Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Deep funk around the world: Japan

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:04:40 -0800

My grasp of deep funk has always been of the "I can't define it, but I know it when I hear it" variety, but now I have come up with a working definition: deep funk is funk that pretends P-Funk never happened. How's that? Japan's Osaka Monaurail (named after James Brown's "(It's Not the Express) It's the J.B.'s Monaurail") are deep funk veterans by now, having formed in 1992 "to play the late 60's - early 70's funkies," so they're quite good at it by now. Here's a track from their 2004 album, Thankful:

09 mind power (pts 1 & 2)

Osaka Monaurail

That song has a similar feel to "Ooh Baby" by Defunkt (from my very first entry on this blog): similar beat, similar structure, and similar dynamics. Here's "Ooh Baby" again:

Defunkt - Ooh Baby

Defunkt

Not entirely dissimilar? There's a concise interview with Osaka Monaurail leader Ryo Nakata on the Metropolis website; he's been into the deep funk revival since it began in the 80s. He also proves to be very insightul about the life and music of James Brown. But more importantly, he's a dynamic performer:

Osaka Monaurail in SunSetLive 2005

And finally, no responsible band would be without a MySpace page.

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Israeli music, continued

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:49:20 -0700

After yesterday's entry on Teapacks, today is as good a time as any to feature another Israeli band, The Apples. The "deep funk" sound has caught on worldwide; the Apples put their own stamp on it by adding a couple of DJs to their lineup. This approach can be very effective when a record is scratched and played like an actual musical instrument; it's less effective when it's just used to play the same vocal sample over and over again (file under "why I don't like St. ~~Etienne~~ Germain" (oops, got my Saints mixed up there)). The Apples stay on the good side of that line more often than not. The title track from their 2005 album, Attention!, has some especially funky sax, trumpet, and trombone interplay:

Attention

The Apples

Samples of all their songs and several full-song downloads are available on the Audio page of The Apples' website; and they have two versions of their cover of Rage Against the Machine's "Killing" on their MySpace page. Hmm, that's the second Rage reference in two days; coincidence? I don't know.

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Mandingo!

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 18:02:28 -0700

Some of my posts are 80s rarities from my record collection, some are even older but not necessarily rare, and some, like this post, are of things I just recently picked up that blew me away. Mandingo's The Primeval Rhythm of Life is a prime slice of fake tribal funk from England circa 1973. It sounds like a big band got hold of some David Axelrod scores, but then one band member wanted to be heard better and started playing louder, so then another one did, and another, until everybody is just blaring all over the place, and it rocks! And there's no end to the percussion tracks! The song titles are all borderline offensive stereotypes like "Sacrifice," "Jungle Wedding," "Chant of the Virgins," etc. Here is "Black Rite"; like all the songs on the album, it builds up steam, and at about halfway through really starts cooking with some great horn work:

Mandingo - 02 - Black Rite

Mandingo

The album has been featured on two zip blogs, My Favourite Sound and It's Coming Out of Your Speaker. There you will find links to download the whole album; it's a rip of a somewhat distressed vinyl LP, but whaddya want fer nuthin'? A commenter at Speaker reveals that "Mandingo" is actually Geoff Love and his Orchestra. I had never heard of Geoff Love (1917-1991) before; he was responsible for lots of easy-listening TV theme song albums which are apparently not highly regarded. But if the Mandingo album is any indicator of his skills as an arranger and bandleader, I think his catalog will bear some looking into.

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Cruisin' with the Greyboy Allstars

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 19:25:59 -0700

Car-chase music isn't the only good vehicular music genre; simple car driving music can be plenty fulfilling. "Fried Grease" by the Greyboy Allstars with Fred Wesley (1995) has become my official cruising-down-the-freeway-with-the-top-down song. Never mind that the top of our minivan doesn't actually go down; this groovy track makes it feel like it's down. I'm not usually a fan of the "everybody gets a solo" format, but it works in this case because all the players "bring it" (I think that's the correct term today). After two ensemble runs through the central motif, the soloing begins: first up is legendary JB Horns trombonist Fred Wesley, followed by Karl Denson on alto sax, Harold Todd on flute, Robert Walter on electric piano, and finally Elgin Park on guitar before the ensemble kicks back in to play a completely different riff for the outro. It's pure gold. There's no bass solo, but Chris Stilwell's hyperkinetic basslines keep the tune bouncing, and at this point I may as well give a tip of the hat to drummer Zak Najor and percussionist Craig Levitz for pinning the whole thing down so flawlessly.

Greyboy Allstars-Fried Grease

Greyboy Allstars

The Greyboy Allstars formed in 1993 to play the kind of retro funk and acid jazz on the records that DJ Greyboy (Andreas Stevens) was playing at the Green Circle Bar in San Diego. I first encountered them on the soundtrack to Get Shorty, a pretty good movie with inexplicably great music, most of it by former Lounge Lizard John Lurie. After some years apart the Allstars reunited this year (all the original members plus Greyboy himself) for a new album, What Happened to Television? It's fine, funky stuff; there's no "Fried Grease" on it, but "Left Coast Boogaloo" comes close.

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