten Up” has similar packaging. (This is not the same song as the 1968 hit by Archie Bell and the Drells also called “Tighten Up”). According to Wikipedia: “Inside the package, the album's disc was coated with a thermal film that changes colors (black and white) at different temperatures.” Remarkably, Patrick Carney’s brother Michael Carney, who has designed the album art for all of their records, won a Grammy in 2011 for Best Recording Package for Brothers.
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Besides his work with the Black Keys, Dan Auerbach has had several side projects and has released two solo albums. He handled the production duties for the three albums by past UARB Hacienda. From Wikipedia: “In addition to winning several Grammy Awards as a member of the Black Keys, Auerbach received the 2013 Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Non-Classical for co-producing his band’s 2011 album, El Camino, and for producing records by Dr. John (Locked Down) and Hacienda.”
Dan Auerbach toured with a band called Fast Five in 2009 that included the four bandmembers from Hacienda plus percussionist Patrick Hallahan from the band My Morning Jacket.
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The terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 included a shooting by three men armed with assault rifles inside the Bataclan Theatre during a concert performance by Eagles of Death Metal, claiming 89 lives. Dan Auerbach and his band the Arcs had a concert in Paris on the same night at another nearby venue, Le Trianon.
About this experience, Dan Auerbach said: “I know people that were there last night. I know people who are like, ‘What am I gonna do – see the Arcs or the Eagles of Death Metal?’ And I’ve woken up feeling very out of sorts. What do you call it, survivor’s remorse? Why the hell did it happen there and not where we were playing? I’m just so brokenhearted about all those people.”
(June 2017)
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