I love my Rock music. But I also have a lighter side, a part of me that loves to boogie. There is nothing more invigorating than getting on the floor and shaking my money-maker to some funky grooves...
DAY 6:
A song that makes me want to dance.
I was - and to a certain degree am still - a big fat rock-pig. I like my music loud, and preferably containing some kind of awesome guitar bits. And as a small child growing up in the 70's, I was exposed to the whole Disco/Studio 54 vibe. Even throughout the late 80's as my tastes in music began to mature, I was still enjoying hearing House music and 12" remixes of my favourite tracks.
It's probably the enjoyment I get from this physical aspect of music that I got so into the local punk/grunge scene, as I could thrash my body around to the music, allowing my movement to express the kinaesthetic pleasure of the sounds I was hearing.
So in the mid-90's when me and my mates were experimenting with putting together a band, inevitably our tastes wandered into other directions as we sought to become versatile musicians. My two best buddies both played Bass Guitar, and so it was inevitable that we'd start listening to funk (especially given the Red Hot Chilli Peppers early association with the genre).
We started listening to James Brown, Funkadelic, Parliament, Sly & the Family Stone, Herbie Hancock, the Jacksons, and the Isley Brothers. Then the Acid Jazz movement began, a psychedelic rock/funk/jazz fusion style that spawned incredible acts such as Mother Earth and Corduroy, and locally Directions In Groove.
And then this band came along. There first album Emergency on Planet Earth had a hippy vibe to it, with jazz flutes and didgeridoos and spacey lyrics. The second album, Return of the Space Cowboy had a harder, more psychedelic-fuck edge to it. From the third album onwards, Jamiroquai were a straight funk-dance band.
Which is where this track comes in.
from their album Synkronised (1999)
Dance music for me has to have two basic things: rhythm and groove.
Without these, dance music becomes boring, repetitive, and mechanistic. Without wanting to sound like I'm bordering on conspiracy theories, modern 'electro' and 'techno' music is highly industrial sounding. It is simple 4/4 with no harmony or vibe. This music is perfect for trancing people out so that they can be mindless robots performing mindless tasks.
The best dance music has its roots in the polyrhythms of West African traditional music, which of course is the roots of Blues, RnB, Funk, and Jazz. Quality Psy-Trance one would expect to hear at an outdoor rave or festival incorporates these kinds of polyrhythms in its structure, which sets it apart from the machine-sounding rubbish you hear in nightclubs.
When I was considering songs I like to dance to, some awesome Rock tracks also came to mind: Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar, the Black Crowes' Sting Me, Primal Scream's Rocks, and Reef's Place Your Hands On all exemplify the funky-groovy vibe that some Rock musicians have tapped to create songs that you just can't help but to get up and start boogying to.
And the secret is always in the rhythm section - the Bass and the Drums.
No wonder that Jazz and Funk - being originally the 'black' music was discouraged. The hips just don't wanna stop moving, the butt don't wanna stop jiggling.... to quote from a Funkadelic song, "free your ass, and your mind will follow".
This song can bring our inner funny-soul out, no matter how 'white-bread' one may be. As evidenced by this video....
See you on the dance floor, folks.....
😊🕺🏽🤪
MADE FOR STEEMIT
Soundtrack for this post can be found on this month’s STEEMIT SOUNDS playlist
Love these posts. Now I have Rocks in my head lol. Saw Primal Scream at Brixton Academy once. Fun. Go the jiggling hips for sure. Polyrhythmic bliss.
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