This is like the aftershow parties and the long jams with the jbs. This is funk in action. Funk happnin. I LOVE this shit. The horn player is THE MOST AWESOME sax player I've EVER heard in person - Maceo, Eric Leeds - that kind of stuff. We recorded this live last night. Today while I was reading the discussion about the Prince chordology, and the dissection of my "man with umbrella in taxi" chords, I wanted to share this with y'all.

Here's the track:
http://www.blindslim.com/...on_0810.rm (6megs)

OR
http://www.blindslim.com/...n_0810.mp3 (18megs)


To half y'all, you know I dig the funky guitar stuff. If my info that follows is overblown and self-impressed - I apologize. This recording sets my head on fire. Well. Except my horrid solo. But hey - I've learned I dig the scratch better than the solos.

Okay - here's the breakdown to the song - it STARTED OUT as "Give Me One Reason" by Tracy Chapman - but at about 4:20 it takes a swan dive into rock solid on the one funk. (if you're just in this for the guitar stuff, go ahead and skip ahead).

My chords were ALL like horn hits - I got that from a Nile Rogers interview - so I'm controlling the hits with my LEFT hand - muting the strings almost immediately after they're hit - how fast you clinch up controls the stabs.

Okay. The chords:

The song is in G. So, all these chords are relative to the key of G.

I don't think of chords like y'all - P dim sim hum dum 7 add 14. I KNOW those are the real names of the chords - but I learned this crap by playing along with the record, or just grabbing the neck of the guitar and seeing what notes my fingers found (yes, THAT method works one out of 143 times).

The KISS chord: (outro of the single version, or killer segue into the extended mix.) I'm a whore for this rhythm hit. It adds a badass dissonance that REALLY hurts if you let it play too loud, so you REALLY gotta chicken scratch it.
E - 13 - 12
B - 11 - 11
D - 10 - 10

And sometimes, I just hold that second part and push the strings up like horn hits bending up.


Later in the song (15:30) - Louie (sax) starts playing the Flashlight line, so I jump in:
The FLASHLIGHT progression:
E - 3 - 3
B - 6 - 5
D - 3 - 3
G - 5 - 5
Just flipping it between them two, and then I jump up an octave after a few measures.

SEX MACHINE progression. (I start throwing this in after the BRIDGE section).
E - 10 - 12
B - 10 - 10
G - 10 - 10
D - 10 - 10
Which is the same thing for the bridge, sort of.


That's about it. Listen to the song - you'll hear me swap them out, but hang mostly on the Kiss chord - or slight variations on it, like the famous "horse kissing a moth" chord (during Lola's first piano solo):
E - X - 10
B - 8 - 10
G - 10- 10
D - 9 - X
A - 10- X

But all this - I won't lie - this whole post is to show you just how AWESOME last night was! It was like this song ALL damn night. At one point, Lola, the drummer and a guy in the audience were swapping off drums like musical chairs while the rest of the band held the groove.

The girl is AWESOME.

oh - LASTLY - DONT BE FOOLED by the ENDING. I think there's TWO or THREE endings.
[This message was edited Tue Aug 12 4:41:19 PDT 2003 by otan]

yo B, I could not get the link 2 come up.

Doesn't seem to work... and can you offer it in any other format than real audio or whatever that is?

calldapplwondery83 said:

Yeah - but the mp3 is like 18 megs. I just checked the rm link and I think I had it wrong - you can try it again.
http://www.blindslim.com/...n_0810.mp3
[This message was edited Tue Aug 12 4:09:06 PDT 2003 by otan]

otan said:

Otan, Otan Otan... You the man! Your solo's kick ass! And I realise what you mean by the horn-like chord hits...I've been practising funky rythm and found just by 'path of least resistance method' that the left hand (erm, the fretting hand if Jimi's in the house) is much better at controlling the sound.

I'm gonna have to print your instructions out and get my ass in practise mode!

6 minutes into the track and I said F*ck it, I'm downloading the 18mb version!

Great stuff man! Must be exciting to be part of such great live music.

Beau-

Thanks for posting the chord progressions and the break down, very cool of you to take the time.

Your solo was fine, don't be so critical on yourself especially when the big picture is nothing but raw funk.

While this musical experience is mind-blowing, it also shows the vibe and energy of playing funk with a live band. Great stuff.

This a motivator for me, in a big way. A motivator to get recording and a motivator to find others to play funk with.

Thanks for everything and sharing this awesome jam.

This is great!

I love stuff like this.
We should have a spot on the site for this sort of thing.

"New Funk Radio"

daym Otan, shit. Its gonna take me 50 minutes to download. I did hear a minute of the first one (Gimme 1 Reason) and i dont think i got 2 when the drumss was just about 2 start i guess, shit. Then i tried 2 DL it and it said it was gonna take 36 minutes. I will get it and review it, but i cant rite now.

hot buttered funk

Awesome beau, impressed

Okay. I keep going back and listening to this and try to figure out, WHAT makes the funk SOOO damn solid on here?

I think it's the bass player, Stan Watkins. The man hits the pocket and RARELY strays from it - hits the bottom on the one, and then holds off until the next ONE... I'm not talking about the "Give Me One Reason" part of the song - but the rest.

With HIM hitting the one solid, in junction with the AWESOME drummer (who's name is Mark Brown) with the two of THEM putting the funk pocket in it's place, my rhythm playing is easy. I can explore the 4 or 5 different rhythms - syncopated or dedicated to the one - either way, my playing can do no wrong because the rhythm section is SOOO fine.

So there's the secret, in my opinion. I had little to do with it.