Category: Funk (Page 4 of 10)

Me, Myself, and iPod 8/25/10: Chromeo doesn’t want to see you naked

August 25, 2010 /

esd ipod

Made the mistake of taking the week off after finishing the Lollapalooza recap. 200 press releases later (actually, there are still over 100 to go), here we are. The lesson appears to be ‘never go on vacation.’ Yeah, that’s just not happening.

Chromeo – Don’t Turn the Lights On (Christian Martin Remix)
We are positively dying to hear Business Casual, the new album by funk poppers Chromeo, but until then this (killer) single will have to do. This remix of the track doesn’t quite kill it like the album version, but hey, it’s free. And speaking of having the lights on…

Lights On – Red Lights Flashing
…and that’s all these bands have in common. This is more driving alt-rock a la the Killers and Airborne Toxic Event.

Kyle Andrews – You Always Make Me Smile
A.K.A. The Holiday Inn song, remixed!

Ursula – Hey You! (Shake Edit)
We’d post an mp3 of Fred Schneider reading soup recipes if we had ’em, but this guest vocal, mashed up with “Shake” by ’60s band the Shadows of Knight, will have to do.

The Gay Blades – Try to Understand
Gay as in merry, and happy. Truth be told, we don’t know if anyone in the Gay Blades is actually gay, nor do we care. As long as they churn out catchy pop rock like this, it’s all good.

Tamaryn – Love Fade
The name alone suggested some diva R&B singer, but this is anything but. More like Mazzy Star, with a pulse.

The Black Ryder – Let It Go
And while we’re in the swirly-rock groove (not sure what else to call that. Shoegazer doesn’t seem quite fitting, nor does psych rock), here’s another slow, slightly noisy tune from a band that just got a slot opening for the Cult. Huh. Can’t say I would have seen that coming based on this tune.

Brad Laner – Eyes Close
We always try to support those dedicated, sorry bastards who still believe in power pop. By all rights, this tune, with vocals that Elliott Smith would have killed for (too soon?), should find an audience. Here you go, audience. Find this, please.

Alternative, Artists, CD Reviews, Dance, Downloads, Funk, Me Myself and iPod, Pop, Power Pop, Rock

The Roots: How I Got Over

July 26, 2010 /


RIYL: Common, Mos Def, De La Soul

The most surprising aspect of the Roots’ excellent ninth studio album How I Got Over is not that it’s something of a downer. Looking at the band’s discography going all the way back to 2004’s The Tipping Point shows a group of guys in a bit of a bad mood, which continued through their next two albums, Game Theory and Rising Down. Their gig on Jimmy Fallon’s late-night show, while presumably providing a steady paycheck, has not lightened them up, at least in terms of lyrics and message.

No, what hits you first on the new album is how laid-back and confident they sound while delivering the bad news. The Roots have always drawn on soul and other strands of black music to inform their brand of live instrument-based hip-hop, but this could almost be thought of as their folk album. Guest stars include not just fellow rappers such as Dice Raw, Truck North and P.O.R.N. (none of whom outshine the perpetually slept-on Black Thought), but artists decidedly outside hip-hop circles including Monsters of Folk, Joanna Newsom and the Dirty Projectors. How I Got Over may strike some listeners as a little too mellow at first, but on repeated listens this album is almost guaranteed to grow on you. Black Thought again lives up to his name, relying less on spitting “live rounds that will penetrate a vest” and more on insights that penetrate the mind. And while many of the songs seem like an attempt to catalog as many social ills as possible in rhymes, as the album goes on it picks up in terms of energy and mood. Things culminate with the almost feel-good anthem “The Fire,” an “Eye of the Tiger” for hip-hop heads. (In one of the album’s clever twists, “The Fire” is a collaboration with John Legend, and it follows “Doin’ It Again,” built on a John Legend sample.)

That’s followed up by the straight up ass-kicker “Web 20/20,” a welcome throwback to old-school Roots, and then the album ends with the slow-rolling “Hustla,” which breaks the world down into hustlers and customers. Not the most cheery thought in the world, but what do you want? These are the Roots. They only play happy on TV. (Def Jam 2010)

The Roots MySpace page

CD Reviews, Funk, Hip Hop, Rap, Soul

Stone River Boys: Love on the Dial

July 19, 2010 /


RIYL: The Vaughan Brothers, Southern Culture on the Skids, Hacienda Brothers, Los Lobos

Guitarist Dave Gonzalez (Hacienda Brothers) and singer Mike Barfield, the core of Austin’s Stone River Boys, came together in 2008 when Gonzalez recruited musicians for a benefit tour to help raise money for his ailing Hacienda Brothers bandmate, singer Chris Gaffney. Gaffney was battling cancer and Gonzalez recruited musicians from Austin’s fertile talent pool, including Barfield, nicknamed “the Tyrant of Texas Funk.” Sadly, Gaffney succumbed to the disease, but the tour continued with proceeds being sent to Gaffney’s widow. Along the way, Gonzalez and Barfield began writing songs and eventually started laying down tracks while on the road. The good karma from the Stone River Boys’ noble gesture is evident as their debut album, Love on the Dial, is one of the most lively collections of music you’ll hear this season. Perfect for barbecues and games of cornhole; or just hanging out with your baby trying to stay cool (or heat things up) on a hot summer night.

A cover of Stephen Bruton’s “Bluebonnet Blues” propels the album forward like a sturdy old Ford and sets the tone of an album that crosses traditional country music with Texas blues and ’60s soul music for a hybrid  the Boys like to call country funk. The sound is best exemplified in “Can I Change It,” which blends a Steve Cropper guitar lick with a steel guitar playing like a horn section, and “The Struggle,” which brings to mind the Fabulous Thunderbirds in their ’80s heyday.

Elsewhere, the band adopts more traditional country sounds, such as “Lovers Prison” and the lovely “40 Acres,” a heartfelt lament of times gone by. The highlight of the record may be their cover of the Gerry Goffin/Carole King classic, “Take a Giant Step.” Fusing country, soul and a surf guitar twang, they create a magical, dreamlike song, something you’d expect to hear from Chris Isaak or Los Lobos.

The combination of Barfield’s voice and Gonzalez’s guitar playing have created  unique group. Barfield sings with bravado and a sincerity that seems lacking in so much of the slick country music that gets radio airplay. Meanwhile, Gonzalez’s guitar slinging is sharp and economical. When he needs to, he can put on a display of fast fingerwork, but he is such a fine musician that he knows when the song calls for fireworks and when it requires something more subdued. (Cow Island 2010)

Stone River Boys MySpace Page
Click to buy Love on the Dial at Amazon

Americana, Blues, CD Reviews, Country, Funk, Soul

Scissor Sisters: Night Work

June 28, 2010 /


RIYL: The Bee Gees, Hercules and Love Affair, Giorgio Moroder

The Scissor Sisters were putting the finishing touches on their third album when a funny thing happened – they realized they hated it. So they scrapped it and started from scratch. The Beatles did this once; the end result was Abbey Road. Then again, Duran Duran did this too, and the end result was Red Carpet Massacre. Results, as you can see, may vary.

Scissor_Sisters_06

Thankfully, this is no massacre. Night Work contains all of the band’s trademarks – the discotastic bass lines, the finest falsetto work since the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack – but it comes with an extra dose of sleaze. This is easily the randiest album the Sisters have made to date (“Take me in front of my parents,” singer Ana Matronic begs at one point), yet strangely it also contains some of their most conservative songs. It’s as if the band has recognized that they will not achieve the superstar status in the States that they enjoy in the UK and Australia and decided to let their freak flag fly – for all the advancements we’ve made as a society in terms of gay rights, the Hot 100 is downright hostile to openly gay acts, certain American Idol winners excepted – but still gave it one last shot by writing a couple songs that sounded “less gay.” It should surprise no one that those are the album’s weakest moments.

That’s right, anthemic Killers wannabe “Fire with Fire,” we’re looking in your direction. Besides containing one of the laziest choruses singer Jake Shears has ever written (it basically repeats ‘fire’ and ‘desire’ over again), the song is like a rented tux, with the band getting dressed up for an event they’d rather not attend. Even odder is the title track, which sounds like a standard Scissor Sisters song but tries a little too hard to sound like a standard Scissor Sisters song. With those two songs out of the way by track three, the album takes off from there, from the ultra-funky “Any Which Way” to the Kraftwerk-riffing “Something Like This.” Shears even does a remarkably effective Chris Difford impression on the rockin’ “Harder You Get,” but the album’s final two tracks are its finest. “Nightlife” is fast but moody and sports the album’s best chorus, while “Invisible Light,” which features a spoken-word interlude from Sir Ian McKellen, builds into a dizzying, Trevor Horn-style climax like a next-gen “Welcome to the Pleasuredome.”

Night Work is a lean, mean dancing machine of an album, eschewing the theatrical element from their earlier work in favor of full-on disco bliss. All bands should be required by law to nearly implode if it results in more albums like this. (Downtown 2010)

Scissor Sisters MySpace page
Click to buy Night Work from Amazon

Artists, CD Reviews, Dance, Funk, Pop

Stanton Moore Trio: Groove Alchemy

June 23, 2010 /


RIYL: Galactic, The Meters, Medeski Martin & Wood

One of the hardest working men in show business, Galactic drummer Stanton Moore is not the type to be content with merely releasing one of the best albums of the year with his regular band (Galactic’s Ya-Ka-May.) But while that album has some of the band’s most memorable songs in years, it dabbles in hip-hop and vocal tunes. There are probably some fans who may still prefer to hear “the redneck gangster” focus his sticks more on old school funky grooves. This is exactly what they’ll find on Groove Alchemy.

Moore is joined by longtime friends Robert Walter (Greyboy All-Stars) on organ/piano and Will Bernard on guitar for a very funky session, indeed. The album is part of an instructional book and DVD project where Moore explores the roots of classic funk drumming, which means a deep focus on what was coming from the Meters and James Brown’s band in the ’60s. The album was recorded at the increasingly trendy home studio of the Band’s Levon Helm in Woodstock, New York, which gives it a live vibe. But the sound is pure New Orleans.

Moore throws down all manner of funky beats, while Walter really goes to town on the Hammond B3 and Bernard comps out with his own funky stylings. The first couple tracks are typical Meters-style mid-tempo funk. “Pot Licker” then cranks it up a notch as Moore ups the tempo for some of his hottest work ever recorded. “Neeps and Tatties” also delivers some high-energy groovy funk, as Walter’s B3 and Moore’s drumming just go so well together. The best track might be “Knocker,” which features a super-groovy syncopated beat from Moore that instantly frees the body. Bernard adds some tasty wah-wah and Walter adds some of his best sounds too. All three elements really come together here to form that groove alchemy of the album’s title. “Shiftless” also features some superb up-tempo grooving from the trio.

There’s nothing too groundbreaking here, but all three of these guys are ace musicians, so it’s definitely a clinic in acid jazz funk. Fans of Galactic and the Meters will find plenty of what they love best. (Telarc 2010)

Stanton Moore MySpace page

CD Reviews, Funk, Jam Band

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