Tag Archives: funk

323. trampled under foot

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“Funky Zeppelin. Sort of. Trampled Underfoot‘s not exactly easy to dance to, yet it is most definitely a groove, and relentless at that. Found on Physical Graffiti, the last truly great Led Zeppelin album, which I didn’t properly discover more than a decade after the fact. But that’s something that pretty much all the records on this list have in common, perhaps the only thing. It doesn’t matter how many times you miss them, get caught looking the other way. They will find you in time. Oblivion just can’t contain them.” (Philip Random)

LedZeppelin-1975-live

331. funky stuff

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“Kool + the Gang are one of those bands that sadly had to change because of the Disco eruptions of the mid-1970s, which sucks. Because they had a great thing going (as Funky Stuff clearly indicates) before all dance music suddenly had to be 4-4, boomp-boomp-boomp with cheesy strings on top. Even James Brown was afraid of them, or so I’ve heard.” (Philip Random)

kool+theGang-1973

406. What is Hip?

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“I actually turned down a free ticket to see Tower of Power at a small club. It would’ve been about 1978. They probably would’ve played this song. And yeah, it would’ve blown me the f*** away. The towering power of it, and the tightness. What a band! But I was an idiot. I said no. Because I didn’t get funk in those days, or jazz, and how the two could brilliantly fuse. I had it all confused with disco. And I had all kinds of issues with disco. What can I say? I was young and foolish, not remotely hip.” (Philip Random)

519. who says a funk band can’t play rock?!

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“The title says it all, and the lyrics back it up, speaking as they do to the stupid notion that musical genres are competing nations which, at best, should just avoid each other. F*** that sh**! Though it is worth noting that you’ve got to do more than just slap your bass and dress like a pimp to bring up the funk. You’ve got to somehow earn that.” (Philip Random)

Funkadelic-1978-george

588. memory serves

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“Title track from Material‘s first proper album, which was before main man Bill Laswell had played with EVERYONE on planet earth, become a household name (assuming you lived in a cool household). As a friend put it once, it’s jazz without the annoying indulgence, funk without the sleazy silliness. Not that I really felt that way about funk. But I could agree about the jazz. Always nice to hear the egos reigned in, everyone serving the groove … in a chaotic sort of way. And who better to work all that than a bass player.” (Philip Random)

630. that’s how I feel

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They were the Jazz Crusaders until 1971 at which point they became merely the Crusaders, and less of a straight up jazz outfit, more of a funk driven item. But one thing that didn’t change (and never would) was the rich and prodigious power of the music. That’s How I Feel showed up on their second album as the Crusaders, the perhaps confusingly titled double shot called 1. Nothing confusing at all about how it made things move.

Crusaders-1973