Make it funky
Steve Lalla
slalla@hour.ca
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Bus (L) and Skinny Bones: Funky means happy
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Hard work and a positive attitude go a long way, especially when you're hawking the freshest newest wares in town, upstart promoters E.S.L. have discovered. Interest continues to grow around their MTL Funky events, the first penetration of the newest underground dance music genre springing out of London, England, called simply U.K. funky or funky house.
"I was last living in London, Ontario," begins Bus. "I started E.S.L. Productions out there basically just pushing all British music 'cause I think [the British] have a lock on what's happening next. Every time I hear new shit it's something that hit London already two years earlier. We played mainly grime and dubstep at that time, two or three years ago, sometimes with a jungle DJ to start the night, garage, anything that worked. I came here hoping to throw larger parties and to live. I'm slowly falling in love with this city."
Dancers and DJs alike know that house music is nothing new. The distinction with the U.K. funky movement is that its roots are found in London's grime and dubstep scene. The shift from grime to funky has some critics recalling the U.K. garage boom of 2000, when the accessible garage style (commonly referred to as UKG nowadays) replaced dark, druggy drum'n'bass as London's "in" sound virtually overnight.
"It's huge in the U.K. I went there in 2005, and you go there to check out one thing but by the time you get there it's an entirely new story. I went there to check out grime and everyone was like, 'Dubstep, dubstep.'
Sure enough, nobody is listening to grime anymore. Right now I'd say funky is the most prominent sound in the U.K. Like I said though, if I went over there right tonight I'm sure I'd find some next new hybrid sound that's just started. But from what I hear it's Geeneus and Marcus Nasty that are playing the big rooms."One notable convert to the funky sound is Canadian d'n'b cornerstone Marcus Visionary, who had been exploring dubstep sounds as well with his recent productions and sets. Producing d'n'b since 1996 and currently signed to Shy FX's Digital Soundboy label, Marcus nevertheless will perform a special three-hour funky house set this weekend.
"Marcus is my favourite DJ. He's so good at spinning jungle, I was excited when I heard he was starting to mix house. Jungle is such an abrasive style and he spins it so clean and tidy, he doesn't jeopardize his mixes for any tricks or gimmicks - nice long mixes and a really stellar DJ."
As dance music and technology adapt at rapid rates, it's comforting to see an emerging scene that respects the language and logic of the DJ's art, as house music always has.
"I have a lot more respect for DJs that take you on that journey," concurs Bus, "who can really do something with what they're playing. They're the ones that are morphing the bass lines, holding the crowd back, building the anticipation. These house producers are putting so much effort into the structure of their songs that it's a shame to waste it. The way a good house record is built you have time to hear it in the headphones before it gets going; they're made in a way that the DJ is supposed to play it. A lot of that is being lost right now."
MTL Funky with DJs Marcus Visionary, Bus and Skinny Bones on Saturday, May 9 (info: myspace.com/eslonline).
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Local selectors of syncopated sounds Planet Break launch their digital label and new website with a jam Saturday night. Founder of Promo records, Toronto's Robb G. returns to Montreal to DJ with PBR insiders Spacekadet, Pinky 38, Murdock, Kai, Nino and Thomas H. (info: www.planetbreakrecords.com, at Le Gymnase).
Decibel Underground opens in the club formerly known as Coda (4119 St-Laurent) with Masters at Work's Kenny Dope flying in from Brooklyn to join special guest and local house music cognoscente Christian Pronovost. Up the street, success story Karma hosts Madrid's Pablo Ceballos (of Chus & Ceballos), promising tribal bliss for all.
"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane." - PKD
