WHO SAYS German music can’t be funky? In the 1970s Can injected their Velvets inspired prog-rock with a good dose of funky grooves, and these days Munich’s The Poets of Rhythm continue to bring the funk from the Fatherland to the world.
The band was formed by Boris Geiger and Jan Weissenfeldt who shared a love of late 1960s and 1970s US funk bands like The Meters and Parliament. Geiger took on percussion and vocals, Weissenfeldt guitar, his brother Max drums, and Jan Krause bass, and they started writing original material. The single ‘Funky Train’ followed in 1992 and later the album Practice What You Preach.
The band began to make inroads in the States when Quannum’s Lyrics Born found one of their singles in a record store in New Orleans and was impressed by what he heard. He eventually got in touch with Weissenfeldt and in 1999 they teamed up to do some recording. The Poets released their own album Discern/Define in 2001. The Poets continue to play exciting and innovative soul music with touches of Afro and hip hop.
The Poets Of Rhythm play Cuba*, Eyre Square, on Friday May 22 at 8pm. Admission is €15. For more information contact Cuba*/Bar903 on 091 - 565991.
