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THE BLAKES ROCK, sure, but they also crunch, stomp and howl on their self-titled debut, released in October on Light in the Attic.
The brothers Keim — Garnet (guitar, voice) and Snow (bass, voice) — write and sing the songs; Bob Husak (drums) makes them thump. Together, The Blakes conjure the best of 1960s-era Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, as well as Ryan Adams when he has his A-game and The Hives without the natty suits or irony.
If all that sounds terribly familiar, it is. But just because an old sweatshirt has holes in the elbows and gravy stains on the collar, that's no reason to ditch your favorite bit of comfort wear.
Plus, the ease with which The Blakes' songs slip into your ears, the melodies wedge into your subconscious and the beats wiggle into your booty shouldn't discount the band's ample, if obvious, charms.
The Seattle-based Keims traveled around a long time road-testing these rock 'n' roll gut punches before recording them. And the passionate way these tight bros inhabit their songs — from the maraca-pumped "Two Times" (which supposedly stopped Iggy Pop in his tracks when he overheard it at the SXSW festival) and Byrds-ian pop of "Lint Walk" to The Strokes-like "Don't Bother Me" and "Commit" — is palpable and undeniable.
You'll hear and see the passion of The Blakes at The Red & The Black on Monday night.
Since The Blakes are cooped up in a van, traveling from venue to venue and knocking out tour press like assembly-line workers, Express decided to give the group a respite from boring old questions by offering the band even older boring questions — if you consider "What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?" to be boring, that is.
The questions we asked were pulled from the questionnaires that French writer Marcel Proust answered during two social engagements — at the ages of 13 and 20. While he didn't write the questions, Proust's thoughtful, sometimes melodramatic answers — plus that long-ass book he penned — helped propel the combined questionnaire to the semi-legendary status it holds today: Vanity Fair uses it in every issue, and "Inside the Actor's Studio" host James Lipton busts out a Bernard Pivot-penned variation on the inquiries so the likes of Kiefer Sutherland can groan "gravitas" when asked to name his favorite word.
LOVE MAY BE SIMPLE; Akron/Family is not.
Neither from Akron nor family, the Brooklyn-based quartet creates lovely oddball Americana. All four members — Dana Janssen, Seth Olinsky, Miles Seaton and Ryan Vanderhoof — sing, and the group trades instruments like baseball cards. It's backporch music writ large: The layered melodies and frequent four-part harmonies sound like Brian Wilson producing a Carter Family record after overdosing on the Grateful Dead.
Akron/Family's jam-oriented creed is known as "AK" or "AK-AK" within the band, but it's less a religion and more a shorthand way for the heavily bearded musicians to describe their close-knit nature and improv-friendly approach to intimate-but-grand tunes.
The group is on tour in support of "Love Is Simple," its latest CD for the Young God label, which first released the music of freak-folk guru Devendra Barnhart into the indie-rock wilds.
Since Akron/Family is cooped up in a van, traveling from venue to venue and knocking out tour press like assembly-line workers, Express decided to give the group a respite from boring old questions by offering the band even older boring questions — if you consider "What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?" to be boring, that is.
The questions we asked were pulled from the questionnaires that French writer Marcel Proust answered during two social engagements — at the ages of 13 and 20. While he didn't write the questions, Proust's thoughtful, sometimes melodramatic answers — plus that long-ass book he penned — helped propel the combined questionnaire to the semi-legendary status it holds today: Vanity Fair uses it in every issue, and "Inside the Actor's Studio" host James Lipton busts out a Bernard Pivot-penned variation on the inquiries so the likes of Kiefer Sutherland can groan "gravitas" when asked to name his favorite word.
Seth Olinsky was on the other end of the phone to represent Akron/Family, but his bandmates frequently chimed in with muffled responses from deep within the tour van.
Addison Road