2020/8/15 Karina Rykman with Adam November & Chris Corsico; We Thee Funk opened @ Private concert, Holmdel, NJ
Not for nothing, it’s reallllly nice to go to a gig in someone else’s backyard. No worrying about the weather, no setup or breakdown, just a kickass good time with none of the responsibility other than wearing a mask and social distancing. So to the Tree of Life foundation who put on the event and our gracious host, thank you, thank you, thank you! Also, who’d have thunk I’d ever see a concert in Holmdel, NJ in a locale not named the Garden State Arts Center (still not down with the PNC moniker)??? Surely, not I as 2020 continues to make fools of way smarter people than me.
A late afternoon / early evening double bill started with We Thee Funk, a NYC based collective who does great justice to their name as well as the catalog of oozing funk that inspires them. Eleven members deep (though I may have missed a few as I already edited from ten) with a rotating cast of two horns, three guitars, three vocalists, keyboard, bass, and drums, WTF (nice acronym!) has an infectiously good time on stage playing for crowds that largely consist of their friends and family. To be fair, please note that I say this in the most complimentary way, as to know WTF is to love them and become their friend. This is a dangerous game I’m about to play as I don’t know everyone and someone is bound to get left out, but Eddie Peters, Lenny Stein and “new guy” are pure jubilation on their respective guitars. {Turns our “new guy” is Matt Jalbert from Tauk. Eep.} Chris DiNardo, host with the most, penetrates with his pink bass while rhythm compatriot Ollie Burkat crushes the drum kit. Seth Eisenstein delights on the sax. With a red sequined cape and backwards bunny mask, Lee Herman is a picture of jubilation as front man for a band that could just as easily be called We Thee Fun(k).
For just over an hour, the COVID compliant crowd was treated to some classic funk tracks, from Bill Wither’s “Use Me Up” and Sly & The Family Stone’s “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” to the Average White Band’s “Pick Up The Pieces” and Parliament’s “Give Up The Funk”. Fifty-six hundred steps worth of good clean fun(k) left me plenty warmed up for my fave blonde female bassist, funk master Karina Rykman.
Let it be said straight away that as both a human being and a musician, Karina has pretty much got the party vibe thing down to a science. At least, that’s how she makes me feel, but maybe that’s because I already know exactly what type of music is waiting to explode out of her. She’s got joie de vivre and an authentically golden aura to match. Bandmates Adam November and Chris Corsico, guitar and drums, respectively, round out a power trio called The Karina Rykman Experiment. I still have no clue how many “songs” they played vs. how much they just made up on the spot. Let that be their little secret, for now, but the telepathy between these three was on display for the duration, as was their apparent joy to be playing an actual live show in front of actual dancing humans.
Having literally bounced around the lawn for much of the seventy-five minute set, I found my happiest place to be in front of Karina’s bass amp which also happened to be in the line of fire of November’s gear. I like it loud and penetrating and certainly got my fill in the crosshairs of those two amps and within twenty feet of Corsico’s kit. I can’t name any of Karina’s tunes though most were familiar and I danced my ass off like my feet were on fire. {They’re actually stained some weird ass Incredible Hulk blue-green from a combo of swampy grass and blue spray painted social distance boxes.}
In addition to their own stuff, the trio crushed a couple of well-chosen covers. First debuted on Quarantine Comes Alive (but with different bandmantes), a funked up version of LCD Soundsystem’s “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” leveled the quasi-natural amphitheater that was nestled off the deck and in front of the woods. Was there a little nod to the “Talking Heads” from November during that one? I thought so (but I’m often wrong). An absolutely wild and cathartic “First Tube”, though unsurprising due to a private online debut for Freaks Night In a few weeks back, brought the party to a full-on fever pitch. A cover of Butthole Surfer’s “Pepper”, which I’ve seen Karina do with Marco Benevento’s band, was a tasty fake encore. No love lost, they weren’t done playing and we all knew it just as they did. Five minutes later, however, after they were really done, the homeowner coaxed another tune out of the trio that, for my money, was the best original segment of the night. Though familiar, even as I write I still have no clue whether it was an actual song or made up on the spot with the telepathy alluded to a few paragraphs back. What I do know is those ten or twelve minutes of improvised (?) goodness were my very favorite (the First Tube fucking crushed, though!) and showcased our mutual joy to perfection.
Having had the pleasure to have seen a few of these types of shows, I can say with absolute certainty that all the musicians I’ve seen seem so alive as they channel their creative outlets and funnel their passions to small but ravenous crowds of livemusic heads. Here’s to the energy we create when we get together and finding more safe and creative ways to release the beast.
7,705 steps for Karina, 13,309 on the afternoon. Not half-bad for an early evening in Holmdel a few miles from home and nestled in with the uncanniest of timing before a Bar Mitzvah celebration for a friend that actually didn’t suck. Whoop!