Blogarhythms

As someone who’s spent an overwhelming portion of his life in New England I can’t say I care all that much about the weather. In no part of the country is the cliche “if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few a few minutes” as apt as it is here in the Northeast. We’re hardy folks who are used to meteorological extremes around these parts. So barring a severe-weather event like a hurricane, tornado, flood or blizzard there’s just not much sense in worrying about the weather.

This is especially true of cold weather and snowfall, which I recall only rarely being a cause for alarm during all my years growing up here. But over the last few years I’ve noticed a trend, fueled by the local media outlets and possibly exacerbated by legitimate budget concerns in regards to snow removal, towards blowing every cold-snap and batch of snow out of proportion. People come on the news making predictions of wintry apocalypse and all of a sudden schools, offices and businesses are closing and stores are flooded with fearful citizens stocking up on provisions.

Just this morning, inspired by a forecast calling for arctic temperatures to sweep into the region from the Midwest, a local news-team led off their wakeup broadcast with a piece about the cold and darkness of Winter being good cause for depression! When I heard this gloom and doom bullshit being raked over the muck of meteorological fear these newspeople had already mongered I was incredulous. But I also became determined to put a lighter, sunnier and decidedly warmer spin on the day both for my own peace of mind and that of of anyone who might peruse the blog today.

What I spun was Side-Stepper, a batch of eleven upbeat Soul and lightweight Funk jams suffused with gleaming Pop effervescence released by Melbourne, Australia’s self-proclaimed “masters of Deep Funk and Super-Heavy Soul,” the somewhat tropically-named retrorchestra The Bamboos a few months ago. If their name sounds familiar it’s probably because I featured Just Say, the soulful “solo” set (on which they provided backup) from their main vocal collaborator Kylie Auldist, back when the weather felt a lot more like their new album sounds.

Kylie pops up on three tracks here, most notably the jangly, horn-drenched “Make It Real,” which flips a loose-n-carefree Chi-Town Soul sound a-la Young-Holt Unlimited and The Impressions. Other collaborators on Side-Stepper include Sweden’s Paul Mac Innes, whose Terence Trent D’Arby-esque turn on the socially-conscious “Move On” is a highlight, Aussie Indie-Popstress Megan Washington, who sings about driving in the snow on “King of the Rodeo,” and Brit-Hop artist TY, whose freewheeling “Can’t Help Myself” is like an Australio-Saxon Heavy Rhyme Experience update.

The Bamboos “King of the Rodeo” feat. Megan Washington

While just over half the album features vocals, the remainder is an instrumental affair. And it’s these songs–like the Ramsey Lewis-inspired “Nightsport,” with its polished horns and twinkling piano solo, the breakbeat-driven acid-Jazz/flute-Funk title track, and the mildly Carribean-flavored J.B.’s riff “Funky Buttercup”–where the singers step aside so the seven-man band can stretch that are proving the perfect protection against any Winter worries, real or imaginary. Even the cover of “Amen, Brother,” predictable as it is, is irresistibly ebullient and optimistic…Plus it’s got a break.

Seriously…No amount of nasty newscasting intended to inspire terror in viewers should be able to bum you out if you’re grooving to music like this. It’s like the real-life equivalent of that infectiously omnipresent piano-Jazz party music that the kids in all those old Peanuts animated specials were always dancing to whenever Charlie Brown showed up feeling sorry for himself. They always kept dancing, and so should you, ’cause even if temperatures outside do drop below freezing you can always keep your own temperature up, simply by cutting a rug or two.