CSC Funk Band on Electric Cowbell Records

It's funny how all of a sudden you get hit with a bunch of sounds that you wouldn't have put together but somehow seem related by more than coincidence. Both of the bands I happened to catch at CMJ led me to this single from Electric Cowbell Records. Here's a nine piece funk band recording in a basement in Bushwick? What the hell do I know about funk...well nothing much. I have to preface this listening by saying it's normally a genre I seek out, or even own in any form. What does CSC sound like? Well they did a damn good job of capturing anything but a basement sound, they have to be commended for that, although what would a lo-fi recording in this genre sound like? That could be interesting, really just plain skilled musicians like this recorded with a crappy boombox? Why not. Everyone else can do it. Then I checked out the lineup on myspace:

All star band killing it featuring Colin L (usaisamonster), Matt Mottel (talibam), Matt Clarke (Ostinato), Jimmy Thomson (Gwar), Jesse Lent (Monte Vista), Jonny Matteo(La Fundacion), Dave Kadden (Invisible Circle), Wes Buckley (Dick Heaven), a horn section. bongos. solos. psychedelic.

The A-Side Bad Banana Bread, Jesus I'm at a loss here...it's not George Clinton style, 70's funk..at least not to me....you know there's just no way to not sound like an ignorant asshole here....An oboe is not something I normally hear or associate with funk. There are definitely some groovy basslines and that stunted slap electric. The horn sections are of course nicely blasting away. Huge echo cowbell in the middle. The amount of talented musicians in the NY area is mind boggling.

The B-Side Caneca, definitely has a cowbell in there also and this track sounds more frantic, how do you get that electric sound? The all treble jangle that's completely distinct to the funk. The horn section is really dirty, cracking all over the place, a little overblown, brassy...or someone has a muffle in there. Throw a solo in there and it starts to go south of the border. What can I say, there's a world of contemporary funk out there, I just didn't think it was happening on my doorstep. Nuts.

Electric Cowbell Records has one waiting for you on black vinyl with xerox insert in their webstore:

When flipping though singles in the new bin how do you not pick up a 45 for a band that has got 4 alternate names on it? CSC Funk Band, aka CSC Racket, aka Newtown Creek Playboys, aka Thrift Store Find, aka Fuck The Funk Band. Whatever they want to call it, the Bad Banana Bread single is definitely (and defiantly) more James Brown then James Murphy, and more acid-fried Funkadelic than either, given Colin Langenus's ripping leads and Dave Kadden's completely bonkers, Ethiopiques-tinged oboe solo. This is some low-down dirty toxic North Brooklyn sludge funk.

Caneca features some mighty fast-funk, guitar-based instrumental grooving. Reminiscent of Remain In The Light-era Talking Heads but with with more of a sense of Bushwick loft party-urgency that begets bongos and cowbells blazing on steroids. A succinct two-and-a-half minute burner that climaxes two-thirds of the way through when the band halts in mid-gallop to shout in unison CANECA!!!