Funk is dead

For almost a year, I’ve been reading “Funk: The Music, The People, and The Rhythm of One” by Rickey Vincent; it’s been a slow read because I find his style (hipster music journalist) a bit hard to slog through. Although mush of the content is interesting, I keep finding sweeping generalizations and unfortunate biases that lessen the value of this historical/social narrative. For example, Disco is dismissed as simply a rip-off of black Funk music. While I agree that Funk is a major influence of Disco, I seem to remember from my “History of Pop Music” class that there are many more important influences (for example, Latin music).

While walking through Downtown last night, peeking into clubs and watching the bands within, I got to thinking that a supreme irony of life is that most bands that advertise themselves as “funk” related are actually very unfunky. As is contemporary pop music. Blech!

To change the subject, I’ve been working on a few tricks with my new yo-yo. The bearing axle makes tricks like “Rock the Cradle” much easier because the yo-yo can seemingly sleep forever.