The Keane Brothers

Adam Crofts sent me a beat up copy of the Keane Brothers debut album from 1977 because it had skateboard on the cover. I listened to it, hoping that the song Keep On Rollin’ was skateboard related, but it wasn’t. The album is a truly awful mix of 70’s disco, soul, rock, country and bubblegum. It’s a freaking awesome train wreck. I noticed the producer also had the last name Keane, so I figured this was a showbiz father trying to get rich off his kids, and that this was probably the last time anyone ever heard of the Keane Brothers, if anyone ever heard of them at all. Of course I was wrong. The Keane Brothers had one of those variety shows that were all over the 70’s like flies on shitty music, and they appeared on the Tonight Show and the Mike Douglas Show. On top of that, the opening sequence of their variety show prominently features the Keane brothers on skateboards.

These guys were 11 and 12 year old as they were starting to “make it.” They wrote a lot of their own music and lyrics, and made some strange choices on this record. Singing about the “good ole days,” wanting to boogie with the girls, and being chased by “the ugly one.” And of course, “God Loves Little Girls.” The Keane Brothers continued on in music into the 80’s as a duo before separating and continuing to write and produce music.

Here’s my copy of the record. Thanks Adam!

A pristine version of the cover from discogs.

It was actually re-released on CD in Japan (big surprise) and is quite rare.

Here’s a video of the opening of the Kane Brothers Show that has the boys walking out of (presumably) their house and skateboarding down the streets of Hollywood to the television studio. The quality is crap because it is literally a video camera pointed at a TV, but it appears to be the only version out there.

Freakin Betty White on the Keane Brothers Show and  “God Loves Little Girls.”  There’s actually a few seconds of a girl riding a skateboard in this clip, but you can’t see the skateboard because the shot is cropped.

Keane Brothers commercial.

Stills of hot, skateboarding action from the variety show. Who knows how long it will last on Youtube.