Phew! After a long night of live Afro Funk and Soul, piles of 45s, an extra hot club (in the words of Keb Darge: “Your balls would sweat like nothing else!), I bring an early morning post on The Budos Band, live at The Lucky Cat in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY. This is a band that can not be stopped. Hailing from Staten Island NY, they brought their brand of Funky Afro Soul to a packed house of hipster singlespeed riders, Soul Strut posters (Roberto and Mark what up!) to BK, and represented SI to the fullest. At one time I counted 9 guys on stage, plus 2 more (an organist and percussion player on the floor). They rarely stopped for air (but did for beer) and tore through songs from self titled record “The Budos”, plus new material from their new record on Daptone, cleverly entitled “The Budos Band II”. Let’s not forget the scorpion on the cover, as one band member put it: “Because scorpions are fucking cool”. A huge highlight (I mean athe entire show was hot from start to finish) was a super upbeat instrumental cover of “My Girl”. I had the honor to DJ with the lovely Honeydripper out of the Daptone Record family and resident label DJ. She wooed the audience with some Northern Soul and female vocals. I’m talking deep shit y’all, and the crowd was loving every minute of it. I opted for some Funky Soul and some upbeat Philly stuff, while peppering in some Rare Grooves and my signature Deep Funk. It was indeed an all 45 night, and when Sport Casual got on the decks, many Peroni’s later, he laced us with the new Binky Griptite, as well as the new Charles Bradley record (out on Daptone), along with some Soul that would make you wanna call your mom. I was not surprised at the Soul savvy crowd, but when I threw on The Interpretations “Soul Affection”, and Panic Buttons “O-Wow”, I looked up to see a dance floor of people grooving like my parents did, and that made my whole night. I’m tired, but going out to dig, I’m in a Soul mood and I need to find some Soul 45s. Stay tuned, more to come this weekend. Keep Diggin’!

Click here for a short Video of the Budos Band.