Funk So Thick You Can Slap It
You slid into our inbox, so we're sliding back. The horn section answers your most unhinged questions about funk etiquette, family disputes, and what exactly happens in the green room.
The pocket lives below the waistline, and somebody's gotta hold it down. We ranked the bass grooves that raised us, argued about it for three hours in the van, and lived to tell the tale.
Anybody can hire a horn section. Keeping one fed, arranged, and snarling through a 90-minute set is another animal entirely. We sat down with the players who slice through the groove to talk arranging, van economics, and why the brass makes or breaks the record.
Every genre has its body language, but funk might have the weirdest dictionary. From the two-step lean to the full-body shiver, we catalog the moves that only come out when the pocket gets deep — and we want yours.
You can woodshed the licks, cop the chords, and buy the same strings as your heroes — but funk has a lie detector built into every bar. We asked horn players and rhythm sections about the exact moment they learned to stop overplaying and start serving the groove.
Some rooms just play back harder than others. From juke joints with forty-year patinas to converted warehouses where the fog machine is actually just humidity, here are seven venues that keep live funk breathing — plus what to eat after the gig.
Every band is a chain letter from the records that came before. These are the ten albums — from the Godfather himself to the modern revivalists — that taught us how to make a groove bleed.
Three-hour sets, nine people on stage, and a pocket that never stops moving — funk touring is a contact sport. Here's what it actually takes to keep the grease flowing night after night, from load-in to last call.