The Black Keys- Let's Rock Review

  "Do you feel like you're the only one living on a prayer?" 

    Lead singer Dan Auerbach croons to the opening of "Let's Rock", the Akron Ohio blues rock duo's ninth album behind fuzz guitar that would make T Rex and Thin Lizzy blush with excitement.

    Make no mistake, this isn't a Bon Jovi album. The prayer the Auerbach and his cohort, drummer Patrick Carney play on could be the absence of their music for the past five years? Will they be relevant in the current state of rock n roll? You can hear in the music these midwestern musicians don't seen to care, and do as their album title suggests. 

   Throwing caution to the wind, the Keys decided to make a record, that's "a homage to the electric guitar," says Carney. The boys from Akron don't disappoint in that regard. No song on 'Let's Rock' is over four minutes long. (A nice detour from their last LP Turn Blue, underrated, however spacey) It's a refreshing restart.

    This is The Black Keys stripped down. It's as if they were locked in a room to listen to 70s glam, garage rock the past five years, and told to make an album.

   From the opening riff of 'Shine a Little Light' to the Twin Peaks inspired "Fire Walk With Me", the album sounds like a tribute to classic rock, while maintaining a modernity that's palpable. 

  The song 'Lo/Hi' has a ZZ Top meets Mott The Hopple sound. 'All the young dudes', and ladies will be rocking this song during summer break. "You get low like a valley then high like a bird in the sky." Auerbach, taking the listener through the highs and lows, sounds better than ever. The Keys take us through a journey of their highs and lows. A real joyous sad song (good oxymoron)  that takes from the well of The Doobie Brothers and CCR is the somber yet sweet "Sit around and miss you." This track is a sweet contrast to Zeppelin-Like tunes "Every Little Thing" and "Eagle Birds" that blare as if the Keys have a fire lit under their creative conscious.

  One of the album's shortest songs "Go" is a coming together for Dan and Pat, who, in the songs lyrics, know they have to make more music. Just go.( A funny video, parodying the duo's contempt for each other as they're sent to a silent meditation, shows them taking acid or LSD together showing them the money to be had.)  A contrast to the fast paced 'Go' is the ryhmically hypnitic "Breaking Down." Here soul meets sway as Dan Auerbach harmonizes with background singers Leisa Hans and Ashley Wilcoxson. They add a layer to the guitar sound, giving each song it's just fullness. No need for keyboards or extra synth with these two.

   Coming in at just under forty minutes and twelve tracks, the three minute thirty second average tracks push through with a sense of urgency in Let's Rock. Even the solos compliment the basic chords not rearing off into blues abyss. 

   I give this album four Akron rubber tires out of five. Buy this album. School's out, and the Black Keys are coming to show you how to have fun.

LET'S ROCK

    

   

A Mini Social Media Sabbatical with The Rolling Stones

I Took A Break From 

Social Media. by Jack Gorbett

 I took a break from social media.

 Eh, it was two weeks. 

In that time I've learned that my behaviors both contributing and retreating from social media can be compared to the band The Rolling Stone's usage of drugs.

In other words, It's intermittent. 

They might have written and recorded their finest music while on it, but I assure you their memory would be hazy.

Now I know what you're thinking. 1.) The Rolling Stones? What is this 1969? and 2.) What's intermittent? 

Mick Jagger couldn't get 'no satisfaction' and I couldn't have my instant shot of dopamine,  scrolling though my Facebook feed like a mad hatter.  

::singing song Satisfaction ::

 "Hey, hey, hey! No likes today!"::

I digress. 

   

Although the song 'Satisfaction' was written some fifty-five years ago the lyrics can aptly apply to today's need to find happiness within the digital age of constant stimulation. Specifically the line:

 "I can't get no satisfaction
'Cause I try and I try and I try and I try."

It's as if the boys from England knew the human condition and could almost ride the zeitgeist wave of tackling consumerism equating to happiness. Not much has changed since 1964 in that regard. 

 Our own Deceleration of Independence gives us the right to pursue happiness, but it says nothing about the right to experience the blues or better yet, sadness . Instead, the author (and many in his day), gave people the blues.

It's no secret that in America if you're not feeling happy then, something is wrong with you. .

A lot of changes happened within that two week time period for me and it was all a learning process to get me through as Prince wisely put, 'this thing called life.' 

And it's all good, with gratitude being the attitude. 

I've been grateful for many things: An amazing supportive wife. A kid who is as lovable as she is kind, a house I can sleep in, and a job that educates me everyday and provides a livable wage. 

When I was in my social media fix much like Keith Richards hooked on heroin during Exile on Main St. I was masking the anxiety of fear instead of facing it head on. 

By the spring of 1971 the Rolling Stones had spent the money they owed in taxes and left Britain before the government could seize their assets. Now this previous  sentence bears no point to the overall ethos of this blog post, nor does it bear substance on my personal  quest to treat social media like reaching out to the mob, i.e. sparingly. 

All I can say is that taking a break here and there has given me what Samuel L. Jackson's Jules Winfield in Pulp Fiction received. 

Now I'm trying to live in the now.

It's a process, and it's one I take day by day with a great sense of relief.