Audacious Groove #5 (Funky Deep House & Synth Funk)

New mix time! This one’s a tasty little combination of new and old. In the new corner we have some groovy deep house and some slightly more discoey stuff, and representing the oldies we’ve got some disco and 80s synth funk type goodness. I got a bit carried away and ended up cramming 22 songs into just over an hour, as there was a lot I wanted to include, but this does expose the fact that I used auto sync for this one. I still tend to for my mixes as there’s less chance of it going wrong, but I think I’ll do one soon where I leave it off and see where that takes me. Anyway, here’s an hour and five minutes of old and new funky sounds, I hope you like it! Please comment on Soundcloud and let me know what you think, and I’d be grateful for any reposts too. Cheers!

TRACKLIST

Michael Jackson - Rock With You (The Reflex Revision)
Brandi Wells - Watch Out (DJ Sensus Edit)
Louie Fresco - New Hateration (MK Remix)
Disclosure - Boiling
Tweet - Boogie 2Nite (Fat Camp Mix)
Rufus & Chaka Khan - Do You Love What You Feel
Toby Tobias - In Your Eyes (Tensnake Remix)
Cloud One - Flying High
Heatwave - Raise A Blaze
Commodores - I Feel Sanctified (The Apple Scruffs Edit)
Phono and Kemi - Smile
Marlon Hoffstadt Dannsson - Shake That (Daniel Broadhurst Edit)
Change - A Lovers's Holiday (Jim Burgess Mix)
K.I.D. - Take It To The Top
Sare Havlicek - Let The Sound
Shook - Wasp
Logg - I Know You Will (Fingerman & Funkyjaws Edit)
Con Funk Shun - You Are The One
Chromeo - Come Alive
Duke Dumont feat. A*M*E - Need U (Skreamix)
Jackie Moore - This Time Baby
Marcus Marr - The Music

Pitching down the classics

This post is about a certain kind of tune that I've been getting quite into recently - modern House tracks that heavily sample the vocals from old tunes but in a new and original way, rather than just ripping out the lead vocal and sticking a new beat over it. It's been trendy over the last couple of years to replace the vocal downwards to make it suitable for contemporary deep house, and this technique is often used to awesome effect. Sometimes it's the whole vocal, sometimes just a snippet, and I’ve been actively seeking out songs like this recently.

A core principle of my DJing is attempting to link the past to the present - giving credit to the great music of yesterday whilst looking forward to today and tomorrow. Whilst I now play a lot of older stuff (like before I was born old!), and I don't have the money or the inclination to keep my collection bang up to date with all of the latest gems and future classics, I do like to try and keep at least a few toes closer to the present day, and having a few tracks like this alongside other up to date stuff helps me to do that whilst keeping the links to the past. These, and modern songs with an old school flavour, which are also in vogue at the moment... but those are for another time!

Anyway, below are a couple of tracks that demonstrate what I'm on about, along with the songs that they evolved from...

David Keno - Upside Down

It's pretty obvious where this one was lifted from, but it's a good example of the detuned vocal technique. Not quite enough Funk for my liking, but good all the same.

Sylvester - Mighty Real (Sixth Avenue Remake)

This one's an absolute belter, and a staple of my sets. Sylvester's usually falsetto voice is repitched to produce a haunting deep house track with added funky saxophone towards the middle too. An absolute winner, and one of my favourite tracks of the past year!

Coat Of Arms - Is This Something

A couple of years old, but another good example - just taking a small bit of the Faith Evans original and twisting it into something completely new and different.

Louie Fresco - New Hateration

On a similar tip to the one above, this one takes a fairly small portion of an old R&B tune and reworks it into a modern house track. I’ve only just downloaded this one, but chances are it’ll make an appearance in my next mix!

Navy Shade - Oh My Love

Special mention for this one even though it’s a bit different to the others as the vocal is kept at the original pitch. I mention it here because it’s got Luther’s voice a capella, which is really useful, and the original is one of the best songs ever recorded.

Do you know of any songs like this that I can add to my collection? Please leave me a comment if you do!

Out of (auto)sync

I’m a digital DJ, and I like to use all of the tools at my disposal to make mixing music more interesting, varied and easier. There’s been a debate bubbling along in the digital DJing world since pretty much day one about the ‘sync button’. For those that don’t know, this is a button, present in virtually all DJing software, that when pressed synchronises the speed and timing of the incoming track with the playing track, so theoretically doing away with the need for manual beatmatching. Supporters say it leaves the DJ free to do other, more exciting stuff rather than wasting valuable time getting two tracks lined up and at the same speed. On the flipside, people argue that it’s taking the skill out of DJing, and making it too easy - even going as far to say it’s not real DJing if you’re letting the computer do all of the work.

For years, I’ve been firmly on the pro-sync side, but recently I had a partial change of heart… a Sync-epiphany even. Now I started off DJing on vinyl, and so learnt to beatmatch the traditional, 'hard' way. Beatmatching is genuinely difficult and confusing when you first start to learn, but I’ll always remember that buzz I got when it all clicked into place, when my brain suddenly understood what it had to do, and once you’ve nailed it, it’s a skill that never really goes away. But then I went digital, and the sync button took that time consuming step away, freeing me up to search for the next track, or play with some effects, or whatever. With sync, you can mix more freely and do tricks like never before, slamming in a new track with a few seconds’ notice, perfectly in time, every time.

But what I didn’t realise was that despite the liberation that sync gave, it took me further away from the music, and actually ended up limiting my development and enjoyment of the DJing craft. I became lazy, knowing that my tracks would automatically be perfectly aligned. I became restless, with little else to do than bang in track after track, chopping and changing every few minutes because I didn’t have much else to do. Ultimately, I became bored, and for a while DJing seemed pointless and devoid of any purpose.

Shifting my focus towards funky music started to throw up some problems on the sync front - auto sync is all well and good when you’re playing House with its nice regular drum machine generated beats, but a lot of the old Disco and Funk that I started listening to was drummed by hand and so wasn’t at a constant tempo, so sync is of limited use for these. This caused me to rethink my strategy and brush up on my beatmatching skills, just so I could work these tunes into my sets. So I bought a jogwheel equipped controller, deactivated sync and removed the visual guides that I’d come to rely on such as the phase meter and BPM readout, and jumped back in.

The difference was dramatic, and pretty unexpected. By turning off the autopilot, I suddenly had to think again, and actually listen to the music. It made me feel like a real DJ for the first time in ages. It’s weird, but it’s as if having that connection to the music through the jogwheel and pitch fader bought me closer to the music; my role was active again after previously being just a glorified spectator. And sharpening up those beatmatching skills (which like riding a bike you never really lose, but they can get rusty over time) made me less afraid to play those amazing old tunes that don’t have a perfectly constant tempo. And I’ve come to appreciate that sync doesn’t always get it right - beatgrids aren’t always perfect, and a DJ should always trust their ears above everything else. Having a bit of natural tempo drift isn’t always a bad thing; everything being mechanically and rigidly perfectly in time 100% of the time can be.

So now I’m occupying this middle ground between the promoters and the detractors of auto sync. I still use it, but I try not to become overly reliant on it. Some days sync suits me, but other times I keep it more for emergencies, and try to keep a large percentage of my practising restricted to manual beatmatching so I can keep my skills sharp. That way, although I might rely on sync more at a gig, I know I’ll be able to fall back on to CDs if I hit any technical problems. There’s nothing wrong with auto sync at all, but I firmly believe that all DJs should at least be able to manually sync two tracks together, if only for the increased closeness to the music that you get from having to manipulate it with your hands. It’s fun!

There’s lots more about Sync mixing on one of my favourite sites, the excellent Digital DJ Tips…

www.digitaldjtips.com/tag/using-the-sync-button/‎
www.digitaldjtips.com/2013/02/how-to-move-past-select-sync-djing/‎
www.digitaldjtips.com/tag/sync-button/‎

Where do you stand on this? Does it matter? Is it cheating?! Let me know in the comments! 

The wonders of technology...

My next blog post was due to be about the variety of DJing equipment that I've owned over the years, and how I've ended up with my current awesome set up... But my experience over the last few days has inspired me to shelve that one for the moment and change the subject slightly. This post is less about Funk, more about lack of it.

Technology is a wonderful thing, and I make no secret of the fact that I'm a bit of a gadget geek. Digital DJing, aside from the obvious advantages and expanded possibilities that it offers, is the perfect way to indulge in my twin passions of music and geekery. My current setup is advanced, carefully thought out, expensive and almost perfect. Almost. Over the last few days I've been having sync issues. Without going into too much detail, I have two Macbooks - one powerful new one for DJing, and my previous older one for other stuff. I use the older one for day to day sorting out of tracks - beatgridding, tagging etc in order to keep the DJing laptop fresh and used only for what I bought it for. I then sync my music collection between the two via personal cloud so that changes on one are automatically copied to the other. This usually works pretty well (although recently it's been a bit slow), but over the last few days it's kind of come crumbling down. I'm not sure what I've done, but it's got confused somehow and isn't working properly. No data has been lost (I'm very, very careful about this sort of thing), but it's a headache that's stopping me from mixing. I'm reluctant to do any DJing when the collection isn't fully synced as I've lost data by doing that before, and it's currently copying the entire collection back on to both computers excruciatingly slowly. All I can do is wait, and hope it works. It's already gone wrong once which led to me having to start the whole process again, so here's hoping.

What this highlights, aside from my obvious incompetence at true geekiness, is a modern DJ's increasing reliability on technology, and their increasing vulnerability when it all goes pear shaped. Luckily I haven't had my equipment crap out on me during a live gig for a while (it happened to me during a competition once, it wasn't good - hence the expensive macbooks that I've used ever since) but this has been, and is continuing to be a pretty annoying experience. I would say it's making me yearn for the simpler days of two turntables, a mixer and a stack of vinyl, but it's not. Digital DJing offers so many more possibilities, and is definitely the way things are going. Don't get me wrong, there will always be a valid place for those who choose to keep it old skool, but with my limited budget I'd never be able to collect and mix the range of funky music that I currently can if it wasn't for digital. The digital DJing artform is very much still in its infancy, and problems like this are a fact for those of us near the edge of what's possible, but would I go back? No way!

But most of all, it's reminded me how much I love DJing - not being able to do it all week has left me at a loose end, and I'm itching to get back behind the (digital) decks and crank up the Funk again!

Audacious Groove #4 (Assorted Funky Business)

THe latest episode in the Audacious Groove series takes a slightly different tack to the three before it - whereas episodes 1-3 focussed mainly on one broad genre, this one's more of a mixed bag. We start with a bit of old funk, pick things up to a quick bit of reasonably obscure disco, then there's a longish section of retro 80s sythy type stuff - although it's not all old stuff - bit of Chromeo and the like in there. Then we finish up with a couple of more recent bits like a new track from Duck Sauce, and my retro song of the moment to finish. Steppin' Out by George Howard might just be the happiest song in history!

As previously, I fell foul of copyright issues when trying to upload this, but managed to remedy this - we have a nice gentle orchestral intro to start instead now ;)

I'm pretty pleased with how this came out, and I hope you enjoy!



TRACKLIST

MFSB - Summertime
Curtis Mayfield - Superfly
Kool & The Gang - Funky Stuff
Ann Robinson - You Did It
The Gap Band - Shake
The Rebirth - Evil Vibrations
Joe Coleman - Get It Off the Ground
Sylk 130 - When The Funk Hits The Fan
Jacques Renault - Can't Nobody Love Me
Althea Forest - Hey Mister
Class Action - Weekend
Chromeo - Night By Night
Breakbot - Fantasy (AB Mix)
Strip Steve - Breakin' (Lorenz Rhode Remix)
Dayton - Sound of music (Lucan Edit)
Shook - Tonight
Cashmere - Try Your Lovin'
Duck Sauce - Party In Me
Duke Dumont feat. A*M*E - Need U (Skreamix)
Les Loups - Elephant & Ivory
George Howard - Steppin' Out

Chromeo, oh

One of the purposes of this blog is to showcase some of the funky music that I listen to, and that I think you should listen to as well. So welcome to the first of my artist showcases, and who else could it be for the first one but Chromeo, probably my favourite act right now.

Chromeo are you one of those odd cases where I only got into them after seeing them live, but it was actually much later. I saw them at a rainy festival in 2008, and the only reason I was in the tent was to shelter from the rain. I didn't really pay them any attention, and so they didn't really make much of an impression on me at the time - in fact all I can remember is the keyboards with legs. It was probably another year or two before I stumbled across them on Spotify and as I recognised the name I gave them a go, and was hooked.

There's something about them that I just love. It's the kitsch 80s retro, the squidgy synths, the vocoders, but more than anything they just make great, catchy disco music. I also like that they don't seem to take themselves too seriously, it's fun music for fun times. The kind of 80s retro synth style that they specialise in is so dated and cheesy that its cool again, and they've nailed it. Here's a couple of their highlights...

After failing to pay attention to them when I saw them live the first time around, I've been itching to see them ever since I discovered them properly. I managed to miss them at Glastonbury a few years back (due to excessive mud I think), and watching them on Bestival highlights in a year I didn't go only strengthened my determination. But finally, late last year that day arrived. I don't go to many gigs these days, but I'm glad I went to this one, in a tiny club in East London on a week night. Non stop songs that I loved, and about 3 rows from the front. Here are some of the startlingly good photos that I took on the night...

New album on the way this year at some point - make sure you give it a listen. Here's a taster of what's to come:

 

Audacious Groove #3 (Disco)

Episode 3 of my Audacious Groove podcast is pure, unadulterated Funky Disco Music. A veritable explosion of groovy retro goodness!


TRACKLIST:

Sister Sledge - Lost In Music (Dimitri From Paris Remix)
Sergio Mendes - I'll Tell You
The Salsoul Orchestra - 212 N. 12th
Eastside Connection - You're So Right For Me
The Brothers Johnson - The Real Thing
Quincy Jones - Ai No Corrida
George Duke - Reach Out
George Benson - Never Give Up On A Good Thing
Slave - Just A Touch Of Love (Breixo Edit)
Norma Jean Wright - Sorcerer (Smart Edit)
Loleatta Holloway - Love Sensation
Rose Royce - Is It Love You're After
Scherrie Payne - I'm Not In Love / Girl, You're In Love (Mix-X-X-Tend Version)
Nightfall - Keep It Up (Dim's DJ friendly Edit)
Doug Willis - You Should Be Dancing
John Davis And The Monster Orchestra - Bourgie Bourgie
Brainstorm - We're On Our Way Home

Audacious Groove #2 (Soulful, Funky & Deep House)

Episode two is full of sexy House music of various types, with a few current-ish tunes and some funky classics. It's not 100% House (I even threw in a bit of Jacko towards the end), but based around a 4/4 beat. Enjoy!

TRACKLIST

St Germain - So Flute
Cassy Britton - A Plea For Me
deepanddisco - Stomp! (Deep&Disco Rework)
DJ Fopp - Tribute
Mr. Ho - What We Want
Rue Jay & Ic3 Cream Social - All Night
SolutionFeels So Right - Friend Within Remix
The Candy Dealers - Come Alive (Jay West Mix)
Miguel Puente - Small Proposition
Rudimental - Hell Could Freeze (Skream Remix)
Ce Ce Peniston - Finally (Acapella)
Bad 2 The Bone feat. Denise Gordon - Never Gonna Stop (Vocal Mix)
Jaimeson - Common Ground
Kings of Tomorrow - Fall For You (feat. April) [Sandy Rivera's Classic Mix]
Sylvester - Mighty Real (Sixth Avenue Remix)
Wattie Green - New Jazz
Alankara - Higher Love (Fender Edit)
Waifs & Strays - Body Shiver
Jonas Rathsman - Feeling You
Stardust - Music Sounds Better With You
Hot Natured - Benediction
Angel Manuel vs. Mr Fingers - Can You Feel It (Masi & Mello Remix)
Oliver Cheatham - Get Down Saturday Night
Michael Jackson - Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
Just Kiddin - Feeling Better

Three steps to Funk...

As you can probably tell, this blog is all about Funky music, and the majority (but by no means the entirety) of what I listen to nowadays would fall within that bracket. I didn’t get into Funk overnight, it’s been bubbling along for several years - although it was a conscious decision to start listening to and collecting more, and to make all things funky the centre of my DJ sets.

 I like to think I’ve got a pretty wide ranging taste in music, and I thought it would be fun to have a look back at the various types of music I’ve been into over the years. Interesting to see that my interest in music can be roughly divided into three distinct stages based on age - teenage, twenties, and thirties (I’m ‘only’ 30, by the way!) I was always a bit of a rocker in my teenage years, but always had a bit of a soft spot for electronic music, secretly listening to Aphex Twin and Squarepusher in between Nirvana albums. My interest in electronica remained when my enthusiasm for Rock faded, and it soon broadened out to include more - first Hip Hop and Drum and Bass and then as I started to get more into DJing I found House, first as necessity to learn to beatmatch and then as a passion. House opened up a whole new world for me as it’s one of the most diverse and versatile forms of music out there, so for years I immersed myself in House, and I still love it today. I have become a lot more selective though, and I prefer the warmer side of it these days, rather than anything too mechanical.

I think this unscientific and hastily drawn diagram neatly (!?) sums up what I've been into over the years... Although it's worth mentioning that I don’t like to be restricted by genre... If I like it, I like it, regardless of what it's been pigeonholed into. And a lot of stuff I like I have no idea what genre it even is! I could keep on adding lines and genres to this diagram all day but it’s complicated enough as it is.

 So how did I end up addicted to funk? Well, a couple of years ago my interest in DJing was waning a bit, and a lot of the music I used to love just wasn’t doing it for me any more. Instead of trying to mix anything and everything I love (not impossible, and some people do it really well, but I don’t have the time or the money to dedicate to that!), I focused on what I loved about the music that still did do it for me, and the common theme that emerged was ‘funkiness’... whatever that is (more on that in a future blog post, perhaps?). I guess it’s just music with soul and feeling, which a lot of electronic music can often be lacking. Music with a good bassline and that intangible groove that makes you want to dance. So funk doesn’t represent the entirety of what I listen to and like, but rather the side of what I’m into that I want to share with the world.

Audacious Groove #1 (Funk)

I've finally got around to recording my first mix in absolutely ages, so I'm really pleased with myself. This mix is just straight up Funk in it's rawest form, the majority is made up from tracks from the 70s, although there's a bit of newer stuff in there too. Not much beatmatching as it's tricky to do with this style of music, and I find that trying to do anything too flashy with music like this actually takes away rather than adding anything, so I decided to let the music speak for itself for this one. A lot of the other music I play (Disco, 80s Synth Funk, House etc.) lends itself much more to beatmatching and blends.

As I said, this is my first mix that I've uploaded for ages, about 18 months in fact. The reason it's been so long is that I went through a tricky time with mixing whilst I pondered my future and what I wanted to play. Then once I got back into it it just took me ages to get back to the stage where I was happy enough with my core skills, music collection and track selection abilities to want to record anything. Then it took me a while to get around to it, and it took a few attempts to get right. But I got there in the end!

One thing that really frustrated me was that just after I uploaded this mix I got an email from Soundcloud saying that it had been removed again because of 'copyright infringement'. The track in question was the very first song - Soul Man by Sam and Dave. Now I'm all in favour of artists being paid for their work and I acquire all of my music legally, but this strikes me as pointless. I could understand it if I was making any money out of the mix, or I was offering up the song on its own for download, but as part of a mix I see it as more of a celebration of the songs, and if anything it's promoting the song on the label's behalf for free. Literally half of the music I buy is due to Soundcloud mixes - I listen to a mix, note down where in the mix there are songs that I want, Shazam them and then buy them. So I don't really see who gains from mixes being taken down like this - yes technically I do need their permission to use it, but I acquired it legally, they made money from me buying it, and what I'm doing doesn't cost them any money, and might even make them some. Seems to me like another case of record labels throwing the book at everyone in a vain attempt to protect their work, but in the end it does the opposite. Thanks Atlantic Records.

Luckily it was the first track, and the lack of mixing on my part made it easy to do a quick edit and reupload. But it's a shame because it's a great track, and I thought it was an appropriate start to my new mix series as well. Anyway, here's the rest of the mix, hope you enjoy!


TRACKLIST

Sam & Dave - Soul Man 
Otis Redding - Hard To Handle
Commodores - Slippery When Wet
The Haggis Horns - The Bump
Inez Foxx - Watch The Dog That Brings The Bone
The Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing
Black Ivory - Surrender
Gloria Jones - Windstorm
Pimp Rekker - Mission & 24th
Uptown Funk Empire - We Stand at the Back of the Bus
Parliament - Give Up The Funk
Leroy Hutson - Blackberry Jam
Ann Sexton - Sugar Daddy
Brass Construction - Get Up To Get Down
Sly And The Family Stone - Thank You
Ohio Players - Fire (DJ Prince Remix)
The Soul Snatchers - Scratch My Itch
James Brown - Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose
Elijah Collins & Tee-J - I Used to Feel Alright
Marva Whitney - Unwind Yourself
The Mighty Showstoppers - Shaft in Africa
Mass Production - People Get Up
The O'Jays - Love Train

This is the first of hopefully many in the Audacious Groove series, and I'll be trying to get them uploaded on a regular basis. Episode 2 is already done so will be up soon... Let's hope that one doesn't fall foul of copyright too! Please feel free to let me know what you think, both of the mix and of the copyright issue. Is it going too far or does intellectual property always need defending to this level, even when in my opinion there don't seem to be any clear winners in this case?

I'm FNKY

Hello! I'm Tom, And I play music that I like for my own amusement, and occasionally for the entertainment of others. Welcome to my blog, which will eventually become a random collection of my thoughts, musings and mixes.

As you can see, when deciding on a new DJ name I decided to eschew vowels and go for one composed entirely of consonants, so FNKY it is. It doesn't stand for anything, I just like it and was amazed that no other DJ on this planet had thought of using it before me. Moreover, it's four letters that pretty accurately sum up the sort of music I play - anything funky basically. That's actually a pretty wide remit, spanning a lot more than just Funk. As well as old and new Funk I also play Disco, Soul, Hip hop, Electro, and House music in its myriad forms... Soulful, funky, deep, old skool. And anything else too - as long as I can feel that groove I'm happy.

 I'm intending to regularly record mixes and upload them as a podcast. To compensate on the lack of vowels in my name this was originally going to be called the Facetious Groove Podcast (‘facetious’ having all five vowels, in order), but I eventually settled on Audacious Groove, which nicely sums up what I’m aiming to achieve from this series - music that’s groovy, but original and daring, not falling into a rut, and willing to take some risks. My plan is to have a theme for each episode, but the episodes themselves will be quite varied - I hope for it to be a showcase for the many facets of funky music! Please also check out my Soundcloud page to find the episodes.

Although I’ve been DJing for about 10 years now, it’s only relatively recently that I’ve started to focus on the funkier things in life. I used to be resolutely a house and electro DJ, but found that something was missing, and I wasn’t feeling the same connection with the music that I once had. I love a huge variety of music, but when I made the decision to just try and play whatever I wanted (my short lived Genreholics Anonymous project), I found it too difficult to focus and to build coherent sets. That’s why I decided to focus on funk, and make it my life’s work to collect, assemble and interpret the vast array of music out there that’s got that funky feeling.

This blog is intended to be a collection of my thoughts, feelings and general outlook on the subject of anything funky. It’ll also contain some of my general goings on as a DJ - I’m not in this game to make a living any more, but for the love of the music, and I hope that comes through in this blog.

Anyway, that’s enough from me for now. Thanks for reading, and I hope you come back here soon.