There are no real Keene Brothers, at least not in association with this album. The "Keene Brothers" being referred to here are the collaboration of power-pop 25-year-veteran Tommy Keene with indie-rock legend, Robert Pollard. Keene opened for Pollard's Guided By Voices during some of the group's final tour dates in 2004 and has been playing keyboards and guitar on Pollard's 2006 solo tour. Mutual respect for each other's talents and a budding friendship resulted in this 2006 debut collaboration, Blues and Boogie Shoes.
And what are those talents? Well, Pollard can crank out an entire album in the amount of time it takes the rest of us to make ourselves a modest breakfast. This was obviously underscored with his releasing 3 new albums all in the same month: The Takeover's Turn To Red, , Psycho and the Birds' All that is Holy, and Keene Brothers' Blues and Boogie Shoes, are all Pollard projects, #'s 40, 41 and 42 respectively in the "Fading Captain Series", and all released in June, 2006. Tommy Keene is known as the grand-wizard of straight-forward power-pop and brings decades of experience and a mound of musical talent to the collaboration table.
The result? If Journey's Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain had not replaced Steve Perry with Steve Auguri back in 1998, and had instead persuaded Bob Pollard to collaborate with them, Blues and Boogie Shoes would have hit the shelves close to 7 years earlier, and probably would have even had the same album title.
This is not an insult, as Cain and Schon along with Steve Smith on drums and Ross Valory on bass are some real power-pop studs, and 1981-84 era Journey mark some incredible pop contributions. The album is not 100% Journey + Pollard either. There are some great moments on track 2 that really feel like they could have been taken from Under the Bushes Under the Stars, and there are a few other moments throughout the album that are blasts from Pollard's pasts. But, this album is much more of a reminder of what Pollard does and what Keene have been doing for years, rather than providing any new insights into either one.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the album, but I feel it is a bit unnecessary. I think Pollard loves notches in his album belt, and can easily find fans of his to collaborate with to see him through to some all-time hall-of-fame inducting record. But I am not a fan of just increasing the quantity of music in the world, and don't see a need for this album. I would save your cash on this one, and if feeling nostalgic, just pull out GBV's 1995 Under The Bushes, Under the Stars and Journey's 1983 Frontiers and play them back to back.
