By Eleni P. Austin
Dan Auerbach is a man constantly in motion. When he isn’t creating music and touring with his tremendously successful band, Black Keys, he is producing other artists or collaborating with other musicians.
Dan Auerbach was born in Akron, Ohio, the son of Mary, a French teacher, and Charles, an antique dealer. Music was a big part of his childhood; his mother’s family were Bluegrass players. In fact he distantly related the late guitar god, Robert Quine, (Richard Hell & The Voidoids, Matthew Sweet, Lloyd Cole).
Access to his father’s vinyl collection fueled Auerbach’s obsession with the Blues. His first concerts were Whitney Houston with his mother and the Grateful Dead with his father. The latter made a bit of an impact, (the former, not so much).
By college Auerbach had so thoroughly immersed himself in the Blues, especially Junior Kimbrough, Robert Johnson, R.L. Burnside and Mississippi Fred McDowell, that he nearly flunked out of school. He decided to abandon academics and concentrate on making his own music.
Returning to Akron, Auerbach played a few shows solo. He set up a recording session with some local musicians intent on making a demo. When they failed to show up, he enlisted the help of high school pal Pat Carney. The pair began jamming (but not in a Dave Matthews way), and by 2001 they had formed The Black Keys.
They signed with the tiny L.A. label, Alive Records and released their debut, The Big Come Up, in May 2002. The album gained a cult following and led to a deal with Fat Possum Records. Their sophomore effort, Thickfreakness arrived in 2003 and the Rock cognoscenti wasted no time anointing Black Keys as the Next Big Thing.
It took about seven years and three albums, Rubber Factory, Magic Potion and Attack & Release before the record buying public caught on to the Black Keys’ stripped-down Blues-based sound. The duo had their commercial breakthrough in 2010 with Brothers, and quickly followed up at the end of 2011 with El Camino.
Brothers featured the hit single, “Tighten Up” and won three Grammies. El Camino peaked at #2 on the charts and also won three Grammies. Suddenly the Black Keys were headlining arenas. Turn Blue, released in 2014 took a bit of a stylistic left turn and added some heavy Psychedelia and a hint of Prog-Rock to the Black Keys’ trademark sound.
Downtime seems like a foreign concept to both Patrick Carney and Dan Auerbach. In between Black Keys albums each continue to create music at a prodigious rate. In 2009, Carney recorded an album playing bass in a group called Drummer, (all the band members were drummers in other bands). He also produced albums for the Sheepdogs, Tennis and Tobias Jesso, Jr.
Auerbach has produced a myriad of artists, most prominently, Jessica Lee Mayfield, Dr. John, Hanni El Khatib, the Growlers, Ray LaMontagne and Lana Del Rey. He also released an amazing solo effort, Keep It Hid in 2009. In early 2015, Patrick Carney dislocated his shoulder, effectively derailing Black Keys scheduled tour.
With a surfeit of time on his hands, Auerbach corralled a few pals and formed The ARCS.
Leon Michaels, Nick Movshon, Homer Steinweiss, Richard Swift and Kenny Vaughan had played with Dan Auerbach on various projects over the years, so a collaboration seemed natural. Recorded quickly in a handful of studios from coast to coast, most of the songs were created in studio, the result is entitled Yours, Dreamily.
A brief intro that combines broken circus music and a spoken word loop touting the powers of “self-hypnosis conditioning” gets the ball rolling. But “Outta My Mind” and “Put A Flower In Your Pocket” really kick the album into gear.
“Outta My Mind” kind of sounds like a frenetic James Bond theme. Thick slabs of reverb guitar crest over a tick-tock rhythm, as urgent organ notes pulsate and quiver. Auerbach’s vocals are gritty but full of emotion, wondering if success can compensate for his broken marriage. “I heard I lost my self-control, everything I did just went and turned to gold/I love the pictures on the wall reminding me what I lost to get it all.” A howly guitar solo feels like a cri de Coeur.
“…Pocket” sputters to life with fluttery keys and scuzzy guitars. Plucked bass lines plink out a languid groove splitting the difference between Trip-Hop and the best Blaxploitation theme you’ve never heard. The lyrics find our hero caught in the crosshairs between duty and honor; “With tired eyes and bills to pay you gotta make it through another day/The streets can see into your soul, it ain’t where ya been, but where you’re gonna go.”
Both “Pistol Made Of Bones” and “Rosie (Ooh La La)” are spaghetti Western combo-platters. The former begins tentatively, as tinkly keys wash over a thwoking see-saw rhythm. Blistering power chords ride roughshod, but the melody powers down, highlighting a dusty guitarron solo that adds to the Wild West verisimilitude.
The latter opens with incongruous “ooh-la-la-la” backing vocals from the distaff Mariachi collective, Flor de Toloache. Skittery percussion and cascading piano notes provide ballast, as Auerbach sings another chorus of the divorcee’ blues. “Crawling through rocks and dust, miss my home so much I could bust/Makin’ time for someone else makes me feel like I could lose myself.” Angular guitar licks provide salve for the psychic wounds.
The best tracks here are “Stay In My Corner,” “Cold Companion,” “The Arc” and “Chains Of Love.” The melody of “Stay…” shares some musical DNA with John Lennon’s romantic mea culpa, “Jealous Guy.” Auerbach affects a sweet soul croon that evokes the Quiet Storm classics of the early ‘70s. Stinging guitar chords are wed to a kick-drum beat. He uses a boxing metaphor as a pledge of fidelity. A searing, bottle-neck solo seals the deal.
Serpentine guitar riffs snake through the melody of “Cold Companion.” Rippling piano fills, a hopscotch rhythm and spacy horns add to the seductive mood. Cryptic lyrics allude to Auerbach’s romantic prowess, but he seems stymied (not in an “Our Gang” way), by the object of his affection.
Growling guitar chords open “The Arc,” which is anchored by a rickety back-beat. On this rollicking outlaw tale, lyrics and vocals take a backseat to Auerbach’s dizzying guitar pyrotechnics. He manages to unleash a series of solos that alternately fuzz, buzz, howl and yowl.
Finally, the sinuous “Chains Of Love” is propelled by sugary keys and liquid guitar notes that recall Malo’s classic Latin R&B hit “Suavacito.” Over Flor de Toloache’s sultry backing vocals, Auerbach is ruthless, bitterly recalling a lover’s infidelity; “I had a cold companion, I knew what she was doing.” Ultimately, even his dour mood can’t dampen the song’s sinewy seduction.
Other interesting tracks include “Velvet Ditch,” a vagina-centric lament accented by sandblasted guitar, congas, keys and a ‘70s sax solo that feels like it should have its own “Porn ‘stache.” Carrying the Dirk Diggler theme a little further, “Come And Go” throbs with the sort of concupiscent sounds that would make Andrea True blush.
Meanwhile, “Everything You Do (You Do For You)” is a bitter kiss-off tethered to a wheezy melody and a clip-clop gait. Using a breathy falsetto, Auerbach takes a selfish lover to task; “The milk inside the fridge it turned, the bridge between us it burned.”
The album closes with “Searching The Blue.” Powered by plunking piano figures, a ghostly drum beat, pedal steel, horns and lush Hammond B3 notes, it’s a guilt-trippy denouement. Auerbach seems to let go of past transgressions, but he can’t resist a final twist of the knife. “War is over now I feel my mind returning, carried on a cloud/Every nerve was burning over you, I never had a need at all for anyone, anyone other than you But now that’s through.”
Creating new music seems like a form of occupational therapy for Dan Auerbach. He shares his woes, but never really bares his soul, it’s all at a cool remove. Although his solo album explored new sonic highways, ARCS hew pretty closely to the Black Keys paradigm, Mariachi accents notwithstanding. “Yours, Dreamily,” is a collection of skillfully rendered songs, crafty and catchy, but they’re missing a crucial ingredient: heart.
