When You Were Partying, I Was Dying is the second release from 18-year-old Los Angeles beat maker, producer, and songwriter Caves. The record clocks in at just under 13 minutes, but looks can be deceiving. The first tune centers around a funkified dance groove, one that would make even the most timid of folks jump up in excitement. It’s something we could easily picture being played in a vintage dancehall with the singer belting his heart out in pain and desire. The second sports a chiller feel with Caves’ signature groovy beat muffled by a general haze. It’s definitely something you can still grove to, but we’d prefer not to be sweating our ass off in a dance hall. The third tune slows us down even more. Caves’ funky and souly natures kind of take a back seat on this one as he pumps his voice and piano full of reverb. It creates something utterly nostalgic with pockets of glimmering synth to bring you out of the depressing depths. The last tune is a beacon of funky soul – something that combines the best of what Caves is while exploiting the extremes of love’s power.
You can grab the record for free from Absent Fever.
These two bands are linked by a common drummer. The first is a funk group, the second is halfway-to-dubstep/electronica band.
Funk is a wild genre. It’s not so much the music itself, although that has a lot to do with it. It’s just that sometimes its musicians are very eccentric. Enter: Screaming Headless Torsos. This group, in its prime, had five of the best. SHT’s frontman was a funk, soul, and blues freak named Dean Bowman… seriously, his voice is so perfect for the genre. On bass, they had London-born but now New York-based jazz virtuoso Fima Ephron. Bronx native Daniel Sadownick played percussion other than the drum kit. To add to the already impenetrable mix, Switzerland’s Jojo Mayer was on drums. I consider him to be the best drummer in the world. Many will disagree with me, but I stand by it. And finally, we’ve arrived at the character: Dave Fuze Fiuczynski. This is a guitarist who doesn’t want to play just jazz. He’s radical in his style, inventive, and uninhibited. Just listen to some of the stuff he comes up with…
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Screaming Headless Torsos- Vinnie
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Screaming Headless Torsos- Blue In Green (Miles Davis Cover)
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Screaming Headless Torsos- Word To Herb
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Screaming Headless Torsos- Dig A Pony (The Beatles Cover)
So SHT is a bunch of really fucking talented people. Eventually, Jojo Mayer went on to bigger things. He won Modern Drummer’s Best Drummer award a few times, if I’m not mistaken, and crafted a group called Prohibited Beatz. They were a fusion of hip hop, jazz, rock, funk, and blues that really sparkled on the live stage. They had a weekly spot in a New York nightclub, and that gig eventually morphed the group into what it is today, NERVE. The trio really centers around Jojo Mayer and his drum kit – he’s a human drum machine. Jojo is one of the few musicians to have ever mastered the Moeller Whip and it makes his technique and style idolized. NERVE, can’t just ride on one person’s shoulders though. As a group, they are one of the most forward thinking, wow-inducing, stylistically-intriguing talents, akin to the kind of stuff Flying Lotus does in terms of really pushing boundaries. Check out some of their stuff:
