Bay Area Funk V. 2

This comp came to me via a review copy. I would have to say that like the Bay Area as I know it, this comp is all over the place- both in style and in quality.

The first track that grabbed my ears was Acid Lady by the San Francisco TKOs. An unsettling horn intro breaks into a funky soul number grooving to an abreviated Satisfaction progression. "Acid, Acid. Who got the Acid Lady," lyrics come in and then the wah wah goes into massive use. The horns are mixed louder than the guitars... Probably the first knockout on this collection.

The very next track, Si Se Puede, by the Ray Camacho Band lays a more Latin twinged spin on the funk. Some of the horn parts are Love Boat painful, but the basic guitar groove shoves this into the funk gutter and saves the track. It's funny as the sax solo is not painful at all compared to the symphonic sounds from the other horn parts.

Stop Look Listen! by Primevil has a fat Rhodes sound with a loud snare, and tambourine laying it down. The vocals are everywhere in the mix. The bass builds the foundation for this house of funk. This one is basically a jam and ends far too soon via an unfriendly fade out.

Victor Green jams the keyboards home with a low fidelity Hammond jam, punctuated by unruly cymbals and some way loud congas. Creole Girl is also more a fragment than a cohesive track, but cool nonetheless.

The closer, Brute Strength by Mike Selesia, borders on cowbell abuse, in laying the structure for the cut. The bass walks in and out of the pocket and the sax provides a counterpoint to the percussion as the players are kicking the snot out of the drumkit. There is a fuzzy psych guitar solo that seems to be mapped only to the right channel.

I enjoyed this comp overall. The sound quality was sort of uneven, but who knows what sort of raw material the compilers had to work with.