The Flip Medley

After the Duran Duran post, I figured I should share the best kept secret in the D.C. area — Chuck Brown.

A lot of folks commented on the Parliament/Funkadelic/Captain America posting I made a while ago, so let me just say that if you like George Clinton’s grooves, you just might like go-go…

If you use last.fm, here’s a direct link to the Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers “channel”.

The genre is called go-go (no, not the go-go of the 60’s!), and if you were a teenager in D.C. during the 80’s, you could not help but hear songs by Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers, Rare Essence, Experience Unlimited, Trouble Funk and countless other groups that just worked on the go-go scene.

The most identifiable, consistent trait in the DNA of go-go music is the beat –Wikipedia’s entry summarizes it perfectly:

In technical terms, “Go-go’s essential beat is characterized by a syncopated, dotted rhythm that consists of a series of quarter and eighth notes (quarter, eighth, quarter, (space/held briefly), quarter, eighth, quarter)… which is underscored most dramatically by the bass drum and snare drum, and the hi-hat… [and] is ornamented by the other percussion instruments, especially by the conga drums, timbale, and hand-held cowbells.”[2] A swing rhythm is often implied (if not explicitly stated).

Another important attribute in go-go is call-and-response with the crowd in concert.

With few exceptions, go-go bands have seen little success outside of the Washington, D.C., metro area (Northern Virginia and Suburban Maryland), yet the style lives on and continues to evolve.

Enjoy the music, and if you find you’re grooving to the beats, then we’re good to go.