Entertainment

The Black Keys on the L.A. hangout that led to their funky new album

Published

2 years ago

April 9, 2024

The Black Keys on the L.A. hangout that led to their funky new album

Twenty-four hours or so before the release of their new album, Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of the Black Keys are sipping old fashioneds at the Chateau Marmont as they reminisce about the days when the two of them ran a lawn-mowing business with one lawnmower between them.

“And one weed whacker,” Carney says.

“One lawnmower and one weed whacker,” Auerbach confirms. “And one gas canister. All in the same minivan we used for gigs. So all of our s— smelled like gasoline and grass clippings all the time.”

This was in the early 2000s, when they formed this once-scuzzy blues-rock duo in their shared hometown of Akron, Ohio — Auerbach on guitar and vocals, Carney on drums — and immediately began playing every deserted bar they could.

Two decades later, the Black Keys’ lives are very different, with four Grammy Awards, a pair of double-platinum albums and, thanks to Carney’s colorful marriage to singer-songwriter Michelle Branch, a level of tabloid scrutiny the members never even thought to dread back in Akron. (More on that marriage in a minute.)

On this recent evening, Carney, 43, and Auerbach, 44, have returned to the Chateau after a day of hand shaking and meeting taking while in town from Nashville, where they both live, to promote their latest LP, which somehow has only now used the title “Ohio Players.” Earlier they had lunch at the Beverly Hills Hotel with their manager of 2½ years, Irving Azoff, whose other famous clients include the Eagles, U2 and Jon Bon Jovi.

“We’d never been there in all our years of coming to L.A.,” Carney says. “That exterior is amazing, and everything else was terrible. But I think that sums up Beverly Hills.” He looks around the dimly lighted lounge. “This is more our steez. The thing about the Chateau is that it’s so classy but the rooms kind of look exactly like an apartment I had in Akron.”

Indeed, for all their success — at one point, Carney mentions that pandemic shutdowns wiped out $20 million of Black Keys concert income in 2020 — there’s something about the band’s current situation that evokes the Black Keys’ busy first chapter, when they dropped four studio albums in just over four years. Having seriously burned out on the road, the duo went dormant in August 2015 and didn’t play a show again until September 2019; since reuniting, they’ve been on a creative tear, releasing another four LPs, including “Ohio Players,” their 12th overall.

Says Dan the Automator, the veteran hip-hop producer who was among the band’s many collaborators on the new album: “They’re cranking together right now.”

The novelty this time is that they seem to be enjoying it. The Black Keys’ liveliest effort since 2011’s hook-jammed “El Camino” (which drew a Grammy nomination for album of the year), “Ohio Players” is a loose and funky party record with catchy choruses and chewy grooves and guest appearances by the likes of Beck, Juicy J and Oasis’ Noel Gallagher. The album’s freewheeling vibe — think Beck’s “Odelay” meets the soundtrack of “Rushmore” — was inspired in part by the band’s so-called record hangs in which Carney and Auerbach haul their collection of vintage 45s to a bar and DJ late into the night; to make the album, they ventured from Nashville, where they typically record at Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Studio, to work in rooms in London and Los Angeles.

“Honestly, we weren’t doing anything financially smart if we were trying to make money,” Carney says, recalling long stays at the Chateau and what he called its London equivalent, the Chiltern Firehouse. “But it wasn’t about that. It was about trying to maximize the experience.”

They so maximized it that “Ohio Players” almost ended up a double album, according to Carney, at least until he and Auerbach thought better of that idea. “There’s been a couple bands that have released very long albums recently that are complete garbage,” he says. “I’m not gonna name names, but there was one that had like 40 f— songs. Dan and I realized we didn’t want anything to do with making a pile of s—.”

Though the Black Keys broke out as a scrappy two-piece, they went into “Ohio Players” eager to “flex our Rolodex,” as Carney puts it. “There’s a lot of features in rap, but in rock these days there’s very little of it,” the drummer says — a shift from the late ’60s, he adds, when “Clapton would jump on a Beatles record or whatever.” For Auerbach, the collaborations — other musicians on the record include rapper Lil Noid, Leon Michels on saxophone and multi-instrumentalist Greg Kurstin — were a way to add fresh wrinkles to the band’s established sound just as a new documentary heralds the approach of legacy-act status.

“I think it was important to us to release a new album at the same time as the movie,” Auerbach says of director Jeff Dupre’s “This Is a Film About the Black Keys,” which premiered at last month’s South by Southwest festival in Austin. “But also, we wouldn’t have been able to do this kind of collaborating when we started, or even 10 years ago,” the singer adds. “It’s really only now that Pat and I are confident enough to sit in a room and let something unfold without getting in the way.”

At the top of their wish list of accomplices, both men say, was Beck, who ended up performing on half of “Ohio Players’” 14 tracks, including the swaggering “Beautiful People (Stay High)” and “Paper Crown,” a fuzzy rap-rock-soul mash-up that also features a verse by Juicy J of Memphis’ pioneering Three 6 Mafia. Carney remembers wearing out a copy of “Odelay” as a teenager while on a family road trip from Akron to Washington, D.C.; Auerbach singles out “One Foot in the Grave,” Beck’s 1994 album of lo-fi folk songs, as a formative influence. “The way he bridged the gap as this guy who was on MTV but who was playing these Mississippi John Hurt-style songs — I was just like, Oh s—, I understand this,” Auerbach says of Beck, whom the Black Keys have known since he invited the band on the road as an opening act in 2003.

Almost as crucial as hooking up with Beck was doing it in L.A., which Carney describes as “a place that’s very conducive to creativity for us.” He lived with Branch in Toluca Lake for about a year when they got together around 2015, and he quickly “fell in love with the Valley”; these days he’s partial to the scene in West Hollywood, which offers “a culture we don’t have in Nashville,” he says. “When we’re home, I’m just watching football with my friends. But when we’re here, we’re, like, rubbing shoulders with Jason Momoa.”

The cover of the Black Keys’ “Ohio Players.”

(Easy Eye Sound / Nonesuch Records)

The Black Keys initially set up at North Hollywood’s historic Valentine Recording Studios, where Bing Crosby and the Beach Boys once worked. “That was great because it feels like you’re in your grandparents’ basement,” Carney says. “But they were adamant that there was to be no weed smoking in the control room, which was a deal breaker.” They eventually relocated to Hollywood’s Sunset Sound, a familiar setting after the six weeks they spent there making 2014’s “Turn Blue” with producer Danger Mouse.

To get Gallagher in the mix, the Black Keys agreed to go to the Oasis guitarist in London — “which was a big deal,” Carney says, “because I hadn’t gotten Dan to leave the country since 2015.” Auerbach was playing in Paris with his side project the Arcs the night of that year’s horrific terrorist attack that killed 90 people at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan theater. “Definitely made me a little leery of wanting to travel for a while,” Auerbach says now. “Subconsciously, I knew we had to get back, so I thought this was a great way to do it without the pressure of a tour.”

With Gallagher, the band wrote three songs in three days, including “On the Game,” a stately ballad with Beatlesque guitars that feels lush yet proudly hand-played. Carney says it’s that slightly sloppy quality that attracts listeners to the Black Keys’ music — and not just to theirs. “I think that’s why Mac DeMarco is so popular,” he says of the scruffy indie-rock crooner. “You can smell the realness. Or this new Waxahatchee record. I don’t hear big hits but I hear something you can really get a hold of.” He laughs. “A lot of that kind of stuff misses the mark because it just takes one person in the room who wants to straighten something out to ruin it.”

One of “Ohio Players’” appealing kinks comes in “Candy and Her Friends,” where a crisp psych-rock tune suddenly slows to a half-time lurch with the entrance of Lil Noid, an underground Memphis rapper whose mid-’90s “Paranoid Funk” cassette has been a favorite of Auerbach’s since he discovered it on YouTube. “We were listening to it in the car one night in L.A. on the way back to the Chateau,” Auerbach says. “And then we were just like, ‘I wonder what Lil Noid is up to?’ We looked him up and he was in Memphis, just down the road from us in Nashville. So we invited him to the studio.”

“Dan is a genuine lover of hip-hop,” says Dan the Automator, who’s known for his work with Kool Keith, Prince Paul and Del the Funky Homosapien, among other acts. “I mean, he’s into some regional stuff that I’m not even really up on.”

Auerbach equates the rawness of “Paranoid Funk” to that of records by Hasil Adkins, the rockabilly oddball who garnered a cult following in the ’80s and ’90s. “Pure folk art,” he calls the kind of music he’s drawn to. But of course, it’s been years since the Black Keys themselves could be considered anything close to outsiders. The night after our drinks, the band celebrates the release of “Ohio Players” (whose cover photo was shot in a bowling alley) with an invite-only gig at Highland Park Bowl filled with contest winners and music-industry types; also there dancing near the makeshift stage is Branch, with whom Carney reconciled after a messy 2022 incident in which she accused the drummer of cheating on her — in a tweet, no less — then was arrested on a domestic assault charge for slapping Carney.

Is the price of having a hit—

“We haven’t had one,” Carney interrupts back at the Chateau, which is certainly untrue given that five of the band’s songs have topped Billboard’s alternative airplay chart. So is the price of having a hit that you have to accept becoming a celebrity of some sort, with all the attention on your private life that that role entails?

“People are interested in stuff where they don’t know what’s going on,” Carney says. “And I get where the intrigue comes from. The thing is, being in a marriage is hard. I was actually just talking to my therapist about this. I was like, ‘Here’s the truth about marriage: I don’t know one that I can use as a reference that’s not unconventional or a little bit f— up.’ So whatever this is supposed to be, it’s gonna have to be its own model.”

As Carney speaks, Auerbach nods with what looks like recognition. His ex-wife is interviewed in the Black Keys doc and speaks frankly about his shortcomings as a partner. “Squirmworthy” is the word he uses to describe the experience of watching the film. “I’m glad I don’t have to watch it again,” he says. Then again, the movie recounts one of Auerbach’s most cherished experiences, when he traveled as an 18-year-old to rural Mississippi and jammed with another pure folk artist: the bluesman T-Model Ford. There’s a picture from that day that shows Auerbach, a high school sports star from a solidly middle-class upbringing, sitting in the scrubby yard outside Ford’s double-wide trailer home.

Asked how the encounter shaped his youthful conception of the musician’s existence, he says, “I didn’t see any of it like that. I didn’t think about quality of life. I just thought, I’m sitting across from the coolest person I’ve ever met, and he loves my playing. Nothing else mattered.”

And now? What would the Black Keys say if someone could guarantee they could make whatever music they wanted for the rest of their lives but only if they traded the rock star trappings for Ford’s more meager circumstances?

“Depends,” Auerbach says. “Where’s that double-wide at?”

Movie Reviews

Aadi Sai Kumar’s Shambala Telugu Movie Review and Rating

Published

6 hours ago

December 25, 2025

Press Room

Aadi Sai Kumar’s Shambala Telugu Movie Review and Rating

Movie Name : Shambala

Release Date : Dec 25, 2025
123telugu.com Rating : 3/5
Starring : Aadi Sai Kumar, Archana Iyer, Swasika Vijay, Madhunanadan, Ravi Varma, Meesala Laxman,
Shiju Menon, Harsha Vardhan, Shiva Karthik, Shailaja Priya and Others
Director : Ugandhar Muni
Producers : Mahidhar Reddy and Rajasekhar Annabhimoju
Music Director : Sricharan Pakala
Editor : Shravan Katikaneni

Related Links : Trailer

After a long time Aadi Saikumar came up with a promising film titled “Shambala.” The movie gained buzz among the audiences with its promotional material and it hit the big screens today. Let’s see how it is.

Story:

Set in the 1980s, a meteor hits a small village called Shambhala. After that, some unexpected incidents start happening there. The locals are shattered, believing that the meteor is an evil force bringing them bad luck. To investigate the meteor, a geoscientist and an atheist, Vikram (Aadi Sai Kumar), visits Shambhala.

After his arrival, multiple deaths take place, and the villagers blame Vikram’s disbelief in their traditions as the actual cause. What exactly is happening in Shambhala? Did Vikram find the answers? This forms part of the crux of the story.

Plus Points:

The core point chosen by the director is quite interesting. Among recent films blending science and devotion, Shambhala stands out as a fresh attempt, largely due to its backstory, which has never been explored before. This makes things interesting though the screenplay doesn’t land always.

The backstory is narrated through Dialogue King Sai Kumar’s voiceover, providing us intriguing information. The mystery element is the film’s USP. Starting from Ravi Varma’s peculiar episode, the director makes the audience play a guessing game, with unexpected events unfolding.

Scenes depicting the villagers’ odd behavior keep us intrigued, and these sequences are well-conceived. The second half moves at a brisk pace, featuring a surprising twist and several good moments, making Shambhala a satisfying watch.

Aadi Saikumar delivers a very good performance as Vikram, a staunch atheist. His costumes are well-designed, and he looks suave on screen. He finally gets a promising script that complements his talent. Archana Iyer gets a good role and impresses with her presence. Madhunandhan, Ravi Varma, Lakshman Meesala, Indraneil, and others provide solid support.

Minus Points:

Shambhala takes some time to find its rhythm. The movie starts on an interesting note, but after that, it loses its grip, with the mid-portions of the first half falling flat and the pacing dipping. The emotional connection between Aadi and Madhunandan could have been established better, as the movie’s finale relies on it entirely.

The use of AI for the backstory takes away from the intrigue of the plot, and it would have been better if filmmakers avoided it altogether, as it doesn’t look good on the big screen. Even if the special effects or animation aren’t of high quality, the effort is what audiences notice.

The climax ends on a simple note and needed more impact. The movie has many gore scenes that fit the storyline, though some visuals may be disturbing for a few viewers. At times the movie is slightly predictable.

Technical Aspects:

Sricharan Pakala’s background score is effective, and the sound design is neat. Praveen K Bangarri’s cinematography is good, and Sravan Katikaneni’s editing is satisfactory in the second half. The production values are solid.

As for director Ugandhar Muni, he did a decent job with Shambhala. The core point he chose for the story is impressive. While some portions of the narrative aren’t engaging, the thrilling and mystery moments make the overall experience decent.

Verdict:

On the whole, Shambhala is a watchable mystical thriller with a strong core point. The mystery element, the backstory, and sequences depicting the villagers’ odd behaviour are the film’s highlights. Aadi Saikumar and the rest of the cast deliver good performances. The mid-portions of the first half with pacing issues, a few predictable moments, and the AI visuals are the key drawbacks. Nonetheless, Shambhala is a better outing from Aadi in recent times and it can be given a try if you like mystery thrillers.

123telugu.com Rating: 3/5

Reviewed by 123telugu Team

Entertainment

Pat Finn, comedy actor known for roles in ‘The Middle’ and ‘Seinfeld,’ dies at 60

Published

8 hours ago

December 24, 2025

Press Room

Pat Finn, comedy actor known for roles in ‘The Middle’ and ‘Seinfeld,’ dies at 60

Pat Finn, a veteran comedy actor known for playing the Heck family’s friendly neighbor Bill Norwood on “The Middle,” died Monday, reportedly following a three-year battle with cancer. He was 60.

“After a beautiful life filled with laughter, love, family, and friends, we share the heartbreaking news of the death of Pat Finn,” Finn’s family said in a statement to multiple outlets. Finn’s manager, Andrea Pett-Joseph, who described the actor as “the kindest, most joyful person in any room, told Deadline that he died surrounded by his family and friends. His death was first reported by TMZ.

Finn broke into show business in the 1990s, appearing in various sitcoms. His first major role was on “The George Wendt Show,” where he played Dan Coleman, the brother of Wendt’s character, George Coleman. He also had a recurring role on “Murphy Brown” as Phil Jr., the son of the original owner and bartender of Phil’s Bar (portrayed by Pat Corley) who took over the establishment in later seasons.

”Seinfeld” fans might remember Finn from his role as Joe Mayo in “The Reverse Peephole” episode. He also portrayed alternate-universe Monica’s boyfriend Dr. Roger in a couple of episodes of “Friends.” Finn’s credits also included roles on “The Drew Carey Show,” “3rd Rock From the Sun,” “That ’70s Show,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “The Bernie Mac Show,” “2 Broke Girls” and “The Goldbergs.” His most recent credits included the films “Unexpected” (2023) and “Diamond in the Rough” (2022).

Born in Evanston, Ill., Finn attended Marquette University in the 1980s, where he met his future wife, Donna, and Chris Farley, with whom he became friends. After graduating, Finn, along with Farley, joined Chicago’s Second City to hone his comedy chops.

In a 2022 interview published on Phoenix.org, Finn said he’d always gravitated toward comedy.

“My mom and I watched ‘The Carol Burnett Show’ and ‘The Odd Couple,’” he said. “I really liked the idea of sitcoms. Growing up in Chicago, nobody said they wanted to be an actor. They wanted to be firefighters or in sales. … A career in comedy didn’t become a reality until I was picked up by The Second City and then the main stage.”

According to a statement provided to the New York Post, Finn was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2022. Although he went into remission, the cancer later returned and metastasized.

A lifelong Bears fan, Finn “often showed the biggest signs when the Bears scored a touchdown” in his final days, the statement from the actor’s family said. “No pressure Bears — just saying — do it for Pat.”

Finn is survived by wife Donna and their three children, Cassidy, Caitlin and Ryan.

Movie Reviews

Film Reviews: New releases for Dec. 24 – 26

Published

18 hours ago

December 24, 2025

Press Room

Film Reviews: New releases for Dec. 24 – 26

Cover-Up **1/2

One should generally try to avoid the critics’ trap of “here’s the movie they should have made,” but it’s hard not to consider what a missed opportunity this documentary biography turns out to be. Certainly veteran investigative journalist Seymour M. “Sy” Hersh has had a monumental professional career—breaking stories over the course of 50 years from the My Lai massacre to torture at Abu Ghraib—of the kind that deserves praise, and the profile offered up by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus gets just enough of his grudging participation to show why his irascibility might have been one of the keys to his success. But that “grudging” part results in a film that goes heavy on archival footage about these various scandals that has to assume any give viewer knows nothing about them, resulting in a lot of throat-clearing that misses the focus on what Hersh in particular was able to uncover, and why, as a journalist committed to shoe-leather reporting and curiosity rather than credulous access-currying regurgitation of official statements. And, since it’s clear from the outset that Hersh has no interest in opening up about himself beyond bare-bones biographical details, there’s nothing here that allows for insight regarding what might have turned this guy into such a bulldog for holding power to account. In one anecdote Hersh offers about his mother, he remembers her describing him as “always going where nobody wants you.” The filmmakers here don’t seem to think that’s their job, too. Available Dec. 26 via Netflix. (NR)

Goodbye June **1/2

Family dysfunction drama tends to work best when it’s narrowly focused, so it’s not surprising that one of the main problems with this one is that it tries to juggle too many characters with too many issues all rushing towards one cathartic deadline. That moment is provided by the imminent death of June Cheshire (Helen Mirren), whose cancer returns aggressively in the two weeks before Christmas, forcing everyone else—her four children Julia (Kate Winslet), Molly (Andrea Riesborough), Helen (Toni Collette) and Connor (Johnny Flynn), and husband Bernie (Timothy Spall)—to unpack all of their baggage. Winslet also directs in her feature debut, from a script by her son Joe Anders, and there’s a lot of frisky humor around the edges, particularly in the first hour as the characters’ stresses express themselves in wildly different ways. Unfortunately, the scenes where a bunch of people swirl chaotically around June’s hospital room becomes a metaphor for the overstuffed nature of this narrative, which could have used at least one fewer Cheshire sibling—and I’d quickly nominate Collette’s broad parody of a yoga-teaching/sage-smudging/crystal toting earth mama. And considering there are years’ worth of issues being addressed here, some of them get resolved in improbably short conversations. As a holiday tear-jerker, it does effectively jerk some tears—and maybe a long the way it could have jerked a character or two out of the second-to-last draft. Available Dec. 24 via Netflix. (R)

Marty Supreme ****

The Adam Sandler “This is how I win” meme from 2019’s Uncut Gems might be the Rosetta Stone for understanding the protagonists of Josh Safdie’s movies, including those with brother Benny: hustlers and on-the-make guys convinced that they’re smarter and more destined for victory than the rest of the world sees in them. That’s certainly true of Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet), a Jewish youth in early 1950s New York convinced that his skills as a table-tennis prodigy will lead him to the big time—if only he can get out of his own arrogant way. Safdie and regular Safdie brothers writing collaborator Ronald Bronstein craft another blood-pressure-raising episodic narrative out of Marty’s misadventures, particularly once he’s forced to track down a ridiculous amount of money in order to make it to the world championships in Tokyo, and it’s a magnificent mix of existential danger and absurdist hilarity. And Chalamet’s performance may be his best ever, exuding enough hyper-confident charisma to make it plausible that he could woo a retired Hollywood actress (Gwyneth Paltrow) and pull so many people into his schemes. Safdie even wrangles a great supporting performance out of Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary, even if the role of an asshole millionaire isn’t much of a stretch. Topped off by a wonderfully anachronistic score of ’80s synth-pop, Marty Supreme builds to a weirdly emotional climax in which a Safdie hero finally has a different perspective on what it means to “win,” even if he probably still hasn’t. Available Dec. 25
in theaters. (R)

Song Sung Blue **1/2

Real lives are messy and not easily shapeable into narratives, which is why sometimes a fictionalized adaptation of a documentary probably should have remained a documentary. Greg Kohs’ 2008 non-fiction feature becomes writer/director Craig Brewer’s interpretation of the story of Mike Sardina (Hugh Jackman) and Claire Stengl (Kate Hudson), a pair of Milwaukee-area part-time musicians circa 1996 who fall in love and form a creative partnership as “Lightning and Thunder” performing a Neil Diamond “experience” tribute act. Brewer sets the stage for the challenging lives that make us want to root for these dreamers—Mike a recovering-alcoholic Vietnam veteran, Claire a single mom with a history of depression—and he certainly finds crowd-pleasing moments in the way Mike and Claire come alive while on stage interpreting Diamond’s classics, and in their biggest improbable wins intermingled with one big life-changing tragedy. Hudson also turns in a particularly wonderful performance, mastering her Wisconsin twang and both extremes in Claire’s personality. The story, unfortunately, doesn’t have the same juice when the songs aren’t playing, and oversimplifies the timeline of the main characters’ lives in order to provide a tidier, more heartstring-tugging conclusion. The many real-life threads it needs to incorporate distract from the idea of working-class folks finding purpose in their avocation—a thematic idea that might have been easier to convey if this weren’t an adaptation of a documentary. Available Dec. 25 in theaters. (PG-13)