Music
How did “funky” become such a dirty word in indie-rock circles? Maybe it was one too many thumb-popping Flea bass solos (certainly understandable), or maybe cheezoid rap-metal acts like 311 and Limp Bizkit are to blame (even more understandable), but whatever the reason, for a long time it’s been uncool—in a subculture obsessed with cool—to play music influenced by, or even enjoy, the syncopated grooves and bass lines commonly associated with black music.
I know. Not long ago, as James Brown poured forth from my car stereo, I picked up a friend to go to dinner. With all the subtlety and sincerity of Perez Hilton complimenting Britney’s latest hairstyle, he howled, ““Ooooh! That’s really funk-eey,” to indicate his distaste. The friend in question, an admitted indie-rock snob and Pitchfork Media junkie, says he’s not a “rhythm” guy—he’s all about the melody.
He’s not alone. Some of my co-workers have been known to wander into my office—where The Meters, early-’70s Miles Davis and Medeski Martin and Wood are in heavy rotation—and dish out sarcastic comments along the lines of, “Those are some funky grooves, Silverman!” No casual observations, these barbs are intended to make clear that what I listen to is so not cool.
But that’s been changing since Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings came along. Since their 2002 debut Dap-Dippin’ With Sharon Jones and Dap-Kings, Jones & Co.—who come to town this week in support of their third Daptone Records full-length, 100 Days, 100 Nights—have been bridging the ever-widening groove gap.
The Dap-Kings’ success is hardly surprising. Few recent bands in any genre can match their exceptionally high levels of musicianship, showmanship and tastefulness. Though at first some listeners dismissed them as retro-fetishists, they’ve evolved over the course of three albums, moving beyond stock James Brown-style funk vamps to develop a formidable catalog of songs that employ a wide range of styles and dynamics. And at age 51, frontwoman Sharon Jones combines life experience—before hooking up with the Daptone crew in 1996, the diminutive singer did stints as a prison guard at Riker’s Island and as an armored car guard for Wells Fargo—with a spine-chilling voice and boundless energy.
What is surprising is that their steady rise in popularity has been fueled largely by the lily-white indie-rock subculture. “We definitely tapped into something,” says Neal Sugarman, the DKs’ saxophonist and Daptone co-founder. “That’s our first fan base. The kids who were coming out to see Sharon Jones and the next night going to see The Strokes. It’s people who probably dig Rolling Stones records, have a bunch of soul records in their collection, dig Velvet Underground, and that’s cool.” Of course, the enormous success of Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, which features the DKs as the backup band, didn’t hurt. But it’s quite possible that the band’s vintage sound contributed as much to her success as she’s contributed to theirs. (“It’s probably the first record in a long time that sold a million copies that was recorded with two mics on the drums and one mic on the horn section,” Sugarman says, laughing.)
That’s not to say that the DKs’ crowd is made up exclusively of swoop-haired, Converse-clad scenesters. According to Sugarman, the band’s been slowly attracting a broader audience, including a growing number of black fans. “It’s based on the city, and how we’re represented,” he says. “Like maybe there’s a blues station playing Sharon. And it’s always been largely word of mouth…. And Nashville is a place where we cross over to the black community too.”
So if the Dap-Kings are indeed bridging a gap, how did rock ’n’ roll, the original bastard child of musical miscegenation, get so whitewashed over the last couple of decades?
It’s a question Sasha Frere-Jones ponders in an October 2007 New Yorker essay titled “A Paler Shade of White: How Indie Rock Lost Its Soul.” His contention: A couple of decades ago, highly respected acts such as The Clash and The Minutemen incorporated healthy doses of funk, soul and dub, but today, those elements are avoided and/or frowned upon by the rock intelligentsia. He cites a number of possible reasons, among them political correctness (i.e., white kids co-opting African American music is theft) and the rise of a commercially successful mainstream black music scene dominated by rap.
While it might be silly to fault bands for the styles of music they don’t play, there’s no denying that there’s a certain breed of indie rock fan for whom any sort of syncopated or culturally foreign music deserves a level of junior-high-style ridicule that’s equal parts amusing and sophomoric (and more than a tad xenophobic). It’s a situation familiar to Doyle Davis (a.k.a. D-Funk), co-owner of Grimey’s record store and a popular DJ in Nashville’s deep-funk subculture. (Sugarman says Davis and former Nashvillian Eothen Alapatt, a.k.a. DJ Egon, were crucial in breaking the Dap-Kings in Nashville, one of the first markets where the band consistently filled venues. Alapatt moved to Los Angeles several years ago to start funk label Stones Throw, which put out the excellent funk-rarities compilation The Funky 16 Corners.)
“It’s too easy to like funk music,” Davis says. “I get the feeling with some of the indie rock that if they happen to stumble across a catchy riff or an obvious hook, it’s like they turn as hard as possible in the opposite direction. It’s like, we can’t have accessibility at such a degree that a song can really impress you on one play. If you’re not working hard for it, the music’s not worthy. It’s that ‘other’ stance. ‘I like the other stuff. I don’t like the stuff everybody else likes.’ ”
Willful inaccessibility is one thing. But what’s behind the specific aversion to funky music? Davis—who, as a white kid attending a predominantly black high school in Jackson, Tenn., got turned on to James Brown and Parliament/Funkadelic (“I was obsessed,” he says)—has his theories. “When people think of funky music, they think of cheezoid, porno movie soundtrack stuff,” he says. He also cites the over-the-top slap-bass technique employed by the Red Hot Chili Peppers and other funk-rockers. “When [Sly & the Family Stone bassist] Larry Graham was doing it, it sounded pretty freakin’ awesome, and then guys like Flea took it way too far.”
Still, that’s no reason to throw out the baby with the bathwater. Besides, Davis has never been concerned with being hip. Unlike his Urban Outfitted co-workers (not that there’s anything wrong with that), Davis is more likely to be wearing khaki pants and a button-down shirt. And while he’s a fan of some indie rock, he finds much of it too precious or self-serious, and prefers a groove he can feel in his bones.
100 Days, 100 Nights
Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings (Daptone Records) Playing Saturday, 2nd at Mercy Lounge“I make that stand all day long,” Davis says. “I have other people on my staff who can defend the indie-est of the indie to the death. I don’t feel like I need to do that. Sometimes [the music playing at Grimey’s] can go so far into a difficult-listening obscure-a-thon that I want to bring it back to something that’s easy to like and easy to listen to.”
And there’s not much easier to like than 100 Days, 100 Nights. The Dap-Kings’ latest relies less on the relentless up-tempo grooves that dominate the first two albums, leaning more toward vintage soul and Motown. “I feel like we’re in a stride,” Sugarman says. “We’re playing stuff in the studio that feels more open. Not feeling like you have to be funky, get syncopated and fill up the sound. We’re really relaxing and the band is playing better and better all the time.”
So if, as Frere-Jones claims, indie rock lost its soul, maybe Jones & Co. are here to find it. Sure, calling the DKs “indie” might be a stretch. But if an avant-garde jazz act like Medeski Martin and Wood can be called a jam-band due to their fan base, who’s to say Dap-Kings aren’t indie-rock sensations? After all, their last two records got an 8.0 and 8.7 on Pitchfork. The defense rests.
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