Tag Archives: The Black Keys

Interview: Michael Carney Talks About the Grammy Award Winning Packaging of the Black Keys Album Brothers


(Photo from www.Grammy.Com)

The Black Keys’s art director Michael Carney won a Grammy for the packaging of the the Black Keys’s album Brothers. The Black Keys also won Grammy’s for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Performance By a Duo or Group With Vocals.

I interviewed Michael Carney back in December for an article that I wrote in the Other Paper when he was initially nominated.

Here is the full interview where Mike talks about what is unique about Brother’s packaging, CCAD, Columbus, and more.

Where were you when you found out you were nominated officially?

I was in my apartment in Fort Greene with my friend Mike Swen refreshing the Grammy’s website when my brother called and told me.

Are you going to the ceremony?

Yes.

What was the last official ceremony that you have been to?

I guess graduation from Art School, unless a Trey Songs concert counts.

In this age of downloading…what role do you think art direction plays in what gets purchased, and what gets downloaded?

I have found in the past few years larger labels are actually willing to go over the top when it comes to packaging. It seems like right now it is really easy to get people to listen to your music, but to get people to actually buy it is a whole different story. There are so many bands that seem like they are huge because they get tons of press, but they don’t actually sell any records.

I don’t think good art direction means that a record will sell, but I do think that bad art direction could easily keep your record from selling. Continue reading

The Black Keys vs Vampire Weekend on Colbert

We’re not afraid to admit it – we’ve been posting a lot of Black Keys stuff lately. But what can we say? Band is on a roll.

This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in awhile. Skip ahead to the 4 minute mark if you want. Who is the biggest sell out?

www.colbertnation.com

The Black Keys Certified Gold in the United States of America.

Earlier this week, Billboard Magazine did a feature on the Black Keys. They stated at press time the Keys were at 481,000 sold. Well, it looks like the Black Keys hit the Gold mark in the USA for 500,000 records shipped.

In sports people often argue about stats put up during expansion seasons vs seasons with less watered down competition.. They  argue about rule changes, and in general, the style of the game and  how can one judge one record vs. another…

So it kinda begs the question, What does a gold record mean in 2011?

I don’t think I even have to explain that this is a dying industry. Didn’t Souljah Boy do like 8,000 last week?

The Black Keys on SNL, Sell Ton of Vinyl Too

The Black Keys performed Tighten Up and Howlin’ For You last night on SNL. It was great seeing them on a rare funny episode of the show (thanks Jim Carrey!).

In related Keys news, overall industry vinyl sales were up 14% in 2010 thanks in part to the band:

The 10 top-selling vinyl artists and artists in 2010 were split 60/40 between indie acts and heritage acts. The top three selling vinyl albums were the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” (35,000 units sold), the Arcade Fire’s “Suburbs” (18,800 units), and Black Keys “Brothers” (18,400 units). The top three selling vinyl artists were the Beatles (36,700 units), Black Keys (36,000 units), and Radiohead (30,500 units). (full story)

Here’s a video of the other song they performed last night: Continue reading

2010 Show Memories: Damn, I guess living in Columbus isn’t so bad.

When I sat down to recount my year, I hadn’t even really registered what I got to see. All my friends moved away. I pretty  was miserable.

I spent the majority of the year hanging out by myself.

But now looking back, I was really fortunate this year.

I got to see the Black Keys spread love and become one of the biggest rock bands in America. RJD2 played our 7 Year Anniversary. Jay Electronica came to town and did a really intimate show then got signed 7-8 months later by Jay-z to Roc Nation. I solicited Wavves’ opinion on Psychedelic Horseshit.  I witnessed  what Dame Dash’s guy, Currensy ,was doing the night Jay Electronica signed with Jay-z.  I talked to Bone after a nationally publicized arrest. Well, read away if you want.

1.The Black Keys Lifestyles Community Center August 13th

photo credit-ME

The image source of this tattoo is  from  the cover of Chulahoma,  an ep by the Black Keys. It is on the body of a female that had a family member die of cancer.   The finger pointing it out belongs to Mary Stormer,  Key’s drummer Patrick Carney’s mother.  Mary Stormer’s son and Patrick’s brother,  Michael created the image that is tattooed on this girl.  The girl got this tattoo because Chulahoma was what got her through hard times.

The tribute to Junior Kimbrough IS a blues record.

Mary Stormer, and I explained to the girl that the band would really appreciate this.  Mrs. Stormer told me to take a picture and send it to Michael. The band was onstage so they couldn’t give the girl a hug. Continue reading

Adriana Mundy’s Favorite Albums of 2010

It is indeed that time of year. Well, yes, it is late December aka Christmas/New Years time. However, when most people are trimming trees, dusting off their John Denver and the Muppets Christmas albums and throwing back some egg nog, music addicts/geeks alike are perusing every “Best of 2010” list they can find on the world wide web. That being said…

Two-thousand and ten was quite a whirlwind year for me. I became part of this brilliant music blog, had a crash course in promoting shows and met some pretty special people along the way. It’s safe to say the music released this year all served as an applicable soundtrack as it felt like new albums came out faster than I could digest them.

If you’ve read most of my posts, it’s apparent that I enjoy reporting on international acts that I feel deserve American attention (and also since the rest of the Donewaiting staff do such a stellar job of keeping up on everything).

On top of national and international releases, Columbus’s scene has also kept quite busy this year. Without further ado, here’s my 2010 list:


1. Efterklang, Magic Chairs
Watch: Modern Drift

Reasons why Denmark rules: 1. Efterklang 2.Christiania 3. Legoland


2. Finders Keepers CompilationPomegranates
MP3:Zia: “Helelyos”

Who can resist some 60’s Persian Pop/Funk/Psych?


3. Cate Le Bon, Me Oh My
Watch: Shoeing the Bones

Honestly didn’t know much about Cate before interviewing her earlier this year, now I can’t stop listening to her. (Oh, and this video is really wonderfully weird.) Continue reading

DJ Wick it-the Brothers of Chico Dusty (The Black Keys & Big Boi Blended)

I don’t fuck with Mash-ups much. However, We at donewaiting do love the Black Keys, on some Ohio ish and more. And obviously Big Boi is down with the black Beatles, Outkast. So this blend composed by Nashville’s DJ Wick-it is getting burn as we Xmas shop for plants, rare records, fake weed, Rober Greene books, knives, and vegan food up-grades . The end of Twenty Ten Grey album?
It is really weird because it has scratching on it.

HERE:The Brothers of Chico Dusty (Big Boi vs. The Black Keys)

Robert Duffy’s Favorite Albums of 2010

I had a foolish idea. In previous years, staff members of the site have posted their individual lists, writing about their favorite music of the year. This year I proposed the idea of keeping that tradition but also trying to pull together an official “Donewaiting.com’s Favorite Albums of 2010” list. Using some fancy math I figured we could come up with some sort of list. I mean, just about every publication does it so how hard could it be? Right…?

The biggest complaint I get about the site from people is that the music coverage is all over the place, in more ways than one. One week there’s nothing but Wilco or Times New Viking, the next week it’s all about hip hop. But while this is something some people find distracting, personally I love it. I love being surprised as to what the writers have posted on the site as much as you do. Sure, maybe we could spell check more or when we embed photos more than 1500 pixels wide for no good reason it calls for a heavy load time, but that’s just how we roll. As a famous man once told me, “My typos are a lifestyle choice.”

So after getting a few submissions from the staff, I realized that there was no good way to put all the lists together into one cohesive thing. Seriously, how do you compare Kriegshog to Kanye West? We’re still going to keep them separated because quite frankly each writer comes from such a unique perspective I can’t rank them in any way. So this is the beginning of the list parade. Hope you discover something new, or are maybe reminded about a record you meant to check out but forgot about.

So that brings us to my list, I guess. I typically keep a running list once it gets closer to the end of the year of what I really loved, and then I go to my iTunes and Last.fm libraries to see what I listened to the most…. to see, what the fuck did I even listen to this year in general? I’m getting old.

If I was being honest to myself and to you, the stuff I listened to the most this year was not music but comedy podcasts. WTF with Marc Maron twice a week, Comedy Death Ray, Ricky Gervais, etc etc. And as for live shows, I’ve seen Eugene Mirman perform more times than any other band this year… It helps that he does a somewhat weekly show in my neighborhood, but you see where I’m going with this. Maybe I should be writing for The Laugh Button.

But, music! I still love music. This blog is turning eight years old in a few weeks, I must still love music… Right?????????? Am I writing this list to talk myself into the fact that I still love music? I don’t know. No, I do love music. CANT WAIT TO SEE THE DECEMBERISTS ON MY BIRTHDAY NEXT MONTH… But seriously, I have slowed down a bit on musical discovery and have circled the wagons on albums that I really love… The idea of retaining lyrics, song titles and even melody is a novelty post-MP3 but I would love to start remembering the names of songs without having to use the Shazam iPhone App. The hard drive in my brain is getting full, and I need to make some decisions on how I approach music. If you try hard, you CAN listen to albums during your day to day that haven’t officially been released yet. (That sentence would have confused a lot more people even just three years ago).

2010 was a goddamned great year for music. Here’s my list.


#10 Grinderman, Grinderman 2
Watch: Worm Tamer

If I were 10% of the man that Nick Cave is, I would be a total badass. Right now I’m at about 0.0004 Cave, but I keep hoping that I can pull it off one day.


#9 Sharon Van Etten, Epic
MP3: Love More

This album lives up to its one word title. Simple, raw, and powerful, the record may only be 7 songs but you will hit replay till it bleeds. Continue reading

Video: The Black Keys “Everlasting Light”

YouTube Preview Image

Jenniger Tzar made an unofficial video for Everlasting Light by the Black Keys, whose album Brothers ranked pretty high on Rolling Stones top album’s of the year list.

The band signed off on the video, and now she is ebaying all the props from the video.

From the Black Keys Fan Lounge:

The Black Keys Fan Lounge recently featured an interview with film maker and photographer, Jennifer Tzar, who directed the brilliant video for The Black Keys’ song Everlasting Light.

The video has now been posted and therefore endorsed by The Black Keys to their various Facebook and websites. 28,000+ views of the video later and the call from fans asking to buy the props has clearly been heard.

Jennifer has put the props up fo sale on Ebay here: http://shop.ebay.com/jennifertzar/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

All the props were either handmade or sourced specially for the video. The bidding is bound to be fast and furious. The sale will only go for a week for all items to be sold before Christmas. May the most worthy fan win, or, in reality, the one with the most cash to spare.

CCAD Graduate Michael Carney Nominated For a Grammy For Work With The Black Keys


Mike Carney is from Akron, but between his time at CCAD and work with Columbus Discount Records, Weedsteeler, and art collectives like 3CB/PBJ/BSA, Carney definitely was huge part of Columbus.

The Black Keys got 4 Grammy Nominations in all.

from the Cleveland Plain Dealer

The Black Keys, the blues-rock duo featuring Akron natives Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, received Grammy Award nominations in four categories, including best alternative music album for their latest release, “Brothers.”

The nominations were announced as part of an hour-long CBS special from Club Nokia in Los Angeles that featured performances by nominees such as Mars, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, Train and Miranda Lambert. Winners will be announced on Feb. 13.
The Black Keys’ single “Tighten Up” is in the running for best rock song and best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals, while “Mud” is nominated for best rock instrumental performance.

Carney’s brother, Michael Carney, was nominated in the best recording package category for his art direction on “Brothers.”