funk-punk
This piece originally
featured in The Face magazine when Andrew Weatherall had just released
a compilation of such stuff and The Chemical Brothers had just released
their 'Block Rockin' Beats' which sampled 23 Skidoo's 'Coup'. I love the
music but hated the context in which this piece was commissioned. This
music (still) doesn't need to be shoved through an S1000 to make its obvious
relevance known. Sadly, apart from indulgent fanzines, that's the way all
magazines work
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With the breathtakingly precise and endlessly seminal ESG having recently played over here to enthusiastic crowds (most will have still been at school the last time they visited the UK to play the opening night of The Hacienda in 1982) and Nuphonic Records about to release a Weatherall complied selection of post punk/industrial funk, there is something clearly in the air. So why does a brash and quirky culture clash sound from 20 years ago have an enthusiastic Evisu -wearing post-house generation in it's grip? The most obvious answer is also the right one. Punk Funk's shaky humanity- the sound of human beings struggling with the exacting near-mathematic precision pulse of James Brown's rhythmic templates- and the exotic collision of black and white musics is really the only fun in town when formula dictates almost all other forms of dance music. From Liquid Liquid to James White and The Blacks in the US, and from ACR to 23 Skidoo (the latter of these two prime UK exponents have recently reformed), here is a sound which tooks risks and frankly over-reached itself, excited it had learned new ways that just might make you dance. It learned to exploit the 12" format in a clanky percussive frenzy. In 2000 a pair of turntables are likley to be your chosen weapon should you wish to make a noise for your friends to dance to. In 1982 it was a good supply of marijuana a trumpet you could barely get a breath out of and some congas. DJ Andrew Weatherall his included the likes of Shriekback (remnants of cerebral punks XTC) and Chris and Cosey (a duo who formed half of industrial art terrorists Throbbing Gristle) in his compilation of white people snapping basses like semi-skilled Level 42s, but the genre, if you can call it that, runs deep. The whole wonky experiment- a brew of street funk and arty abstraction is predated by Miles Davis' '70s release 'On the Corner'. But Miles was in a sense going backwards, unlearning the get there, these pale young men in combat gear and baggy shorts were pushing their abilities to the limit. At the heart of it was Ed Bahlman's now defunct 99 Records, a New York label which in the very early 80s originally recorded ESG, the definitively arty (and like ESG sampled to fuck- not least on the Optimo EP's 'Cavern', which provided the only musical aspect of Grandmaster Flash's 'White Lines') Liquid Liquid, Bush Tetras and through a connection with UK punk funk label Y records, Maximum Joy. Bahlman was a true maverick who ran a record shop in New York. In encouraging ESG and the like, his personal taste in music helped define a sound which seems to have taken twenty years to really make a space for itself. I think they call that vision. In Manchester, ACR- with the addition of dextrous funk master Donald Johnson had mutated from a scratchy, arty post punk band to a dark but danceable delight. In London 23 Skidoo began losing their sinister industrial edge to shake a deathly pale tail feather. Gruff exhortations to 'Dance!' seemed ironic but these sallow-faced young men were serious. Some of this stuff sounds great because fumbling fingers got their exacting funky exercises wrong but, make no mistake, had these groups been able to play like Boosty Collins, they would have done so and ruined everything. Clubs like The Hacienda, spicing up their pre-house new wave playlists with funk because big yawning dancefloors couldn't be filled by Fall records, were crucial catalysts. The Chemical Brothers wholesale lift of 23 Skidoo's 'Coup' for their 'Block Rockin' Beats' should he warned us of just what has been feeding jaded samplers in the past year or so. Common or garden dusty old grits'n' gravy 7 inch funk has been exhausted as a source of inspiration for, ahem, 'new' music. You can go soundtrack crazy or begin filing through anonymous unused TV themes in your search for breaks and beats, but those genres are so tame and ordered, the work of jaded middle-aged session men, that the music you make as a direct result will sound like what it really is- Testcard hip hop made by Big Beat refugees. ESG have spent twenty years chasing the legions who have sampled their seminal 'UFO' and they deserve every last cent. The maverick spark of such pioneers of the funk is alive in a way that most music idly shoved your way today will never be. Wether you choose to seek out the original music or have if fed to you in bite-sized burger form, this sound is coming to get you. John McCready
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links coming
soon.....
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