2012!

Do a little dance
Make a little love
Get down tonight
Get down tonight

You said it, K.C. Happy 2012, everybody!



My resolution for this blog: 37% more Funky Soul Brothers this year!

From 1972: Why I Shall Always Refer To African-American Males As "Black Soul Brothers"

It's just cooler, that's all.

Rosey Greer and Ray Milland ARE The Thing With Two Heads!

Two trailers for this cinematic masterpiece...ribbed for your pleasure.





More power to you, brother.

From 1967: Pay No Worship To The Garish Sun

When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.
William Shakespeare

On December 9, 1967, Redding and his backup band, The Bar-Kays, made an appearance in Cleveland, Ohio on the local "Upbeat" television show. This recording is of that performance.

The next afternoon, December 10, 1967, Redding, his manager, the pilot, and four members of The Bar-Kays were killed when Redding's Beechcraft 18 airplane crashed into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin.

The cause of the crash was never precisely determined.

All hail, The King of Soul.

From 1973: Kids Feelin' The Funk!

This clip really should be posted weekly. It's pretty much the single most awesome thing that has ever existed. It's also the only demonstration you need of why Seventies Kids Rule The World. You can have your Hannah Montanas and your whatshernames and whatevers. Seventies Kids had Stevie Wonder and his band, bringing pure funk into our living rooms on an ordinary weekday morning.

And seriously, this is the best version of "Superstition" I have ever heard, and since I have been Stevie's bitch pretty much my entire life, I know of what I speak.

Happy Friday, everybody. Have a good weekend. Now turn up your speakers and blow the roof off.

From 1976: When A Cherished Catchphrase Just So Happens To Also Be The Name Of A Beloved Kids' Magazine, Hilarity Ensues

From 1966: Otis, Go-Go Dancers, And White People With A Pathetic Sense Of Rhythm

Ready, Steady, Go!

1966

The man had so much soul in him, it was a felony.

Remembering Otis

Vintage Hoarders: Now With 100% More Myocardial Infarctions, 100% More Hilarity

By the way, this theme song, which is the absolute definition of Funky, was written and recorded by Rashida Jones' dad, Quincy.

p.s. LOVE Rashida Jones.

Because In My Little Corner Of The Universe, You Can Just Never Have Enough Of Michael Jackson Robot Dancing

Okay, I think that I may have stumbled upon a clip that is even cooler than The Official Coolest Clip On The Planet, that of Cher doing a robot dance with Michael and his brothers on a 1976 telecast of the Cher show. (You have to watch until about the 3:50 mark, but it's so, so worth it, and you get to listen to Cher add her vocal stylings to Jackson 5 classics in the process!)

However.

Here is a clip of a Jackson 5 funkdown on The Merv Griffin Show in 1974. And as much as I love Cher and her glittery jumpsuit, I think that this clip might just be a serious contender for the Coolest Clip title (that, incidentally, I just made up as I was washing the lunch dishes...and is still more valuable than an Academy Award, but I digress).

I mean, this clip has it all. My evidence:

Michael doing a robot dance that has finally shown me once and for all what The Youths Of Today mean when they say something is "fucking SICK!"

Jermaine sporting a hairdo that looks like the afro equivalent of a porn 'stauche!

Funky soul brothers wearing pimped-out 1974-style fededoras providing the percussion and the keyboards!

Conga drums, courtesy of a Jackson brother (Randy? Marlon?)!

Stupid White People unable to get the funk going in their hearts for fifteen seconds, even for Michael Freaking Jackson! (I would have completely embarrassed myself by getting up and doing a little White Girl get-down, all totally off beat, of course. But still, that would have been cooler than Merv's All-White Audience Of Blinding Caucasian Lameness.)

And, of course...it's got Merv!

There's Nothing I Like Better On A Thursday Morning Than A Bunch Of Funky Soul Brothers Commemorating The Bicentennial Through The Medium Of Jumpsuits

From 1976