All Hands Against His Own - The Black Keys - Rubber Factory - 2004

As I mentioned in my previous post about The Black Keys, I loved the blues as a teenager, but rejected it in the my 20's only to relatively recently re-embrace it. During the heat of the early mid-90's indie rock movement (which pretty much corresponds with the end of my high school/beginning of my college career) there was sort of a notion that we needed to abandon anything that had to do with the corporate beheometh that modern rock music had become. The blues was sort of a part of that. The blues had been co-opted by ageing boomer Eric Clapton, and was the underpinning for all of that flaccid and slick cock-rock that pop metal had become. It was the denizen of classic rock dinosaurs like Zeppelin and God help us all The Doors, or cheesey clothed revisionists like Stevie Ray Vaughn. It was what your middle aged uncle listened to while still insisting he was "cool".

But there is one thing that the blues gets that 95% of mid-nineties indie rock did not, and that is SEX. Put on any Pavement album, any Superchunk or Built To Spill album, and you will find very few songs about fucking. So much overt sexuality had been forced into the music in the 80's and the rise of MTV...combine this with the stringent PC attitude towards traditional gender roles and a generation of kids raised with the belief that the AIDS crisis would turn the future USA into something sort of like Children of Men and you get the almost prudish music of the Alternative Nation era.

I think this is one of the reasons rock lost so many fans to hip-hop during this time. Kids didn't want to hear about how mad we were at corporate oligarchy, or how low our self esteem was cause we weren't cool in high school. They wanted to hear about bumping uglies.

And that's part of why I've re-discovered the blues...thanks in no small part to bands like The Black Keys who can be smart and original in their sound while still working in a style that is now well over a century old...and they don't shy away from the fact that this is music about the things we do late at night with the lights out, or in the back of your grandfather's van in a K-mart parking lot. Really, it's okay to be a little dirty...it's how we all got here...aside of you test tube freaks.

Aeroplane Blues - The Black Keys - Rubber Factory - 2004

So, all in all I had a pretty spectacular weekend, but one of my favorite parts (well, that I'm telling you all about anyway) happened on Saturday afternoon. After watching my beloved Arsenal pull of an amazing comeback (down a man, and two goals with less than 1/2 an hour to play...comeback to win 2-3) I went with my buddy to a local pub and sat in the back yard with a couple of beers. As we basked in victory, I couldn't help but enjoy the kick off of my favorite season of the year...outdoor drinking time. Few things are better in this city than sitting on a sidewalk, in the sun, with a cold beverage and watching the world go by. I love this shit. After the long hard slog that is winter, it's finally time to participate in my favorite past time.

The only thing that could have made the experience better would have been some cool tunes. The Black Keys would have worked. Their laid back bluesy stomp is just about perfect for outdoor drinking. Bring it on, boys.

Act Nice and Gentle - The Black Keys - Rubber Factory - 2004

Back before I discovered punk, I thought I wanted to be a blues guitarist. Teenage Indiana Josh (that's a teenage Josh that lived in Indiana, not some young world hopping archaeologist) would sit in his grandparents basement with a Japanese Strat and a ridiculous Blues Brothers fedora playing pentatonic scales and whining about how the women were doing him wrong. I like The Black Keys, cause their like that Josh never left the blues stage...and actually became good at it.

This particular song is a bit more laid back than usual. They seem to be riding a nice The Band kinda vibe, which I'm all for. I feel like I should be sipping a mint julep on a porch swing.

Damn, I wish it was summer. And I wish I had a porch swing...and a mint julep. Where's a genie when you need one?