The Music Dude: Stick This In Your Ear!

Someone once wrote: "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture."

True. But I can't help telling you a bit what new stuff and old stuff I've been listening to on my 20GB Rio Karma (PLUG-PLUG):

Rubber Factory by The Black Keys: The Black Keys are a drum-guitar duo from the (midwest)Akron, Ohio who play a new mutation of romp-stomp-blues-rock and if I read one more review eliciting those similarities between them and the White Stripes, this will not be a weblog, but a webpuke (million dollar idea? Anyone know investors?). Rubber Factory is their third album and crinkles with a kind of dirty, fuzzy, stick-to-your-ribs blues mutated through the looking glass of modern, independant music. Made up of Dan Auebach's crunchy-made-to-sing-the-blues voice and guitar work and Patrick Carney's able drumming (two members...that's it!), the music is indeed firmly rooted, without being derivative, in the original African-American blues experience. But Auerbach and Carney have had the further benefit of arriving well after those '70s white rock bands that further Darwin-ised (or ripped off....your choice) the genre while being firmly planted and influenced in the current furtive period in indie rock where many different genres are being revived in a new, exciting and original way. I dare you you to listen to the second track "10 AM Automatic" and not be won over. If you dig the album, go pick up Thickfreakness, the band's previous, if slightly less original, step in their continuing and growing evolution.