MILES TACKETT

"I was kinda thinking that maybe it would be a chance for me to really let loose all these funk breaks that I’d picked up over the years from hearing hip-hop in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. A way of doing it like a live band thing, but inspired by how I’d heard the hip-hop DJs in L.A. – the real underground Bronx-style DJs that were still keeping that style alive, cutting from one record to the next, and playing break after break.”

Nearly fourteen years later, the Music Man still holds this ethos dear, channelling the raw energy of The JB’s, The Meters and Parliament, and serving the funk up in a beat-heavy way that hip-hop heads and old school funk aficionados can appreciate alike. Having said that, there’s no doubting that funk, as a music form, has lost some of its edge in today’s musical climate. It’s the likes of dubstep, for example – with its brazen electronic sounds and brain-vibrating distortion – that gets rumps shaking.

“Dubstep is a definite half-time strain off of the darker drum and bass and jungle,” says Tackett animatedly. “Funk isn’t dark. And I can see people who are looking for that really dark energy. But I could actually argue that there’s some heavy, hard, even semi-psychedelic instrumental funk that would really give it a run for its money. It just doesn’t get heard. Sure it doesn’t have as much bass and it doesn’t have as much distortion, but energy-wise, as far as heavy and just like, nasty goes,” he says emphatically, “there’s stuff that would definitely be up there with dubstep.” He pauses. “I would venture a guess and say that anybody who was into that, probably just hasn’t been introduced to that other kind of funk. You can definitely get misguided as far as what funk means to kids.”