The funk soul hunter

Keb Darge delights in finding obscure funk tunes from the 70s.

Keb Darge could be a private investigator but he's a record collector and DJ instead. In the past 25 years he has travelled the world hunting out music and even searching for people who recorded rare funk tracks some 30 years ago.

Tonight, the Scottish DJ - renowned for spearheading the deep funk movement (a name given to obscure and rare funk) - plays the Turnaround at Rising Sun, on K Rd.

The tunes he plays are ones you didn't know existed and are likely to be among the funkiest you'll hear. One is by the Soul Project - a school project from the 70s performed by a teacher and his pupils.

"And, by crikey," says Darge, "it is this great Hammond organ tune."

He reckons the Soul Project is more funky than anything Sly Stone did. That's a big call but, according to the opinionated Darge, Sly Stone was soul, not funk.

"To me, Sly Stone never, ever did a good funk record. Family Affair is a great soul record, but the ones that people class as funk, to me, are more like hippy, rocky soul with a funky edge. He's a bit too psychedelic to fit into the funk thing, because funk is a bit more straight, and honest, and not contrived."

It's often the case that these obscure funk tracks are better than any of the material released by the popular acts of the funk and soul scenes from the late 60s and early 70s.

The reason many of these songs went unheard is that thousands of budding musicians were able to have records pressed but didn't have enough money to distribute and promote the songs.

"If you're a young black guy scrubbing toilets and you see people like Motown artists and James Brown you think, 'Hell, if I make a record like that then I can stop cleaning toilets and I'll get to shag women'.

"So they all had a bash at making records but most of them failed to sell or get noticed. They were tremendous records nonetheless."

North Carolina group the Nomads is another example of undiscovered genius. Darge once asked an American record dealer, who helps him to track down rarities in the US, about a Nomads' record.

"He says to me, 'You know Keb, I remember when me and my boys got back from Vietnam we went to see a band called the Nomads. They was giving out a record at that gig. I'll just phone my buddies and see if they've still got their copies'.

"So, a couple of days later he rings me and says, 'I got ya three copies'. Until this day there's only been, like, five copies found."

He also found one former musician in America who couldn't even remember recording the song Darge was after. "Then he says to me, 'Oh yeah, me and my buddies from college did do a record. But it didn't get released did it?' 'No,' I say to him, 'but we're releasing it'."

The most he has paid for a record to add to his collection is 3000 ($7884). It was a single song by Mellow Madness. Ever heard of them? Didn't think so, although Darge says that's the only thing he knows that they recorded.

"But I don't mind because I'm playing that song lots now."

While he's been pushing funk in the clubs it seems the world - even fast-food joints such as McDonald's and KFC - has been getting its funk on, too.

Darge says in Britain and Europe the fast-food chains are using rare funk and soul tunes as backing tracks in ads.

"They're pushing this Kentucky-got-chicken-got-soul type thing and they used the Majestics' Funky Chick."

At his regular club night at JoJos in London he proudly tells the story of a 16-year-old who was turned away because he was under age.

"The kids are getting straight in at the good end of music. When I started playing you couldn't hear funk and soul anywhere. It was as if it didn't exist. Now the media are in love with real funk and soul - the adverts, McDonald's are trying to copy Kentucky.

"My club is filling up with youngsters. I used to walk into bars two or three years ago and it was all, [he impersonates a scratch DJ], that shite. Now you're walking in and it's real funk and soul."

Performance

* Who: Scottish DJ and record collector Keb Darge

* Where: The Turnaround

* When: Tonight, 11pm, Rising Sun, K Rd, Auckland