We move away from the degradation and grime of the north of England in the 70's to the urban decay of Washington DC in the mid 1980s for this week's boogie.
Go-Go was the popular form of dance music in the USA's capital city where it originated in the late 70s. It was a mixture of genres incorporating mid 60's motown and early 70's uptempo funk in the mix. Another distinguishing feature was the reliance on real instrumentation as opposed to the increasing use of electronic generated sounds of the time.
Although there were a quite a few exponents of this genre of dance music, the main ambassadors by far were Trouble Funk. I don't know much about the band apart from they were as funky as fuck. I was introduced to them through a mate at college, who had spent time in the states the previous year he also put me on to the delights of Schooly D and 2 Live Crew.
Trouble Funk - Let's Get Small
Trouble Funk - Say What
Both tracks come from the excellent compilation Droppin' Bombs which can be purchased here. Or you could get the awesome Say What - Live In London for a reasonable price here.
6 comments:
Strange (and a shame) that Go Go seems to have dropped off the radar of funk
I was thinking about all this stuff not so long ago; it's good to hear these. My favourite tune from that stuff was Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers Money. I hadn't (until 5 minutes ago) heard that in over 20 years and I can still sing the chorus word for word...
I saw them at Glastonbury and they fucking *rocked*
They remixed Cope's World Shut Your Mouth track as well, so I was always gonna be on side.
Trouble Funk at the Hammersmith Palais is in my top 5 gigs ever list. Go-go was what people limbered up with before succumbing to House.
"Go-go was what people limbered up with before succumbing to House."
That's such a good point.
That is very true, House was the next stage.
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