All Good Funk Alliance’s Influences On Wax

All Good Funk Alliance’s Influences On Wax

9 December, 2008 | 3.00PM

• Written by: Eighth Dimension
• Filed under: Music News : super hi-fi

All Good Funk Alliance, the renowned breakbeat-funk duo from the Washington D.C. area, just won’t quit!

The last six months have seen the release of their third full length CD ‘Slingshot Boogi’e, a hard-hitting EP for Super Hi-Fi named ‘Avance!’, a re-release of their top notch remix of Swamburger’s ‘Sun-Vibes’ on Eighth Dimension, and a mix CD highlighting the Alliance’s DJ prowess on England’s Jalapeno label.

All Good Funk Alliance’s collective star is certainly rising. Fans and DJs all over are salivating over their unique sound which deftly combines organic breakbeats and classic funk. We were wondering what recent inspirations forged this aesthetic; what records were these two DJs playing as they first came together as All Good Funk Alliance? AGFA answered by supplying the list of influential electronic funk platters below. Happy hunting!

1. Bronx Dogs - Tribute to Jazzy Jay / ‘77 (Kontraband)
This was the first time we heard of the Bronx Dogs. “Tribute to Jazzy Jay” is amazing and one of those songs that took over our sets at that time. You would play this record and dig deep to find something that sounded like it. We were playing tons mainly deep house at the time, and this made us really want to play and produce more break-beat type sets. 

2. Bob Sinclair “Ultimate Funk” (Yellow)
Back when Bob Sinclair was a sample-mad man, he would put out really dope songs like this. Basically it’s a disco cut-up with a funky hip hop vocal looping perfectly with the song. We both dug the deep disco side of house and break-beats, and this fit that style perfectly. 

3. Katalyst “Fusion (7STU7 Remix)”
Katalyst is great, but 7STU7 really brings something fresh to the song on his remix. This remix was from the remix album “Agent Manipulated”, which has some other really great tunes but the 7STU7 remix is where it’s at. It worked at that slower 110 to 115bpm speed that we loved so much at the time. This helped lead to us producing slower stuff and focusing on that mid-tempo speed. 

4. Rhibosome “Get Ready” (Freestyle)
“Get Ready” uses a group of females rapping on a hip hop documentary perfectly timed and cut over a dope beat and funky guitar work. The resulting track totally rocked in the club and would cause us to fight over who could play the song first. This track lead to us tracking down Dave McKinney to do a couple of remixes for us as Flow Dynamics. 

5. Sir Drew “She Woman Cat Type Thang” (Kingsize)
Sir Drew from the Chicken Lips totally blew us away with this album. Still awesome and inventive to listen to and probably one of our favorite albums of all time.  “Wookie Funk” and “Dumb Tart” are so well done that we will still drop them today if the mood fits. We find ourselves going back to this album for inspiration from time to time. 

6. Crazy Penis “A Nice Hot Bath With” (Paper)
Hands down one of the best house albums of all time.  House albums are usually just a collection of tracks but this really didn’t feel like that.  All the songs are perfectly matched to each other and the whole thing really turned us on to strings being used in dance music. This was another album where we would play songs from it and not know what to play next because it had so much depth. We really started working on deep breaks as a result of this album. 

7. Phantom Slasher “Puddle & Spout” (NOID)
Phantom Slasher is basically just disco and funk edits but they are done in such a way that they make all the songs feel more druggy and messed up. We really liked the way they cut the songs and added depth to them with effects and sounds.

8. Still The Joint: Sugar Hill Remixed (RT Recordings)
This whole record was hype. They had Double Dee and Steinski, Wiseguys, Coldcut, and all the heavy hitters of the time on this record. Us and our boys Fort Knox 5 played this all the time when it came out. This lead to us getting more inventive with our cuts and change-ups. 

9. Tutto Matto “Funkulo” (Tummy Touch)
Another really great album that pushed us into funkier territory, we liked that they blended disco and Latin elements perfectly while having some break-beats underneath some of the songs. 

10. Featurecast “Composing Blind” (Catskills)
“Recipe for the Perfect Afro” was the jam on this record, and “What it is” still works on the dance-floor. We really liked the way he used his samples and his production was amazing on this.

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