Deep funk around the world: Scotland
With a name like The Haggis Horns, they'd better be from Scotland, and indeed they are. You can always trust a band with "Horns" in their name; horns make everything better! Rather than paraphrase what little I know about them, I'll just quote from their booking agency:
The Haggis Horns are one of the best live bands in the game; a brass heavy funk powerhouse that has been rocking clubs up and down the country for years, combining breakbeat funk, soul, hip-hop and afrobeat with the virtuosity of trained jazz musicians. Based around the nucleus of Malcolm Strachan (Trumpet), Jason Rae (Alto Sax) & Atholl Ransome (Tenor Sax) the Haggis Horns (yes, they’re from Scotland) extend to an eight-piece live outfit, featuring Joe Tatton on keys, Morgan Pugh on bass, Ben Barker on Guitar, Sam Bell on percussion and drummer Luke Flowers (Cinematic Orchestra). Debut 7’ Hot Damn! was released in 2005 with new single “Traveller (pts 1 & 2)” following late in 2006 to widespread acclaim.
More recently than that, they've released a full-length CD, also called Hot Damn!, on First Word Records. The Haggis's specialty is their Afrobeat angle; "Tribe Vibes" is almost straight-up Afrobeat, while Afrobeat-style guitar lines run through several of the other songs on the album. They also use more wah-wah on the rhythm guitar than other deep funk bands, for that special 70s action movie feel. The track on the album that grabbed me the most is the last one, "Who's Gonna Take the Weight":
It's probably no coincidence that "Weight" is reminiscent of the godfathers of Scottish funk, the Average White Band:
I get jealous when I google Haggis Horns and find someone's blog entry that says "Went to the Jazz Cafe in London last night with my friend Pete. We saw Haggis Horns & Speedometer, both were awesome and some new CDs will be finding there way into my shopping cart soon." I wanna see shows like that! Waaaaa! At least I've got the Rozatones in town, if only they'd play out more.
