Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I do find it kind of funny how a lot of dubstep crew got all into Funky but made it very clear while they were doing it that funky house is Serious Fucking Business...
Funky/London/UK House
You could put something out yourself.
If there was a guarantee that Id make all my money back and draw even, Id do it just for the crack. But Im guessing that unless you can shift vinyl easily or even fairly reasonably like a well established Dubstep label, making your money back isn't a reality when your pressing up a few hundred UKF whites. Is it?
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Yeah you def get people like this (people who constantly ask for instrumental versions of vocal tunes is a particular favourite of mine
), but I can also respect that some people have genuinely made a real effort to adjust to the different vibes of the music. Dunno what it's like in London, but at nights up here like Stay Plastic or Numbers which play a mixture of stuff pretty much everybody dances to the funky, as well as to the more dubstep-influenced housey stuff. And people are smiling, making noise for the tunes etc, it doesn't feel like Serious People Only even though a lot of the regulars are obv very knowledgable about music. At this stage the last thing I'd want is to make all dubstep folks feel unwelcome in the music, just as long as they're willing to properly engage with it.
Soul Jazz using the instrumental of "African Warrior" on their comp is such an archetypal example of this that it's almost amusing, like if I'd been asked to write a fake Bill Drummond style guide on how to sell funky as safe for curator types my number 1 instruction would have been to include the instrumental of "African Warrior".
wise
bare BARE BONES
Fresh bump.
I googled Champion - Bad Girl to see where they were selling it, first link was to a free 320 download on **********
Depressing
I'll still buy Bad Girl but it's been so long in coming out that i'm not really excited about it anymore.
I loved that tune for ages too
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funny you should single out that one because i actually can't stand the african warrior vocal. and i love all the vocal tunes normally. also i seem to remember marcus nasty mostly playing the instrumental at the time?
enough with your straw men fighting, if funky is to expand it needs to work/collaborate with people or build some infrastructure of it's own. selling MP3s on obscure sites wont pay many bills.
plus the vocal of African Warrior is embarrassingly clumsy, "waving my stick in my hand...", it's the kind of thing an idiot would write about African tribes. Nuum DJs like Maximum mostly played the instrumental tbh... half of funky think donaeo's a fool and couldn't stand what he did to Suges' instrumental either... this isn't my pov btw, this is from interviews i've done with headz.
this is bullshit isnt it? where do you live/play out? i mean, half the night slugs sound is house (the LVis side), are you actually saying girls don't dance to house? and oneman's sets are rammed with r&b refixes and canblaster-style house, you trying to suggest that's bloke-ier than thou? BS...
bit of a late comment, as im just catching up, but as others have said, if youre trying to gauge funky from releases, then youre not going to get v far. you need to be listening to all the sets really to get a decent idea about it. but if you compare it to releases that are actually out, then yeah, of course night slugs and that lot are going to have an advantage. i dont think its really fair to compare the stuff house/funky has inspired to funky itself, but if youve always been into the more 'progressive' end of stuff like blackdown has been far as i can tell, then yeah, youre going to be more into numbers, night slugs and that kind of thing compared to say, mad one or champion and co. funky (or insert other scene name) is the engine powering night slugs and them anyway. without it, they wouldnt have the chassis for a lot of their ideas.
edit - as for the perfect ill blu tune, blu magic is pretty much it. i think they have quite a few in fact.
edit - as for the perfect ill blu tune, blu magic is pretty much it. i think they have quite a few in fact.
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I'm just speaking from my own DJ'ing experience in Newcastle.
The reference I gave was to a night I played last week and all the Dubstep guys who used to call me bandwagon for playing Funky were all congratulating themselves on playing 'Funky', which was actually just post-dubstep, as soon I played the likes of Natalie K- Speechless all the mandem slunk off to the bar and the ladies came forward for a boogie, no lies
edit: I don't want to take it away from the Nightslugs camp, I'll admit that I've smashed it a couple of times with a carefully placed L-vis tune, and for me L-vis was great when he played Newcastle, was a pretty dire turnout unfortunately. Things are pretty backward up here though, no one was playing anything remotely funky in clubs apart from me and a few mates until just recently
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well tbf, the common view is that disinterested girls are more aroused by catchy song based dance music, whereas obsessive blokes like abstracty / less poppy dance music. im sure we've all experienced some observable verification of this massive generalization
*shrugs*
a) the "African Warrior" vocal is great, recognise;
b) it's "rolling with my stick in my hand", and obv "stick" does not mean what you think it means, it's not about african tribes except as a play on words;
c) marcus used to alternate between the vocal and the instrumental, which is what he does with a lot of harder/denser/tribal-ish vocal tracks, e.g. Devine Collective's "People Keep Dancing"... he used to play "Party Hard" for that matter; and
d) "Nuum DJs like Maximum" are responsible for "Too Many Man" too so let's not go there.
b) it's "rolling with my stick in my hand", and obv "stick" does not mean what you think it means, it's not about african tribes except as a play on words;
c) marcus used to alternate between the vocal and the instrumental, which is what he does with a lot of harder/denser/tribal-ish vocal tracks, e.g. Devine Collective's "People Keep Dancing"... he used to play "Party Hard" for that matter; and
d) "Nuum DJs like Maximum" are responsible for "Too Many Man" too so let's not go there.
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
I can vouch for all this. Its just a typical attitude round here and in a lot of other places too I would imagine, including a lot of London clubbers.
It seems a lot of people who have come into the house sound after being into dubstep don't like girly vocal tunes and funky 'proper'. Its the same people who have started liking El-B and all that dark garage stuff but would baulk at something like Shanks and Bigfoot. And of this a generalisation but there's a lot of truth in it too.
I like to think if I lived in London I'd be checking out events like Soul Sure etc. Has anyone on here actually been to one of these nights? I don't think I've ever seen anyone mention it yet on here.
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i can't help thinking that the after the event reverence for el b - usually from folk who weren't buying the records at the time or whatever too, has totally distorted what people think happened in 2 step, you know, it wasn't written about a great deal at the time, there are obvs things in long gone print mags, but like everything on the net, its all revision. What do they say' the past will disappear and the future will go next'
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Gah, wish I hadn't even mentioned that about the vocals/instrumentals now. That post was supposed to be positive about people from other backgrounds engaging with the music.
I prefer the instro of AW, but the vocal has a certain something too. As for the Soul Jazz comp, it's not perfect but it's not a disaster either. Think the Rinse funky comp would be a better general introduction for people, but don't have any views on it beyond that.
I guess there are some people out there who don't 'get it', for want of a better phrase, but moaning about it too much isn't productive imo: if their tastes are that different then you'll never win them over, and instead you're just likely to put off people with one toe in, so to speak, because they'll feel the sound/scene is too policed and hostile to newcomers. Best just to keep pointing out what you like about the music in a way that hopefully communicates to people.
I prefer the instro of AW, but the vocal has a certain something too. As for the Soul Jazz comp, it's not perfect but it's not a disaster either. Think the Rinse funky comp would be a better general introduction for people, but don't have any views on it beyond that.
I guess there are some people out there who don't 'get it', for want of a better phrase, but moaning about it too much isn't productive imo: if their tastes are that different then you'll never win them over, and instead you're just likely to put off people with one toe in, so to speak, because they'll feel the sound/scene is too policed and hostile to newcomers. Best just to keep pointing out what you like about the music in a way that hopefully communicates to people.
FairiesWearBoots
Well-known member
there's the problem, London is the center of funky and it seems to be struggling outside of it?
SOMEWHAT like Grime, few raves and fewer record sales means less money for those involved and less chance to promote the sound,
the post dubstep 'house' now being played fits easier into the scene outside London and so seems to be growing quicker,
if the (funky) sound doesnt grow, the potential for it to stagnate is there (I'm not saying this is happening)
SOMEWHAT like Grime, few raves and fewer record sales means less money for those involved and less chance to promote the sound,
the post dubstep 'house' now being played fits easier into the scene outside London and so seems to be growing quicker,
if the (funky) sound doesnt grow, the potential for it to stagnate is there (I'm not saying this is happening)
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I really don't get out enough, so I shouldn't really say that much. I've loved the DJs I've heard who've mixed up the more eyes-down post dubstep stuff with the properly cheesy party tunes. I was mainly thinking of the production side of it, where a lot of people have started doing future garage or funky oriented tunes as a conscious step away from the macho teenage wobble filth thing, but always seem to be slightly distanced and nervous of actually cutting loose with the rude, cheesy, fun side of it. I'm not properly in the loop, though, so I'd love to be proved wrong on this...
FairiesWearBoots
Well-known member
and lest we forget, heads love BASS ('nuum etc), everyone loves bass
bass driven house is an instant link from dubstep,
some funky tracks dont quite have the sub, but they have great drums (and I love funky drums)
maybe that's part of it?
bass driven house is an instant link from dubstep,
some funky tracks dont quite have the sub, but they have great drums (and I love funky drums)
maybe that's part of it?
Benny Bunter
Well-known member
actually I was thinking about this last night, and maybe the opposite might be true. Perhaps the fact its stayed an underground scene has been part of the reason why its still creating great stuff now. Its had a quite a long run already and doesn't seem to be stagnating at all. Maybe pop success wouldn't be best in the long run, although I am still surprised more tunes haven't broken into the charts.