Aced Out Podcast

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When DAWN SILVA – (Brides of Funkenstein, P-Funk, GAP Band, All My funky Friends] – shopped her autobiography, The FUNK QUEEN to book publishers, they didn’t exactly grasp the entire vision. “Everybody said the same thing,” she says. “‘You can’t do it.’” This is because the OG funkateer had created some...

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As an undergrad at Cal Berkeley in the early 80s, RICKEY VINCENT— (History of Funk show and book/ Party Music/ Phool 4 the Funk)— stumbled into a music history course. It was quite dense with Black culture, but on the very last day of the 2nd semester, the teacher came to class with his scratchy James B...

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“I remember I got paid $20 for a gig, man,” says RUSTEE ALLEN, funk bassist extraordinaire, first introduced to the world via the transcendent soul staple FRESH by none other than Sly & the Family Stone. “I thought I made a ton of money!” he laughs. “I didn’t even know you even got paid for playing,...

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At just age 20, STEVIE PANNELL, then strictly a bassist, wrote a song in his grandmother’s basement. He thought it was kinda special, so he went to Detroit and managed to present the tune to a man by the name of George Clinton. “It was right after ‘Knee Deep’” Stevie recalls. The funk doctor dug wh...

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“Keepin that funk alive, to me, there’s no more of an important mission.” So declares PATRYCE “CHOC’LET” BANKS, cofounder of one of the most important bands in all of funk history: Graham Central Station. “That’s my mission,” she promises. “To keep the funk alive until the wheels fall off.” And she has ...

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“As long as you’re consistent, things can happen.” So says solo artist JAY DOUBLE YOU!—who began his funk career as a pro drummer in the late 70s at Don Davis’ legendary United Sound Studios in Detroit. His golden opportunity came in the form of a session with none other than OG Parliament vocalist Fuzz...

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In the early 1980s, when percussionist extraordinaire JUAN ESCOVEDO was in his early 20s, he was working for his cousin as a landscaper at different homes around the Bay Area, CA. However, he also just so happened to be in heavy rotation on the then-very-popular MTV, appearing as part of his sister Sheila E’s band in the video for her smash hit “Glamorous Life” ...

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In the late 80s, when wonder woman of funk and rock bass STARR CULLARS was in her senior year in college, Prince—who was then in the midst of working on the Lovesexy album—offered her a spot with his crew. This was after a grueling audition process, in which Starr muscled her way into Paisley Park...

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“The funk is the stench that you smell after you work really hard.” So says MURGA BOOKER, drummer, percussionist, shaman & card-carrying funkateer. And he would know. After all, from 1980 to ‘85, Booker was deeply embedded in the P-Funk camp, working with George Clinton and everyone else aroun...

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The powerpack West Coast hip hop duo GOOCH GANG began out of necessity. Just over 10 years ago, LA-raised, longtime Bay Area Cali resident MWNSTR recorded a single with WAES, “Brutalizin.” When they realized the cut needed another verse, they instantly thought of KALIBAN, whom Mwnstr had known sin...

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Lifetime Achievement Grammy winner, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, and Original P-FunkateerGRADY THOMAS’ first job in the music biz wasn’t all that glamorous. “I had a job working at a record plant,” he explains. “I used to drive a truck arou...

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2021 is the year that MARSHALL THOMPSON—driving force and choreographer for Chicago hitmakers the CHI-LITES—shimmies from star to superstar status. Specifically, his group has been selected for inclusion among this year’s additions to the Hollywood Walk of Fame. ...

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By the time guitar hero ANDRE FOXXE (P-Funk/Jimmy G and the Tackheads/Incorporated Thang Band/Psychedelic Ghetto Pimpz) was in his early 20s, he had a production deal with the legendary Don Davis at United Sound, the funk pride of Detroit. Amazingly, that gave hi...

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“When you think of Motown, you think of Detroit,” explains timbale player RICHARD SEGOVIA, celebrating his 42nd year with his band PURO BANDIDO. “When you think of LATIN ROCK, it’s right there in the MISSION”—the Mission District that is, the legendary San Francisco neighborhood where the genre wa...

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If you’ve hit up a GEORGE CLINTON & the P-FUNK ALL-STARS show anytime over the last 30 years, you’ve seen a whole lotta STEVE BOYD, the golden-voiced Detroit doo wop master originally of the group FIVE SPECIAL, best known for their hit “Why Leave Us Alone,” (produced by Wayne Henderson of the ...

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FUNK FAM: 

This is your boy Ace. Like the rest of you, last year brought us our share of heartbreak. Specifically, on Nov 6, 2020, we lost a member of the FUNKANAUTS—guitar wizard, bassologist, soul rock encyclopedia, and Bay Area CA&nbs...

“I have literally danced my entire life,” says SWEET LD, OG member of MC HAMMER and the POSSE and its pioneering, all-women offshoot OAKTOWN 357. And as a young lady living in the East Bay, CA in the 80s, that was just about all LD aka Suhayla Sabir and her friends ever wanted to do. She especially loved to frequent a place called Silk’s in Emeryville because it had three floors, each with ...

When SHIRLEY HAYDEN [PARLET/P-FUNK] auditioned for Parliament-Funkadelic in singer Malia Franklin’s family basement, she was scared. It was the late 70s and, like every other artist raised in Detroit, she had already been a fan of George Clinton’s clan, then in the midst of recording the stank staple One Nation Under a Groove. “It was a hell of an audition,” she remembers. “The band was hot...

WAYNE FOOTE aka “Foote Funk” never would have thought he’d be asked to replace Steve Arrington as lead singer in monster funk outfit SLAVE. After all, he was 19 years old, living with his folks just outside San Francisco in Daly City, while Slave were based out of Dayton, Ohio—part of the Ohio Player lineage and knee deep in a super-stank scene that included Zapp, Faze-O, Lakeside, Heatwave...