We had us a great time last night. First, I listened to the riotous Express Yourself, the catch in the soul warrior’s voice catching us every time. Then I renewed my more-than-passing acquaintance with Curtis Mayfield’s Move On Up – the song that helped launch Paul Weller’s solo career. We checked out Womack & Womack – can’t have ourselves a funk and soul evening without that. Then I thought we’d get more contemporary, and slid on 100 Days, 100 Nights. Damn, that lady can sing!
Then I checked out the new album from Tim Rogers and the Bamboos. The temperature dropped by a few degrees. There is nothing wrong with it – nothing at all. It swings, it swaggers. It’s loose. It knows enough to keep the odd mistake, the odd strained note in. It drives its funky point home, time after time. Doesn’t miss a beat. Seven albums (and 15 years) in, the Bamboos are masters and mistresses of their funky soul revivalism: it’s great the way they meticulously craft songs like the floor-shaking anthem S.U.C.C.E.S.S so they sound spontaneous.
The emotional Handbrake, with its canny nod to Across 110th Street in the vocal department, is a great track to have a six-pack with. Me and a Devil is inspired, the stand-out, You Am I frontman Tim Rogers proving he can do Mayfield better than most of the rest. But it is pastiche. The Melbourne soul band and Rogers wear it well, from the righteous revamp of the 1970s on the sleeve with its flamboyant lettering and Shaft-style dressage, right down to the faux scuffed edges and Rogers’ ill-fitting, uber-suave suits. Lovable it may well be, but it is still pastiche.
Let’s put it this way. Folk bought into the Rolling Stones way back when cos they ain’t heard the originals, and sure Mick ‘n Keef’s version of Time is On My Side is great – but why bother when you can listen to the Irma Thomas original?
Maybe this is an entry point. And that is great. This is a real fun entry point to a world of great music – man, the Bamboos must be a blast live. I know Mr Rogers is. However loose and funky Rogers struts his stuff, though, however much Bamboos bandleader Lance Ferguson professes his love for Stereolab and “modern” sounds, this is still a copy, constrained by form. And there’s a world of difference between this and the socially-conscious funk of Kendrick Lamar and Young Fathers.
As a one-off, the 2012 Rogers/Bamboos collaboration I Got Burned is a marvellous slice of spontaneity – Melbourne grooving on down at the car wash. (Rogers later referred to it as the quickest thing he’s ever done.) It should have stayed at that. The temptation must have been overwhelming though. “Why not?” you can almost hear the musicians thinking. “It’ll be a blast to do an album.” It sure sounds like it was, too. Trouble is, the live experience doesn’t transfer to recorded work.
The single Easy rollicks along at a fine old pace, but that’s most of the problem right there. It’s just fine. Not heart-wrenching or riot-starting like much of the original soul and funk of the 1970s was (and still can be) but fine. The Rules of Attraction is solid, dependable, lovable 100% entertainment – like Rogers the showman and the Bamboos the band – but it could be so much more.
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The Rules Of Attraction is out now on Atlantic Records
