Hard-hitting Black Keys are keeping it simple
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 14, 2006
Drummer Patrick Carney is getting ready to go out on tour with his band The Black Keys, but he's lacking one piece of key equipment before he hits the road.
“I've gotta go buy pants,” admits Carney, talking via phone from his home in Akron, Ohio, where he was born and raised. “I've got one pair of pants. I usually bring two pairs total on tour, so that way I can wear each pair for like four days. I usually don't even take deodorant. I usually just take Old Spice. That will cover up anything. I don't mind smelling really bad on tour. We're not very hygienic or fashionable.”
The Black Keys – Carney and childhood friend Dan Auerbach – create no-nonsense rock: just drums and guitar, ripping gritty rock 'n' roll. The Akron-based duo may not be the most hygienic band on Earth, but their honest rock makes no excuses. Auerbach's distorted slide guitar riffs and white-boy-soul vocals sidestep pretense and fashion in favor of earnest blues.
Hailing from the midsized Midwestern city, the pair met as kids and attended the University of Akron before dropping out to pursue music full time.
“It's like a cross between 'Family Ties' and 'Roseanne,' ” says Carney of his hometown. “Akron's a cool place. It's very laid-back, mostly because there's nothing to do.”
The Black Keys' straight-ahead sound stems from the band's stripped down recording process. Carney and Auerbach hunker down in the drummer's basement, controlling every aspect of an album's conception.
“For our first record, 'The Big Come Up,' the advance on our record deal was zero dollars,” Carney says. “We had zero dollars. So I got a credit card and went to Guitar Center and bought a digital recorder. So we basically realized (that) for $1,000, we could have unlimited time to make a recording. It may not be the best quality, but we'd have a lot of time.”
Complete with fuzzy, blissful blues guitar and unadulterated buzzing drums, a Black Keys recording defies the modern idea of a crisp, clean recording.
“I was happy having my drums being completely in mono and not being able to actually hear anything except the white noise of the cymbals,” Carney says. “And I still feel that way.”
For their current album, “Magic Potion” (released this month on Nonesuch Records), Carney and Auerbach have perfected the art of home recording. The disc staggers through 11 dusty tracks, sounding like they were born from bloodied, blistered hands.
The Black Keys come from a relatively small town, which spurred the band's DIY attitude. Even though “Magic Potion” is the duo's fourth album, they still record their own albums in their own basement and in their own way.
“Rather than taking an advance from a record label to go give it to somebody else, we take our advance and save most of it and buy a nice microphone,” Carney says. “And maybe an extra pair of pants. We just don't want our sound to be compromised. We don't ever want to be recorded so we sound like Phil Collins.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Massive Attack in N&D
Massive Attack always looks for new ways
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 14, 2006
Located on England's western coast, the city of Bristol bristles with half a million people, a crossroads between white and black people, reggae and punk, soul and Brit pop, hip-hop and drum 'n' bass, digital and analog. In the early 1990s, all of these aspects converged into one genre called trip-hop.
“It's hard to explain why it's been such a fertile area,” said Robert Del Naja, wondering aloud about Bristol and trip-hop, a genre he helped define with his group Massive Attack. “One thing I go back to is that period of time – the late '70s, early '80s. If you wanted to not be part of the commercial club scene, there were only a few clubs you could hang out at where black and white people would hang out. The punk scene was quite integrated with the reggae scene – punks listening to reggae DJs and vice versa.
“It was a community of people that cast themselves as outside the establishment, by choice or by the color of their skin,” continued Del Naja, speaking from a gig in Copenhagen as The Cardigans blared in the background. “Then along came hip-hop, which was another rebellious kind of art form. It was a period that a lot of people drew inspiration from.”
Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky. These artists defined the “Bristol sound,” using technology to splice together the building blocks of hip-hop beats, coupled with a spacey dub sensibility and soulful jazz diva vocals.
“When we all started out, being in a small city and being quite competitive in a small music scene, everyone wanted to be respected as a unique component instead of being a part of something else,” Del Naja recalled. “When the term 'trip-hop' came out, we were all grouped together. But we all wanted to be seen as unique and individual.”
Despite wanting autonomy from others in the scene, Del Naja deemed the term “trip-hop” appropriate: “I thought it was a good description of music which obviously used the hip-hop technique in terms of recording and construction of the music, but at the same time went off on a tangent and was more of a psychedelic trip.”
Del Naja and partners Grant Marshall and Andrew Vowles released their first full-length “Blue Lines” in 1991 (with British singles “Unfinished Sympathy” and “Daydreaming” featuring the vocals of Shara Nelson), but didn't truly find their classic down-tempo sound until 1994's “Protection.” The album featured a more moody, introspective sound with the smooth rhymes of Del Naja and the growling raps of Tricky offset by the beautiful vocals of Everything But the Girl's Tracey Thorn.
Massive Attack continued to hone its trip-hop sound on 1998's “Mezzanine,” sliding into darker musical territory, this time without Vowles' collaboration. Sound manipulator Neil Davidge helped craft the album's eerie vibe, while Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser added her angelic choruses. After a long hiatus, the group released “100th Window” in 2003, which failed to recapture their signature bittersweet down-tempo aura.
Soundtracks (“Danny the Dog” and “Bullet Boy”) and a greatest hits compilation (“Collected”) this year have kept Massive Attack busy the past few years, along with a high-profile appearance at this year's Coachella. The duo is currently working on a new release, tentatively titled “Weather Underground,” which Del Naja expects to be released next year.
Until then, Massive Attack will continue to find new ways to expand their music through technology. Del Naja believes tech and music will always be intertwined, and future musical innovations will come through the use of technology.
“I think that (technology) is a great tool to embrace,” said Del Naja, who performs at SDSU's Open Air Theatre Wednesday. The current North American tour is the band's first since 1998. “And I think that a lot of bands these days use the technology just to record their music and use it to mix a bit. But they don't use the technology to (mess) around with their tracks and branch out a bit, to be adventurous and take things apart. Music in general could use a bit more creative use of technology.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 14, 2006
Located on England's western coast, the city of Bristol bristles with half a million people, a crossroads between white and black people, reggae and punk, soul and Brit pop, hip-hop and drum 'n' bass, digital and analog. In the early 1990s, all of these aspects converged into one genre called trip-hop.
“It's hard to explain why it's been such a fertile area,” said Robert Del Naja, wondering aloud about Bristol and trip-hop, a genre he helped define with his group Massive Attack. “One thing I go back to is that period of time – the late '70s, early '80s. If you wanted to not be part of the commercial club scene, there were only a few clubs you could hang out at where black and white people would hang out. The punk scene was quite integrated with the reggae scene – punks listening to reggae DJs and vice versa.
“It was a community of people that cast themselves as outside the establishment, by choice or by the color of their skin,” continued Del Naja, speaking from a gig in Copenhagen as The Cardigans blared in the background. “Then along came hip-hop, which was another rebellious kind of art form. It was a period that a lot of people drew inspiration from.”
Massive Attack, Portishead, Tricky. These artists defined the “Bristol sound,” using technology to splice together the building blocks of hip-hop beats, coupled with a spacey dub sensibility and soulful jazz diva vocals.
“When we all started out, being in a small city and being quite competitive in a small music scene, everyone wanted to be respected as a unique component instead of being a part of something else,” Del Naja recalled. “When the term 'trip-hop' came out, we were all grouped together. But we all wanted to be seen as unique and individual.”
Despite wanting autonomy from others in the scene, Del Naja deemed the term “trip-hop” appropriate: “I thought it was a good description of music which obviously used the hip-hop technique in terms of recording and construction of the music, but at the same time went off on a tangent and was more of a psychedelic trip.”
Del Naja and partners Grant Marshall and Andrew Vowles released their first full-length “Blue Lines” in 1991 (with British singles “Unfinished Sympathy” and “Daydreaming” featuring the vocals of Shara Nelson), but didn't truly find their classic down-tempo sound until 1994's “Protection.” The album featured a more moody, introspective sound with the smooth rhymes of Del Naja and the growling raps of Tricky offset by the beautiful vocals of Everything But the Girl's Tracey Thorn.
Massive Attack continued to hone its trip-hop sound on 1998's “Mezzanine,” sliding into darker musical territory, this time without Vowles' collaboration. Sound manipulator Neil Davidge helped craft the album's eerie vibe, while Cocteau Twins vocalist Elizabeth Fraser added her angelic choruses. After a long hiatus, the group released “100th Window” in 2003, which failed to recapture their signature bittersweet down-tempo aura.
Soundtracks (“Danny the Dog” and “Bullet Boy”) and a greatest hits compilation (“Collected”) this year have kept Massive Attack busy the past few years, along with a high-profile appearance at this year's Coachella. The duo is currently working on a new release, tentatively titled “Weather Underground,” which Del Naja expects to be released next year.
Until then, Massive Attack will continue to find new ways to expand their music through technology. Del Naja believes tech and music will always be intertwined, and future musical innovations will come through the use of technology.
“I think that (technology) is a great tool to embrace,” said Del Naja, who performs at SDSU's Open Air Theatre Wednesday. The current North American tour is the band's first since 1998. “And I think that a lot of bands these days use the technology just to record their music and use it to mix a bit. But they don't use the technology to (mess) around with their tracks and branch out a bit, to be adventurous and take things apart. Music in general could use a bit more creative use of technology.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
Greg Laswell in N&D
Laswell does a nice balancing act
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 7, 2006
'Sing,” Theresa says. “Sing happy things.”
“Theresa is my grandma; she passed away when I was 13,” recalled San Diego singer-songwriter Greg Laswell. “She's the happiest person I think I've ever come into contact with. Her life was really hard, but she had this energy to her. Nothing really got her down. She had this underlying joy about her all the time, which made quite an impact on me even after all these years.
“I dreamed about her one night, and in the dream she kept saying over and over to me, 'Sing happy things.' So I just stole it from her and put it in a song.” The song, “Sing, Theresa Says,” is the opening track on Laswell's major-label debut “Through Toledo.” Backed by cascading guitar riffs and Laswell's world-weary vocals, the chorus contemplates balancing life's tough times with the hope of simply singing a happy song.
Rewind 13 years.
Born in Long Beach, like Theresa, Laswell journeyed to San Diego in 1993 to attend Point Loma Nazarene University. After earning a degree in communications, the musician kicked around with a few bands before landing in Shillglen. When the group couldn't afford to buy pricey studio time, Laswell began to learn the art of home-studio recording.
His home recording led to his first solo disc, “Good Movie,” which won a 2004 San Diego Music Award for Best Local Recording, and jobs producing and recording local artists like Anya Marina, Molly Jensen and the Derren Raser Band.
His collaboration with Marina (also a DJ on FM 94.9 as well as a fine songwriter in her own right) pushed Laswell to expand his horizons and explore a record deal.
“We had this informal workshop we started, and each time she came over, I would show her another song,” said Laswell. “She really started to push me. I'm not very ambitious for the sake of being ambitious. I need someone to prod me a bit. I was very lucky in this process – friends and family – that were pushing me to see how far this could go.”
Pushing and prodding led Laswell to a deal with Vanguard Records, along with a publishing deal with Sony. And it led to the release of “Through Toledo” and the beautiful single “Sing Theresa Says.”
Singing happy things soon turned into a tall task and a tough order. Laswell wrote “Through Toledo” in the midst of a tangled divorce. Gradually, Theresa's plea to sing happy things took on deeper meaning, giving the entire album an inner tension and turmoil that drives the album's 11 tracks.
“It's basically a breakup album,” said Laswell, who performs with a full band Tuesday at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. “But the biggest surprise has been when you resurface out of the dark little studio. On this tour, people have been coming up to me and telling me about what they've been going through. It has nothing to do with anything that I originally wrote about. So it's become a full circle, healing thing. I'm just lucky to be in the loop.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 7, 2006
'Sing,” Theresa says. “Sing happy things.”
“Theresa is my grandma; she passed away when I was 13,” recalled San Diego singer-songwriter Greg Laswell. “She's the happiest person I think I've ever come into contact with. Her life was really hard, but she had this energy to her. Nothing really got her down. She had this underlying joy about her all the time, which made quite an impact on me even after all these years.
“I dreamed about her one night, and in the dream she kept saying over and over to me, 'Sing happy things.' So I just stole it from her and put it in a song.” The song, “Sing, Theresa Says,” is the opening track on Laswell's major-label debut “Through Toledo.” Backed by cascading guitar riffs and Laswell's world-weary vocals, the chorus contemplates balancing life's tough times with the hope of simply singing a happy song.
Rewind 13 years.
Born in Long Beach, like Theresa, Laswell journeyed to San Diego in 1993 to attend Point Loma Nazarene University. After earning a degree in communications, the musician kicked around with a few bands before landing in Shillglen. When the group couldn't afford to buy pricey studio time, Laswell began to learn the art of home-studio recording.
His home recording led to his first solo disc, “Good Movie,” which won a 2004 San Diego Music Award for Best Local Recording, and jobs producing and recording local artists like Anya Marina, Molly Jensen and the Derren Raser Band.
His collaboration with Marina (also a DJ on FM 94.9 as well as a fine songwriter in her own right) pushed Laswell to expand his horizons and explore a record deal.
“We had this informal workshop we started, and each time she came over, I would show her another song,” said Laswell. “She really started to push me. I'm not very ambitious for the sake of being ambitious. I need someone to prod me a bit. I was very lucky in this process – friends and family – that were pushing me to see how far this could go.”
Pushing and prodding led Laswell to a deal with Vanguard Records, along with a publishing deal with Sony. And it led to the release of “Through Toledo” and the beautiful single “Sing Theresa Says.”
Singing happy things soon turned into a tall task and a tough order. Laswell wrote “Through Toledo” in the midst of a tangled divorce. Gradually, Theresa's plea to sing happy things took on deeper meaning, giving the entire album an inner tension and turmoil that drives the album's 11 tracks.
“It's basically a breakup album,” said Laswell, who performs with a full band Tuesday at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach. “But the biggest surprise has been when you resurface out of the dark little studio. On this tour, people have been coming up to me and telling me about what they've been going through. It has nothing to do with anything that I originally wrote about. So it's become a full circle, healing thing. I'm just lucky to be in the loop.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
Ivan Neville in N&D
How to create an 'awesome band'
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 7, 2006
Ivan Neville currently lives in Austin, Texas, but his home will always be in the Big Easy. Hailing from the talented Neville family, Ivan and his kin are synonymous with the rich musical heritage of New Orleans.
The son of Aaron Neville, Ivan grew up surrounded by musicians well-versed in the traditions of the Crescent City. His father's band, the Neville Brothers, practically invented swamp funk and soul. Ivan himself started playing with the legendary brothers as a teenager.
“I grew up with music all around me,” said the 34-year-old keyboard player and vocalist from New Orleans, where his band Dumpstaphunk is recording a new album. “All my family was pretty into music, so it was pretty cool. I watched them do their thing for a long time. When you watch somebody that close, you see the mistakes they make. You learn from their trial and error. That's who I am. That's where I'm from.”
After receiving tutelage in the Neville Brothers, Ivan served as a journeyman musician with Bonnie Raitt's band, Rufus, Keith Richards & the Xpensive Winos (check out the excellent “Talk Is Cheap”) and the Spin Doctors.
But a last-minute call to perform at the classic New Orleans Jazz Fest led Ivan to form his own band, Dumpstaphunk.
“We came together about three years ago,” said Neville. “I got the opportunity to play Jazz Fest. So I put together this band, and it turned out to be Dumpstaphunk. We won the Best Funk Band in New Orleans at the Big Easy Awards, and we had only played like nine gigs. Everybody involved in this band loves doing this. So we figured we should find more time to devote to the Dumpstaphunk thing, because it's an awesome band.”
In New Orleans, most musicians moonlight in many different gigs. It's tradition. Along with Ivan's busy schedule, the band's other members also keep a busy calendar. Bassist Nick Daniels (Neville Brothers, Etta James), drummer Raymond Webber (Trey Anastasio, Joe Sample), bassist Tony Hall (Trey Anastasio, Dave Matthews) and Art Neville's son Ian on guitar (Funky Meters, Neville Brothers) have to scramble for time to devote to Dumpstaphunk.
But the Neville family torch has been passed to Dumpsta-phunk, and these guys have big shoes to fill.
“It's a natural evolution of family and music,” said Ivan. “We're just getting started with this band. We just got the torch in our hands. So we're ready to grab the torch and run with it a little while ourselves.”
With the most devastating natural disaster in American history ($30 billion in damage) just a year in the rearview mirror, Ivan is still feeling the pain of Hurricane Katrina.
“It's a year after the storm, and there's still a lot of work to be done,” said Ivan. “A lot of people are making a huge deal about the one-year anniversary. But really it's kind of sad, because a year later some of the same (stuff) is going on that was going on three months after the storm. A lot of people are still without homes. You have probably a third of the population here (in Austin), and a lot of people are not coming back.”
But Ivan and Dumpstaphunk are on a crusade to bring good times New Orleans funk to the world: “All we can do as musicians is write songs, play a little music and try to keep the spirit alive.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
By Chris Nixon
For The San Diego Union-Tribune
September 7, 2006
Ivan Neville currently lives in Austin, Texas, but his home will always be in the Big Easy. Hailing from the talented Neville family, Ivan and his kin are synonymous with the rich musical heritage of New Orleans.
The son of Aaron Neville, Ivan grew up surrounded by musicians well-versed in the traditions of the Crescent City. His father's band, the Neville Brothers, practically invented swamp funk and soul. Ivan himself started playing with the legendary brothers as a teenager.
“I grew up with music all around me,” said the 34-year-old keyboard player and vocalist from New Orleans, where his band Dumpstaphunk is recording a new album. “All my family was pretty into music, so it was pretty cool. I watched them do their thing for a long time. When you watch somebody that close, you see the mistakes they make. You learn from their trial and error. That's who I am. That's where I'm from.”
After receiving tutelage in the Neville Brothers, Ivan served as a journeyman musician with Bonnie Raitt's band, Rufus, Keith Richards & the Xpensive Winos (check out the excellent “Talk Is Cheap”) and the Spin Doctors.
But a last-minute call to perform at the classic New Orleans Jazz Fest led Ivan to form his own band, Dumpstaphunk.
“We came together about three years ago,” said Neville. “I got the opportunity to play Jazz Fest. So I put together this band, and it turned out to be Dumpstaphunk. We won the Best Funk Band in New Orleans at the Big Easy Awards, and we had only played like nine gigs. Everybody involved in this band loves doing this. So we figured we should find more time to devote to the Dumpstaphunk thing, because it's an awesome band.”
In New Orleans, most musicians moonlight in many different gigs. It's tradition. Along with Ivan's busy schedule, the band's other members also keep a busy calendar. Bassist Nick Daniels (Neville Brothers, Etta James), drummer Raymond Webber (Trey Anastasio, Joe Sample), bassist Tony Hall (Trey Anastasio, Dave Matthews) and Art Neville's son Ian on guitar (Funky Meters, Neville Brothers) have to scramble for time to devote to Dumpstaphunk.
But the Neville family torch has been passed to Dumpsta-phunk, and these guys have big shoes to fill.
“It's a natural evolution of family and music,” said Ivan. “We're just getting started with this band. We just got the torch in our hands. So we're ready to grab the torch and run with it a little while ourselves.”
With the most devastating natural disaster in American history ($30 billion in damage) just a year in the rearview mirror, Ivan is still feeling the pain of Hurricane Katrina.
“It's a year after the storm, and there's still a lot of work to be done,” said Ivan. “A lot of people are making a huge deal about the one-year anniversary. But really it's kind of sad, because a year later some of the same (stuff) is going on that was going on three months after the storm. A lot of people are still without homes. You have probably a third of the population here (in Austin), and a lot of people are not coming back.”
But Ivan and Dumpstaphunk are on a crusade to bring good times New Orleans funk to the world: “All we can do as musicians is write songs, play a little music and try to keep the spirit alive.”
Chris Nixon is a San Diego music writer.
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