Of Cave Funk, Mysteries, and Ninjas

A few months back, I stumbled upon a contradictory, semi-coherent (and utterly fascinating) podcast from Aquarium Drunkard featuring "representatives" of one Clutchy Hopkins. Depending on whom you choose to believe, Clutchy is either turntablist/producer Cut Chemist's outlet for groove experimentation, a collaboration of beatmakers and musicians from SF-based Ubiquity Records, or a man who traveled the globe recording world funk musicians after training with ninjas and living in the deserts of the American southwest. (This last one, especially, is just too great of a theory for me not to want to believe in.)

It has certainly been a clever marketing ploy to keep the blogoshpere tossing around theories and obsessing over the identity of the artist. But buzz can only do so much and, thankfully, the music--whoever is responsible for creating it--is worth paying attention to. The three guesses above are only a sampling of the many floating about, but they do provide a clue about the kind of music that Clutchy puts out on his new release, "Walking Backwards". Think DJ Shadow performing in a cave with records replaced by live instruments or a late 70's groove session informed by hip-hop's willingness to borrow disparate sounds in the service of dopeness.

From Clutchy Hopkins' "Walking Backward"::

3rd Element

Alla Oscar

If you want to try to wrap your head around the podcast mentioned above go here.

For further nonsensical info and video go here.

Buy "Walking Backwards" at iTunes.

Won't You Take Me To...Funkytown?

Austin, Texas is a great city, but it acts as a kind of cultural black hole for the state of Texas. Because it offers a creative environment that is, frankly, not found in any other major Texas city, artists tend to flock there--to meet other artists, book gigs, sign record contracts and, when all of that fails, work at coffeehouses. So it is rare (outside of some notable exceptions) to find exciting new groups who eschew the normal strategy and build a fan-base in other cities throughout the state. All of this is to say that when I find great music that is based in my hometown of Fort Worth, I am filled with a mixture of surprise and some kind of weird, underdeveloped homer pride. How is this going on in my city and what else did I miss when I lived there?

Telegraph Canyon's debut album, "All the Good News", is informed by the kind of country-twinged folk rock that has survived and grown in the Texas music scene long after being left for dead by many tastemakers. But with up to seven members filling out the roster, Telegraph Canyon are also able to expand on the conventions of the alt-country movement. So quieter songs, driven mainly by acoustic guitar and singer Chris Johnson's brainy wordplay, may be followed by stompers that aim for U2 levels of bombast. And with a new album on the way for 08, more expansion (if not more instruments) will be on the way soon.

Telegraph Canyon::You & Jane

Now I know there are other bands in the DFW area that need to be heard from. Clue an old friend in: what's exciting the folks in Funkytown these days? It's nice to have something to recommend besides the Museum District.

Get more Telegraph Canyon Music at iTunes or at CDBaby.

I Got Those White Guy Co-Opting Black Peoples' Music Blues (And A Temporary Cure)

It was a day much like any other. A spreadsheet sits open on a screen in front of me. My fingers have found a rhythym, as they should after entering data in the same format for close to an hour. If I stare down at the empty cells still to be filled in, I am overcome by some kind of strange 2-D vertigo. Thank God I have my iPod.

Soul music is especially helpful for me in situations like this. I don't know what it is about it--maybe its tendency toward groove and rhythym or maybe the emotional honesty so clear in its vocals--but soul music helps me get things done. Able to focus, work, and not get bogged down by the repetitiveness that is too often necessary to do things well. Which brings us to Timmie Rogers and his "Super Soul Brother", part vintage soul and part novelty single. Anchored by a seriously boogie-ing boogie-woogie piano and a wah-wah that means business, the song is basically an excuse for Rogers to crack jokes while giving us "a history of soul". A small sampling:

"Black people call this feeling 'soul'. White people call it 'acid indigestion'."

"The first caveman was a soul brother. Who else would kill a dinosaur and barbecue the ribs?"

"Eli Whitney invented the first cotton gin, so all of his soul brothers could stop pickin' it and start drinkin' it."

Other soul brothers include Christopher Colombus, Benjamin Franklin, Marconi, and a superhero named Super Soul Brother, who is, incidentally, "faster than George Wallace on a bicycle going through Harlem". Obviously most of these jokes are wildly polictically incorrect--but they are told so gleefully and with such comedic charisma as to be virtually inoffensive. It's a sense of humor that eventually found its most widely heard voice in Dave Chappelle and (very) quickly devolved into Carlos Mencia. But that George Wallace thing makes me smile every time I hear it.

Timmie Rogers:::Super Soul Brother

As funny as the song can be, it does raise serious questions about what it means to have soul. Do I deserve to be moved by soul music? How much does one have to have in common with a culture in order to feel comfortable enjoying its output? Do I have to eat chitlins to laugh at the joke about them and if I do does that exploit racial stereotypes or undermine them?

Clearly, I wasn't getting much work done. Data input and identity politics are not, generally, a good combination. Luckily for me, the next songs worked some kind of magic on me. Three straight absolutely killer soul songs that banished, for a few moments at least, liberal white guilt.


Sugar Billy:::Super Duper Love, Part 2

Solomon Burke:::I'm Hanging Up My Heart for You

The Gaturs:::Cold Bear

OK--Give these songs a whirl. Why did I spend time musing about whether I "deserve" to be moved by soul music? The fact simply is, I am moved by it. Music this good, this life-affirming doesn't ask to be felt--it is or it isn't. As Timmie Rogers himself says, "Soul is a deep feeling down inside you. Once you get it, you know you got it." So the next time I start to overanalyze music that makes me feel thankful to be alive, I'll know what to do: turn up the music and give thanks.

I'll Never Sleep Again, Either

Anyone who has hung out with me for any length of time within the last two months will not be surprised by today's post. I have been incessantly playing (some might say pushing) Birds and Batteries for friends, family members, and household pets. You know you love it, Pyro! As hinted at by the combination of the pastoral and the mechanized within the band's name, Birds and Batteries are something of a hybrid. Neil Young-style country is the obvious touchstone when it comes to lyricism and vocal stylings, a link made explicit by the opening "Heart of Gold" cover on the groups latest release, I'll Never Sleep Again. (And just in case you didn't quite catch that, listen for a nice cover of "Albuquerque" at the live show.) But thankfully, B&B are able to acknowledge their influences without being limited by them. If the plaintive pedal steel (and man do I love me some pedal steel) and rustic lyrics seem familiar, the synthesizers and drum machines that propel the songs forward certainly don't. It is just this collision that makes B&B so exciting and different--and what keeps me hoping that they continue to surprise us.

Birds and Batteries--Soft Surveillance

Free music alert! Go to B&B's website to download lots of their music with their blessing. Or be a real swell dude/ette and grab "I'll Never Sleep Again" from iTunes. And if you are in the SF area, look for them at The Rickshaw Stop in February.