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Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
After a stormy 2024, the Black Keys are still a band on a mission
Earlier this month, the band delivered its 13th LP, ' Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Carney, 45, recently called the Globe from his South Carolina home to chat ahead of the band's show Advertisement Q. For the new album, you worked with songwriter Rick Nowels in Nashville. The title and overall vibe feels like, 'I'm down, but coming back.' Especially songs like 'Down to Nothing' and 'The Night Before.' A. That's a lyrical theme on a few songs. After the [expletive] we had to traverse last year — it was heartbreaking. Because 'Ohio Players' was a record we'd put so much time and work into. It's probably, for me, [one of the] top three albums we've ever made. I just felt like the album was cursed. So we made another one. Advertisement We reached out to Rick, and it was a masterclass. Rick said, 'Come to the studio with titles.' One of the first songs we wrote was 'No Rain, No Flowers.' Dan had the title; we reverse-wrote the song. Q. You said this album was influenced by your 'Record Hangs.' A. We've been doing these 'Record Hangs,' where we take our 45s and basically throw a dance party. We don't call it DJing because we don't beat-match or any of that [expletive]. It's really about showing an eclectic mix of music. This record is representative of all the things we're listening to. 'Man on a Mission' is, I don't want to say boogie rock, but the kind of rock Dan and I prefer to listen to most of the time is that magical moment between '69 and '74. Q. The homemade feel of your ' A. He's an actor. I'm still in touch with him, Derrick Tuggle. The real story is we hired Bob Dylan's son to direct the video – Jesse Dylan, super nice guy. We spent two days shooting this video, starring Bob Odenkirk. But it was just kind of clunky. We remembered, distinctly, this extra. We knew they got a whole take of him dancing — somehow he'd memorized the lyrics after one listen. We said, 'That would be great —just that.' It took a lot of convincing. But it's still our most popular video. We essentially spent $85,000 to make that . Advertisement Q. You two have known each other for about 35 years. You met when you were 9 and Dan was 10. A. He lived five houses down from me, in this little enclave in Akron. It was closed-off, [with] little traffic, so kids had freedom. There was a park, a ravine – we'd venture into the woods and set firecrackers off, play stickball. It was very 'Stand By Me.' I knew Dan from trading baseball cards and stuff, but he was quiet, played soccer. Then in high school, our younger brothers knew we were into music and said, 'You guys should get together.' Dan came over with his guitar, mentioned he was into R.L. Burnside. I said, 'Oh, I have an R.L. Burnside record.' His eyes lit up. . .I wasn't even a drummer. It just became us learning our instruments, how to write songs. It's been like that ever since. Q. What started you on drums? I read that you cut off part of your pinky finger, which hindered you on guitar. A. I cut the tip of my left pinky cutting carrots. I'd lied about my age to get this dishwashing job — they thought I was older, so they let me start cooking. . . I lost feeling in my pinky. Playing guitar felt weird. I worked my ass off to buy a cheap drum set and four-track cassette recorder. My friends would come over. Half the time I was the worst guitar player there, so I'd get sent to the drums throne. Which was fine — I just wanted to make something cool. Advertisement Q. Was that chemistry there between you and Dan from the start? A. From the start. Partly because I didn't know how to play drums. It wasn't until we started working with [producer] Danger Mouse that I even considered trying to keep straighter time. Then we got to this point, after four albums: 'What if we didn't consider how we could play it live as a two-piece?' And that's when we started getting successful. [laughs] I've always said, as long as I'm making something I like, I'll be fine. The one thing we've never done is make something we don't like just to resonate with a bigger audience. That's how you make a lot of money. For me, that would be the definition of selling out. Q. Any Boston memories? A. My greatest Boston memory: we were on a van tour during the 'Thickfreakness' era and showed up at the Paradise [Rock Club]. The owner's like, ' He said maybe two words the whole night, played the whole set with us, packed up and left. I've never talked to him again. He probably thought we were smug assholes, but we were just incredibly shy. We were 23. Interview was edited and condensed. THE BLACK KEYS With Gary Clark Jr. At MGM Music Hall at Fenway, 2 Lansdowne St., Boston, Saturday, Aug. 16, 7:30 p.m. Tickets: $80 - $114. Advertisement Lauren Daley can be reached at ldaley33@ Follow her on Twitter and Instagram at .
Boston Globe
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Cambridge writer Peter Mendelsund isn't afraid to make you feel bad
Advertisement His new book, (The characters partake in Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Mendelsund will discuss both new releases in conversation with WBUR editor Tania Ralli at Advertisement Q. " Exhibitionist" — which is subtitled '1 Journal, 1 Depression, 100 Paintings' — is a unique book. How did you land on that structure? A. I had the opportunity to publish a hundred paintings as an art monograph, but I was tired of purely visual books. I was captioning it, and felt like, 'Oh this is so dull.' I started looking at the journals because I was working on the paintings at the same time I was writing my diary. Right around that moment, I had a conversation with my recently deceased mother in which she said, 'I hate memoirs; they're so exhibitionist.' As soon as I heard that word, I was like, these two things can be married, right? Because [the journal] is this deeply personal, personal book about guilt and shame, and to put it out into the world does feel so exhibitionist. She just said that word, and everything opened up. The thing I'm most proud of in this publication moment is the serendipity of this form. Q. Toward the end of your journal, you wonder if seeing all of the paintings in a show would help you understand what it was you were doing as an artist. Did you arrive at an understanding? A. None whatsoever. The whole thing is mysterious to me. I have no idea how any of it happened. The amazing thing is that whenever this book is talked about, the narrative is that art saved me or the recuperative power of art therapy. Advertisement I believe in that. It's extremely valuable. But in this case, that's not what happened. Art didn't save me. Art was something that just came out of me during this period. It kept my hands busy. When you're depressed, you have to be reminded to put food in you or get out of bed. It lubricated my joints. Quite literally. Also metaphorically, but it just meant that I could be distracted and my body would just do the things that bodies — undepressed bodies — do during the day. In the end, what saved me is a diagnosis, proper medication, a lot of therapy, and the love of my family and friends. Painting is just an interesting byproduct, like sweat or tears. Cambridge-based Peter Mendelsund's "Exhibitionist," a collection of journal entries and original art created during the Covid-19 pandemic. Provided Q. You mention having the idea for 'Weepers' in a journal entry in 'Exhibitionist.' Do you think of these books as being in conversation with each other? A. They speak to one another in so many ways. On the most obvious level, they're sad books. There's some sense of hope at the end of both, but these are both books that are contending with deep sorrow, family trauma, and national tragedies of various kinds. I don't think it's a stretch to think we're living through an age where the primary emotions are either anger or tremendous numbness, just a total lack of compassion. It seemed like there was never a better time for this idea of there being people who help other people feel things. Q. The most skilled weeper in 'Weepers,' the 'Kid,' arrives mysteriously and is almost too powerful — he gets people too in touch with their emotions. But, while central to the plot, there's very little about him in the book. How did you approach that? Advertisement A. One of the things about a miracle is that it's inexplicable. And this is a book about a miracle. So it needed to be inexplicable. I wanted him to be flat. I wanted him to be a cipher. And it just seemed absolutely crucial to me. There were moments where I tried to write more into his story, and it just didn't work. It made the miraculous less plausible. If you want origin stories, that's what the Marvel Cinematic Universe is for. People perform miracles, and it's explained exactly who they are and where they got their powers. I can totally understand how, as a reader, it would be frustrating not to know. Even writing it, it's frustrating for me not to know. But I don't really mind that. I like the challenge. I don't want to answer questions. I want to raise them. Q. The setting of 'Weepers'— a rural desert town in the Southwestern US —simultaneously feels very strange and very familiar. How did you think about it? A . It's a parable, but I could picture this place very clearly in my mind. Whether it's Arizona or Texas or New Mexico, I could see the environment. You have to be able to transpose whatever's happening into any milieu — that's what makes it an allegory — so I didn't want to be too specific. Anybody who's got their head screwed on right is mourning for the country, mourning for the planet. The machismo is also important. I wanted a place where it's not just consumptive atelier-living bohemians who are feeling sad. The weepers come from all walks of life and have all different kinds of temperaments. They're up against this traditional sense of normative American manhood. It seemed like the border was an appropriate place. Advertisement Interview was edited and condensed. Peter Mendelsund , Tuesday, 7 p.m. Porter Square Books, Cambridge Edition. 1815 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, . Bradley Babendir is a fiction writer and critic based in Somerville.
Boston Globe
04-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Brookline author Nicole Graev Lipson unmasks the fictions that shape motherhood — and herself
Some books crack wide open our understanding of what it is to exist in this world. 'I wanted to explore the blurry boundary between truth and fiction when one is a woman,' Lipson, who lives in Brookline, said, 'and how easy it is to find ourselves performing fictional versions of who we are.' In 12 essays, Lipson mines her experience as a case study to peel away these fictions and reach for a deeper reality. Peppering her explorations with examples from literature, philosophy, and pop culture from Shakespeare to Eddie Vedder, from Maya Angelou's memoir 'Mom & Me & Mom' to the film 'Mean Girls,' she critiques herself and her relationships with candor and empathy, prompting the reader to awakenings of their own. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up The award-winning writer and Emerson College MFA program alumna will discuss 'Mothers' with author Joanna Rakoff at an event for Brookline Booksmith at Advertisement Q . In the essay 'Thinkers Who Mother,' you shine a light on the often-unrecognized deep thinking that goes into mothering. How are mothers thinkers? A . The term 'mental load' is used a lot in terms of the minutiae that mothers have to contend with, the calendaring and remembering. It implies busy work. But if you think about a mother's day, and all of the resources we're drawing on in real time, observing our children and attuning to their needs and to the situation at hand, the complexity is profound. We're making hypotheses and calculations, and all of them have a rationale that comes from experience, from years of gathered wisdom, from what we've learned from our children, and they from us, in this complex symbiosis. There is this age-old distinction in western culture between thought and feeling, and historically, thought has been connected to the male realm and valued over feeling. Mothering requires both feeling and deep, deep thinking, happening together and fueling each other. Advertisement Q. In 'The Friendship Plot,' you argue against the idea that deep fellowship is experienced only by men, a concept reinforced by the likes of Montaigne and Plato. A. Few places in our culture have done justice to the incredible life-changing, soul-nourishing, politically meaningful power of close female friendships. Our closest friends can be the mirrors through which we discover ourselves; the bridges we cross to more fully become ourselves. So often, close female relationships, if not trivialized, are demonized. Gendered terms like 'cliques' in middle school or 'coven of witches' illustrate the ways our culture treats them with suspicion. In a patriarchy, close female friendships challenge the status quo. I wanted to step out of the fictions that our culture teaches us about drama between women and celebrate my long-term friendship. In some ways, friendship is the purest form of care and love because there is no obligation built into it. It is freely chosen. Q. In this book, you also examine cultural archetypes that apply to men, specifically as they relate to your son and your mothering of him. A. Yes, it's not simply women who have to contend with these fictional characters. Men have templates pressed upon them too, and I've thought a lot while raising my son about how to protect him from cultural messages about what makes a 'man.' Unfortunately, the dominant narratives about manhood still insist that men are stoic, tough, above feeling, and violent. In the essay 'Tikkun Olam Ted,' I write about a time when my worry about our culture's impact on my son gets turned toward him and in some ways taken out on him, as I interpret his actions — behaving in ways that were embarrassing to me at Tikkun Olam Day at Hebrew school, a day devoted to goodness and repair — through the lens of what I fear him becoming as opposed to what he actually is and the goodness that lives inside of him. My son, contrary to stereotypes, might just be the most deeply feeling of my three children, and I've often talked to him about how this is his superpower. Advertisement Q. You examine the concept of solitude and mothers' guilty cravings for alone time in 'A Place, and a State of Affairs.' What literary references helped you process this? A. I'm an introvert who needs a great deal of alone time in order to function, and having children is hard to reconcile with alone time for women. I tried to hold up my experiences chafing against the constant togetherness of family life within the broader context of the stories we've absorbed about solitude. Canonical works of American literature — whether it's 'Moby Dick' or Thoreau's 'Walden' — promote this romantic idealization of the solitary seeker. Becoming a mother brought home how this romantic ideal isn't accessible for women with children. In books like Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening', we see a woman who longs for solitude and some escape from her children. And ultimately, the only way she can get it is to walk into the ocean and drown herself. This is a recurring motif throughout literature, that the only way for mothers to access that silence is through death. What is lost when women caring for the next generation don't have access to solitude as a way of replenishing themselves? Advertisement Q. Later in the book, you question your relationship to aging when, in your 40s, you begin to obsess over becoming a 'hot mom.' How did your perspective transform? A. That essay helped me learn two things. One, how much women in our culture are trained to confuse desirability with desire. When I started to wear sparkly tank tops and do Pure Barre and buy expensive face creams, what I truly wanted wasn't to be 'hot,' but to feel like I was still vital and alive. And two, while I was holding up the 20-something Pure Barre instructors with shiny hair as models of womanhood that I should aspire to, I realized that the most powerful role models throughout my life have been older women: my high school English teacher, my college writing professor, my neighbor who's this brilliant rabbi and writer — all wise, experienced women with the inner strength to set the terms of their own mattering. Those are the people I genuinely long to be like one day. Interview has been edited and condensed.
