345: “I Was Made To Love Her” (Stevie Wonder) by Meklit, Quinn Deveaux
February 2, 2016 Leave a comment
Time is long but life is short.
-Stevie Wonder
Time is long but life is short.
Song: I Was Made To Love Her
341: High Five from Uncle Funk
September 24, 2015 Leave a comment
Uncle Funk made a YouTube playlist for you to slap a big high five with.
Click these words, friend. (Sorry for the ads, but they need not enslave your mind.)
1) “Sweet Salvation” by The Stepkids
2) “Peace” by Radio Citizen (N E W – R E L E A S E!)
3) “Triple Helix” by Jimi Tenor, KABU KABU
4) “Back Pocket” by Vulfpeck (N E W – R E L E A S E!)
5) “Too Fine” by Bosley
Savor & repeat.
332: “Guerreiro” by Curumin
July 21, 2014 Leave a comment
I met a Scientologist recently who changed my mind about Scientology. You see, I was guilty of judging Scientology by the fact that it was created by a sci-fi author and more than seven hundred other reasons based on sound logic and elementary discernment.
But then a Scientologist named Keviin from North Hollywood gave me the gift of perspective.
From the moment Keviin and I first met, our connection was strong. We went directly into a man-hug right at the start of the handshake. I laughed naturally several times during pleasantries before noting that Keviin smelled like honeysuckle. When I commented on the aroma, Keviin showed me the honeysuckle gland all Scientologists manifest behind their ears as part of their development. The gland was invisible, but the smell was undeniable!
Color me intrigued, Keviin!!
Keviin further bolstered the legitimacy of a religion that markets expensive services to egocentric millionaires when he literally levitated.
Background on the levitation: Captain T. Cruise was having an horrific bowel movement right at that moment, which was communicated via a telepathic distress call for psychokinetic prostate massage. And when Keviin remotely massaged Tom Cruise’s prostate with his mind, his corporeal body hovered approximately 19 inches, or one TCU (Tom Cruise Unit, the height of one Tom Cruise), above the ground. The movement passed, and crisis was averted.
Keviin is now my life coach. We are actually on our way out the door, to hot grocery shop (like hot yoga, but with grocery shopping).
Before we go, I’d like to share a song with you that really complements the joy one derives from mocking another person’s core beliefs, like the ridiculous ones I had before I met Keviin.
Here’s “Guerreiro” by Curumin (Luciano Nakata Albuquerque), a Brazilian artist who marches to the beat of his own crazy set of electrical impulses. “Guerreiro” means “warrior” in Portuguese as long as someone speaking Portuguese is saying so.
Do remember, while it’s happening, to enjoy it.
Song: Guerreiro
Artist: Curumin
Album: Achados e Perdidos
Label: Quannum Projects
Listen: YouTube
331: Isolated Vocals of David Lee Roth, Michael Jackson
June 17, 2014 Leave a comment
Uncle Funk’s Most Commandments
or
The Worst Vice Is Advice
Uncle Funk is most real when his eyes are locked with those of another terrestrial carbon unit in an unspoken reverence for the awesomeness of the universe into which all units have been vomited.
Uncle Funk is most alive when he is lost in an activity that engages his full being, when he ceases to exist as a self-aware entity, and escapes to the form of a pure force maneuvering with geometric precision.
Uncle Funk is most certain when he is dancing.
Uncle Funk is most significant when he is helping others, creating a richer world by his presence.
Uncle Funk is most lightly tethered when he ponders what it means to be living inside a mystery, wrapped inside a create-your-own-adventure story.
Uncle Funk is most satisfied when he is eating his mom’s home cooking.
Uncle Funk is most fulfilled after he works at length on a complex problem requiring the disciplined and rigorous application of skills crafted over days or years to accomplish a predetermined goal.
Uncle Funk is most humbled when he considers his species’ climb out of the swamp, past cataclysms and alternate histories, to shiver and cower in the brush, before swinging through the forest, to walk boldly upright, and finally, to march forward as the self he is today, a clump of sentient cells, an infinite sum in a lilliputian package, contemplating its own snapshot journey along the edge of the universe that nursed it.
~
Michael Jackson and David Lee Roth are all over space right now. Their voices are literally being carried, as you read and comprehend these words, on radio waves spanning and spreading across billions and billions of light years, planting the musical seeds of humanity across space and time.
Here are isolated vocals from Van Halen’s “Running With The Devil” and Michael Jackson’s “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough.”
Enjoy them the most.
330: Mashups…
May 5, 2014 Leave a comment
Salt and pepper shakers have been used since the dawn of space-time as a never-ending opportunity to artistically re-create pairs of other, non-salt-and-pepper-related items (shoes, sensory organs, vegetables, tiny people, left-handedness, etc.).
Flowering plants have DNA many times more complex than human DNA, yet flowering plants do not make salt and pepper shaker pairs of anything. Which begs the question.
What?
Yes, that is true. Salt and pepper shakers have been created in the likenesses of saints, serial killers, saints, and Bonanza characters. Even those.
If your life was a poem, and that poem was inside your DNA, written in pairs like salt and pepper, then it would be of a tolerable length and not like Ulysses as a flowering plant’s DNA would be.
And the poem itself might very well speak of the river of DNA that we recursive creatures compose and ride upon, as we churn out our shakers, impersonating our makers.
I am right now, sculpting salt and pepper shakers of my favorite bands. Which got me in the mind of mash-ups. Turns out there are some buttes out there.
I’ve selected a couple you can put into at least two pairs of sensory organs, at least while they last on YouTube…
Enjoee.
Led Zeppelin vs The Beatles – Whole Lotta Helter Skelter (Soundhog)
~
Rock in Black – Queen vs. AC/DC feat. Robert Plant & Friends
Mashup by Go Home Productions
329: “One On One” by Hall & Oates
March 31, 2014 Leave a comment
Every being with the ability to be bored also knows that the best way to be, while living, is to be lost in the moment. That is, to be so absorbed in whatever you are doing that you lose sense of time, and become “one” with the moment. Note that you can’t analyze whether you’re actually in the moment while you’re in the moment, or that will pull you out of the moment, like someone shouting “purple cow!” in your face right as you start to sneeze.
Then there are those beings with the ability to be bored, the ability to understand that the best way to be, while living, is to be lost in the moment, and the critical thinking to seek to understand what else one might do with this pesky self-awareness business that usually just keeps getting in the way of the good times.
And then there are beings who use their conscious choices to lead to deeply meditative trance states, during which they get on the Internet and introduce totally slamming musical selections with vaguely existential ramblings in an attempt to share a fleeting but meaningful connection with a few friends and family… mostly random strangers.
So, here is “One On One,” a classic hit from Hall & Oates that I took for granted as I played Moon Patrol while couples were roller skating to it in its heyday. Darryl Hall had some pipes I didn’t truly appreciate. If you listen, you’ll notice he shows off his falsetto/manvoice transitions like a damn peacock strutting his vocal chords and/or tail in this song. And Oates totes his mustache throughout the whole song, like an inverted peacock tail (to run with the theme), using his virulent keratin production as a clear sign of health and fertility to 80’s babes who might have needed porking.
Enjoi.
Song: One On One
Artist: Hall & Oates
Album: H2O
Label: RCA
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify | Rdio | YouTube
326: “Pretty Green” by White Denim
November 11, 2013 Leave a comment
I received this fan music review today, written in cuneiform on plastic tablets, delivered emphatically in a padded envelope by a brown-clad bi-athlete, to my very own attention…
~~
Dearest Uncle Funk,
I have been a GINORMOUS fan of yours since I first started reading your blog in 1080 BCE. No one knows more about you! You haven’t posted much stuff lately. I thought maybe you needed a nudge, so here’s a quick note about how much I appreciate you!
Anyhoo, I just find the most amazing things in myself when I imagine the world through your eyes! I step outside of my own humdrum vision of things and try to see my life from a CRAZY person’s point of view!! It’s so refreshing! (Winky smiley face)
And I wanted to let you know that since I’ve been reading your “work” and listening to the music you’ve selected for me to suffer through, a few important things have happened to me. I will summarize in a bulleted list, in no particular order of importance or alphabeticity:
- Armpit hair is coming in strong. More than before. Not like a beard, though.
- Two goats and one duck. Incidente armadillos.
- Syrian conflict worsens.
- Drum solo. Never ends. Finally ends.
- Gnawed tip of pen off. Inkmouth.
- Things keep on happening. No. Matter. What.
- Bought White Denim‘s Corsicana Lemonade
- PUKED RAINBOWS!!
- Please enjoy “Pretty Green” below because it’s the single, but listen to “Come Back” because it’s in a bulleted list.
Did you write this, or did I?
-Secret Admirer
~~
Song: Pretty Green
Artist: White Denim
Album: Corsicana Lemonade
Label: Downtown Records
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Spotify | YouTube
323: “Your Mother Was My Teacher” by Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle
May 15, 2013 Leave a comment
She looked me in the eye and she said…
…My arms are super hairy.
…I had an internship in college slicing rat brains into thin layers like at Arby’s.
…I’ll throw oranges at you if pay me enough.
…No, I can’t poop at work!
…I only date guys who have had face tattoos removed.
…”Your Mother Was My Teacher” by Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle, is from Battery Milk (2007). The band is centered around frontman/vibraphonist Mike Dillon. The song is a colorful documentation of a simple, precipitous conversation.
Enjoy.
Song: Your Mother Was My Teacher
Artist: Mike Dillon’s Go-Go Jungle
Album: Battery Milk
Label: Hyena Records
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Rdio | Spotify | YouTube (Live)
322: “Your Lady, She’s Shady” by JJ Grey & Mofro
April 18, 2013 1 Comment
I was 27 years old and poppin and lockin down the frozen desserts aisle of a central Florida grocery store when I first became self-aware. Up until that point I had been living in some type of sleep state. I can still remember my past like a dream, but it hardly seems like my own life.
I’ve retained all the knowledge and skills I acquired in my dream past, and my wife says I have changed very little from the person I was when I was not self-aware… that I was always a weirdo. But I know the difference.
The biggest change is that when I’m poppin, lockin, or whatever, it’s like I’m standing in between two parallel mirrors and the poppin, lockin, or whatever is outlined by a receding infinity that powerfully hints at the recursive iteration machine that keeps moving this self forward in endless destruction and rebirth.
In fact, maybe it wasn’t this me that was in that grocery store in the first place. Maybe it was someone else, until they popped and locked just right, at which point this self, the one who is now aware, was zapped into this body and took over its historical data. And might another self take over later, perhaps whilst I am buttering my chest? Would my wife even notice?
Regardless, I have found solace in a deep awareness of the beauty of music, which seems to enable recursive iteration for the power of good. JJ Grey & Mofro have been with “me” since before my awakening, and their sauce is worthy of standing in front of a mirror to watch yourself lick off a spoon. Their brand new one just dropped, This River (2013), and I’m amazed at these guys’ ability to bring it strong and consistent through the years. Like nothing’s changed but the spoon. They’re on tour now!
Enjoy the lead track, “Your Lady, She’s Shady,” as the righteous swamp rock excites your inner awareness and your booty muscles all at once. Pop and lock if you must.
Song: Your Lady, She’s Shady
Artist: JJ Grey & Mofro
Album: This River
Label: Alligator Records
Buy from: Amazon | iTunes
Listen: MOG | Rdio | Spotify
Watch: YouTube (Live, Exit/In, Nashville, 4/13/13)
313: “I’ll Be Around” by Yo La Tengo
January 16, 2013 Leave a comment
A movie premise: a young boy can see farts. His dedicated mentor, played by a computer-generated Walter Matthau, helps the boy along the strange paths life takes in a world where farts are visible. And as the boy discovers his true passion, handmade dutch oven pottery, he also comes to realize that his mentor had himself been a fart all along, an amalgam of gases, animated by some unknown power, to help guide him toward the potter’s wheel and True Happiness.
Epilogue: the boy has grown into an old man, stooped over his workbench, considering the twists and turns of his life. He watches a kid crop dust his pottery studio, grins, and looks toward the sky, where a translucent Matthau hovers, silent but benevolent.
~
That’s a wicked introduction for “I’ll Be Around” by Yo La Tengo, from their brand new album Fade (2013). Enjoy!
Uncle Funk's Catalogue 