Vintage Vinyl gets 70% soul, 30 % funk this week.
One of my favorite parts of the week is getting to figure out the theme for my next show. When I first started out with this special program I figured I would stick to what I knew best: the oldies. Nothing past 1965 really. I was going through a wicked “American Graffiti” phase which, let’s be honest, happens every six months or so. Actually, come to think of it, it’s really every summer that it happens because that music seems like the perfect summertime soundtrack. I have a hard time listening to oldies without thinking about sunshine, long drives, sock hops, little 50s rockabilly dresses, and cream sodas.
I would say that my taste in music is definitely affected by the seasons and the weather. On rainy days I go for the quiet groups, like Simon and Garfunkel and The Velvet Underground (with Nico especially). During the winter I lean more toward really old jazz, the kind that had to be recorded from a record so you hear the dust and scratches in the mp3 file. With it finally changing over to fall (my all-time favorite season ever) I’ve been feeling a sort of winding-down happening with me. It gets dark earlier and stays dark longer, it’s finally cold enough that I can wear any one of my million sweaters without being a sweaty mess by the end of the day, and I can’t walk into a coffee shop without thinking “maybe I do want a pumpkin spice latte.” Along with this winding down comes a mood for a different sort of music.
On Oct. 26 I did a show comprised of only music from the British Invasion, and it was pretty rocking if I do say so myself (dust off shoulder). But for this next show I want to take it in a different direction once again. I wake up at 6 every morning and spend the first hour or so drinking coffee and stretching while watching ridiculous morning television. There was a commercial for winter hats or something, but in the background they were playing “Express Yourself” by Charles Wright. It could be that the coffee finally hit me but at that moment I said “Aww yeah” and realized that it’s been awhile since I did a funk/soul show.
My boyfriend is a dejay here in Lawrence and he deals mostly in funk and soul. We were talking about it one day and he was saying that he thinks most people are a one or the other, or at least more into one than the other. While my boyfriend is way more into funk (and disco) than I am, I would say that I’m probably a 70 percent soul, 30 percent funk kind of girl. As such, my show will be a little bit quieter.
by emily scholle
*Tune in to Vintage Vinyl every Wednesday night from 10 p.m. to midnight.