Funky House is dead. Long live Booty House...
Woebot on funky house
- Thread starter MATT MAson
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- funky pretentious ryan bone
I'm trying not to take this too seriously, but I don't know...people moaning about dubstep being 'over-inscribed' and 'potentious' obviously haven't been down the front at fwd during an N-Type set.
Anyway isn't funky house just popular because there are actually women at the dances instead of none at the rare-to-non-existent grime raves? Grime didn't really have a proper network of clubs like jungle or garage/2-step anyway, those adverts for funky house have been on rinse for years right through the grime era, purple E3 and all that. I assumed thats just where people went when they weren't taping Dizzee and Doogz off the radio.
Anyway isn't funky house just popular because there are actually women at the dances instead of none at the rare-to-non-existent grime raves? Grime didn't really have a proper network of clubs like jungle or garage/2-step anyway, those adverts for funky house have been on rinse for years right through the grime era, purple E3 and all that. I assumed thats just where people went when they weren't taping Dizzee and Doogz off the radio.
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UFO over easy
online mahjong
who said that?
childrentalking
Well-known member
the implication of the quote I posted is that the "kids" listen to guitar music instead of 'microhouse' because the latter is all about taking photos of each other and networking. which plainly applies to your average shitty indie gig too.
Gabba Flamenco Crossover
High Sierra Skullfuck
You've just hit the nail on the head, my friend.
Reynolds here on 2-steps deference to female tastes: 18th paragraph onwards
Weird piece and i think some of woebots targets are well off, as well as his descriptions of tracks that he recons are funky house, as several of them are pretty much electro house, a pretty standard slice of housey hipsterness at least, which of course cross over well with the kind of kompakt sub series stuff like speicher or k2 very well, almost erm identically infact esp the Leonid Rudenko and Robot need oil which are pretty great in a way.
He also he got the tocadisco track name confused with marshall mathers ' i like it loud' it's actually ' music loud.'
The music he describes is not really the standard stuff played on pirates as funky house, apart from the first track and the one with the diva ish vocal, but it is stuff that sort of crosses between electroclash and minimal pretty well.
It's weird getting kompakt confused for german noodling, after all they are the label pretty much for cleaning up and popifying euro techno.
So its a case like everything that having cherrypicked a few good tracks that you can't really play them off against another entire genre, as the argument can never be won. The reverse can be done against dubstep, dubstep against electroclash, electroclash against techno etc...
but yes there is a certain amount of portentiousness to dubstep or minimal but this kind of stuff in response is numbingly shallow, there are no closed eyes moments, whilst dubstep might have so many grand 'deep' gestures at times, it might seem laughable ( rasta samples you've heard a million times, allusions to roots reggae, constant minor keys) in contrast this stuff has nothing to draw you back into your own body. So even a moving body must loose interest being attached to a heed and all
He also he got the tocadisco track name confused with marshall mathers ' i like it loud' it's actually ' music loud.'
The music he describes is not really the standard stuff played on pirates as funky house, apart from the first track and the one with the diva ish vocal, but it is stuff that sort of crosses between electroclash and minimal pretty well.
It's weird getting kompakt confused for german noodling, after all they are the label pretty much for cleaning up and popifying euro techno.
So its a case like everything that having cherrypicked a few good tracks that you can't really play them off against another entire genre, as the argument can never be won. The reverse can be done against dubstep, dubstep against electroclash, electroclash against techno etc...
but yes there is a certain amount of portentiousness to dubstep or minimal but this kind of stuff in response is numbingly shallow, there are no closed eyes moments, whilst dubstep might have so many grand 'deep' gestures at times, it might seem laughable ( rasta samples you've heard a million times, allusions to roots reggae, constant minor keys) in contrast this stuff has nothing to draw you back into your own body. So even a moving body must loose interest being attached to a heed and all
Guybrush
Dittohead
This guy has loads of live video recordings of funky house sets. There is some electro-house in there, too.
w1llth3thr1ll's Videos
w1llth3thr1ll's Videos
Logan Sama
BestThereIsAtWhatIDo
Incorrect. There are plenty of females at Grime events such as Sidewinders or Eskimo Dances when they happen.
They just don't happen enough for them to become habitual club destinations. House events of some description will be happening still when cockroaches rule the earth, so of course House is a big genre. There's just a bunch of records about that sound like Garage had it never appropriated the 2 step beat, so a bunch of late 20's and early 30 year olds head there in London.
Outside of London, Funky House sounds very different.
Funky House is now just a catch all marketing phrase. It is the 2006 Ibiza House/Trance/Acid House/Euphoric House etc etc etc. A sound becomes profitable within the house scene. Some DJs jump over, some don't. Some make lots of money and sustain their scene, some make decent money and hop from sound to sound.
I don't think you could ever describe Funky House because in certain circles it is essentially a scene, rather than a type of music. There's not much home made Funky. It is mainly imports. You do have that Steelo - Soul Fever record though, that was quite big.
the last time i heard a "minimal" techno set was at quadrant or whatever the place was called on scholes in bushwick, before it got closed down -- and this "minimal" music was to my ears very maximal, very aggressive, very brutalist, but w/o the dynamism of gabba -- nonetheless, the put who were into it were dancing quite hard -- not too far removed from acid techno really -- so i agree that woebot does misrepresent minimal techno
and i've also heard a number deep electro/deep techno sets in recent years -- and these tend be more conventionally "tasteful" than the minimal-gone-maximal german techno -- and typically bore me to tears
HOWEVER, i'm very sympathetic to woebot's larger point, which is that (1) the modernist narrative that runs from acid house through to grime has reached its terminal point, such that (2) there is no longer a (compelling) aesthetic justification for djs to hone-in on a particular sound or play the "newest latest greatest" genre-- which is what dubstep and "serious" techno djs do
rather, post-historical dance djs should go back to the basics -- play pleasure-principled dance music, party-rockers, from across the spectrum of house, rather than soldier for dub spirituality or serious techno sophistication or some such
of course this argument is reductionist and has obvious weaknesses:
(1) if funky house djs/scenes are to be lauded for playing many styles of house, why stop with simply styles of house??? why not go the full nine diplo yards and play dancehall, baile funk, reggaeton and everything else too, i.e., the shanty house that woebot advocated for not so long ago -- why be confined to house/techno/electro/garage?
(2) house music never has been simply functional or simply pleasure-principled -- not even in the "old skool" days -- therefore, how can it be argued that --
errrr, i'm really tired now, so i'm going to leave remarks incomplete and go to sleep!
and i've also heard a number deep electro/deep techno sets in recent years -- and these tend be more conventionally "tasteful" than the minimal-gone-maximal german techno -- and typically bore me to tears
HOWEVER, i'm very sympathetic to woebot's larger point, which is that (1) the modernist narrative that runs from acid house through to grime has reached its terminal point, such that (2) there is no longer a (compelling) aesthetic justification for djs to hone-in on a particular sound or play the "newest latest greatest" genre-- which is what dubstep and "serious" techno djs do
rather, post-historical dance djs should go back to the basics -- play pleasure-principled dance music, party-rockers, from across the spectrum of house, rather than soldier for dub spirituality or serious techno sophistication or some such
of course this argument is reductionist and has obvious weaknesses:
(1) if funky house djs/scenes are to be lauded for playing many styles of house, why stop with simply styles of house??? why not go the full nine diplo yards and play dancehall, baile funk, reggaeton and everything else too, i.e., the shanty house that woebot advocated for not so long ago -- why be confined to house/techno/electro/garage?
(2) house music never has been simply functional or simply pleasure-principled -- not even in the "old skool" days -- therefore, how can it be argued that --
errrr, i'm really tired now, so i'm going to leave remarks incomplete and go to sleep!
"pow" was top 10 too, and i never walked into a random club in nyc and heard it...
S
simon silverdollar
Guest
i agree. i liked Woebot's piece a great deal, but his caricature of kompakt and micro-house was quite far of the mark. the current techno scene is as out of control as you could ever want, perhaps to a fault sometimes...
also, i think Kompakt was a bad choice of example, seeing as they're probably one of the techno labels with the most sympathy for the focus on 'pleasure principles', as woebot characterises funky house.
Grievous Angel
Beast of Burden
Agree with MMS.
I like it banging, me.
Plenty of women at DMZ.
I like it banging, me.
Plenty of women at DMZ.
Chef Napalm
Lost in the Supermarket
I don't know what they're playing either, dom, but it sounds like plain ol' House to me. Why add the "Funky"?
My sense is (albeit from across the pond) that "Funky House" DJs are cherry-picking the best from a variety of genres in much the same way Northern Soul DJs did 30yrs ago and Balearic DJs did 20yrs ago. House, electro-house, minimal house, techno, tech-house, disco; it's all about tempo and dance-floor appeal. What it isn't is the forced eclecticism of Diplo and his ilk.
If the term "Funky House" is such a stumbling block for the uninitiated (myself included), then why don't we think about calling it something else for ease of discussion?
''Yeah Yeah'' was all over the pirates last year before it was a hit.The electro sound is starting to run parallel to the funky/soulful house thing.The only dedicated show on the pirates that I know of is The Radiokillaz on Freeze FM.Interestingly they feature a 'garage' style MC.
The electro sound also seems to be popular with the younger audience brought up on Grime.You can knock up an Electro tune on Fruity Loops just as easy as you can a Grime 8Bar.Making a Funky House tune is a lot harder.I can see this influence coming through into Grime if the tend continues.
There were a lot of ladies dancing at 'Dirty Canvas' last week,but there were also quite a few 2 Step records dropped between acts.When Roll Deep came on stage Maximum played 'Cure And The Cause' and the floor went crazy.
http://www.myspace.com/thekandytangerineman
Chef Napalm
Lost in the Supermarket
They're talking about this on rinse right now! Funky House vs. Dubstep vs. Garage.