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Best tunes of 2010: #9 The Black Keys “Tighten up”

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I don’t know if you’re superstitious or not. I’m not typically superstitious myself but I certainly believe in The Black Keys curse. Perhaps you’ve had a different experience and if so, please interject. Every time I (or any of my friends) have tried to catch The Black Keys at an outdoor venue, a festival or otherwise, it has rained like a sonofabitch. (And yes, that is the technical term.)

The first time I saw them was at Ottawa Bluesfest in 2011. I had queued up to get as close to the front as I could when the skies opened up. It came so quickly that I was soaked through almost instantly, as was my bag, so it was no use digging out my parka, nor running for cover. This storm was so violent that it, unbeknownst to organizers, likely weakened the integrity of the stage rigging so that when it stormed again the following week during Cheap Trick, the stage came right down. When The Black Keys finally hit the stage that night, it was only to do a shortened set, a fast and furious half hour that included almost no banter with the audience.

The following year, I was at Osheaga in Montreal and they were due to close out the Sunday night. It rained off and on all day but the rain gods were at their most furious during The Shins’ early evening set. It was enough to scare my wife and I and our friends, Jean-Pierre and Shannon, off for the night. Another Black Keys opportunity missed. (Incidentally, my friend Tim was at their show in Toronto the night before and it rained pretty heavily there as well.) I finally got to see a full Black Keys set in 2013, this time, again, at Ottawa Bluesfest. They were energetic and rocking and you guessed it, they were playing to a damp audience, most of whom were wearing rain ponchos or toting umbrellas.

“Tighten up”, or rather the music video for said song, was my first introduction to The Black Keys. I know that they had been slogging it out for years, nine to be exact, before their sixth album, “Brothers” hit the mainstream. The Akron-based duo had built quite the cult following with their raw, blues-infused garage rock but I had been pretty much oblivious to them. I saw the pretty hilarious video one morning on AUX TV, which I’ve mentioned before in these posts on my Best of 2010, and then, the next morning and the next. I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that the catchy number was produced by Brian Burton aka Danger Mouse. Pretty much everything this guy was touching around this time was turning to gold. And “Tighten up” really is pure gold.

Its playful beginning calls to mind a ‘whistle while you work’ type theme but quickly gives way to soul and angst, mostly on the back of Dan Auerbach’s Howlin’ Wolf vocal play. But his raunchy guitars and Patrick Carney’s musclebound drumming certainly don’t hurt matters. You actually wish you had your own drum kit in your living room to bash things out right along with Carney. It definitely sounds like he’s having a blast.

Yes, this is a song worth standing out in the pouring rain for. Enjoy.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2010 list, click here.

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Albums

Best albums of 2017: #3 The National “Sleep well beast”

Four years! I repeat. Four years!

It may not seem like a long time in the grand scheme of things but in this age of musical mass consumption and disposal, it feels almost the equivalent of a decade or more. And that’s how long we’ve had to wait since the last The National record for new material. It was interminable. Bordering on indefinite hiatus. Luckily for us, they made our wait worth the while.

I got into The National with 2007’s “The boxer” and to my ears, the Cincinnati five-piece have, with each successive album, built upon their last, creating new worlds with their music while remaining recognizable and true to their sound. And with “Sleep well beast”, now their seventh record and third since “The boxer”, the critics are falling over themselves yet again with how experimental this record is and how the band has reinvented themselves… again.

I’m not sure about the reinvention bit but it is a fantastic record. It is dark and ambient and rich with layers of sound and Matt Berninger’s baritone. It was this last that was the cause for many early comparisons to Joy Division but I don’t think that anyone would go there now. This music is warmer and livelier, despite its inherent sombre tone, not at all like the claustrophobia imbued in early post-punk. “Sleep well beast” is an album for noise cancelling ear phones set at high volume, like much of The National’s work, and it’s also the sound of the band pushing themselves to the limits on every track.

Okay. Enough of my fan boy blatherings. Have a listen to my three picks for you and let me know what you think.

“Carin at the liquor store”: The piano work at the beginning suggests a conversation walked in upon halfway through, a song that has always been there but only just discovered now. The reverb melts in at some point in the song, putting Berninger out on some higher plane, while he sings about his wife, Carin, and finding the body of a long dead writer in the same breath. A love song unlike one I’ve ever heard. And yet, oh so beautiful.

“The system only dreams in total darkness”:  Maybe it’s the title or maybe the lyrical themes but this tune feels like Pink Floyd at the height of their powers, listening to it, though, you might call me crazy. It’s got a jaunty beat, Matt Berninger’s rich vocals, and is nowhere near as long a tune as Floyd would have it. Still, “The system” is a dark machine with plenty of intricate inner workings that make it go and only become apparent with close observation. Great pop song too.

“Day I die”:  Track two is killer. A manic beat and an ecstatic guitar scream that pushes things even further and faster than I’m sure they are meant to be. The vocals, too, are in a rush, as if Berninger has to get the message across in the limited time he has. But this is a National song, so the message is somewhat blurred by the imagery and the stream of consciousness delivery. If I had to guess, though, I’d say it has more to do with living than dying, and living without hesitation or regret. So don’t delay, get up and dance with The National. You won’t regret it.

For the rest of the albums in this list, check out my Best Albums page here.

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Tunes

100 best covers: #92 Crash Vegas “Pocahontas”

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I did things a little backwards as it pertains to my university years’ accommodations. I won’t go into why I lived off campus for my first two years and then, moved into residence during my third year, but in hindsight, am very glad that was the way things turned out. My grades definitely suffered that year but I made countless memories and met some amazing people. One of these was Bahar, who everyone simply called ‘Boo’, and who lived just a few doors down the residence hall from me and over the course of the year, became my ‘little sister’.

I mention Boo in connection with this cover of “Pocahontas” by Crash Vegas, since it’s likely because of her that it is on this list. I half remember hanging out in her room one afternoon and my mentioning that I had seen the video and how it had stuck with me, despite never really having heard anything else in their catalogue. She immediately pulled a CD copy of “Aurora” off her massive CD shelf and replaced the Beastie Boys disc in the player to put it on. I later borrowed the disc when I was making a mixed tape, pulling this track and “Scarborough” for the mix. And a couple of years later, when I bought a used copy of the album for myself, it was on basis of these two songs.

I’m not terribly familiar with Neil Young’s original and only really knew that the song was a cover because Boo told me so that day. I know he’s done a few versions, ranging from electric to acoustic, and if you’re one of his fans, I’m sure you prefer his original. Crash Vegas, a Canadian alternative rock band that saw some success in the 90s, doesn’t do anything spectacularly different with the song, an acoustic backbone and a spiritual edge, but I do prefer Michelle McAdorey’s soft vocals to the whines of Young. I’ve always appreciated his talent. What makes “Pocahontas” such a great tune is his songwriting, the imagery evoked through astral plane time travel and the connection of cultural figures not immediately plausible, but I could never get past his voice enough to explore his original. I could play this cover on end though, and remember back to 1995 with fondness whenever I do.

The cover:

The original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.