Not much dance music is played live anymore. Most bands that do it are in New York or Europe. With technology it’s easier to do it smaller. But something is lost in the translation, in the feel of hearing the music performed in front of crowd. Some bands perform without sequencers and drum machines. LCD Soundsystem is garnering attention currently.
Seth Moody has played in a many different types of bands, from surf music to rock. And now he’s trying to create something you don’t find much anymore; live dance music. He and wife Courtney have written ten songs, lengthy ones like you’d find on old 12 inch record remixes. For a back up band he enlisted Billy Joe Murphy, brother Tripp and drummer Matt Barbour.
“For a disco thing you gotta have good vocals, preferably female vocals,” Moody says. “Courtney was into it and all I had to do was write a few songs with her. I played a gazillion shows with Murphy boys so I figured they owed me one. I roped em in.”
Moody owned a studio for five years and one of his first clients were Barbour and Tripp who wanted to record songs when they played together as Boogie Lip. Moody asked where there bass player was but they didn’t have one.
“You can’t make demo without bass,” Moody told them and ended up playing bass himself. A few gigs came about from the recording in 1993 and a fight broke out at their second gig, a Christmas party. “There was a brawl on the stage with Matt and Tripp hitting someone’s head with a guitar. It was so nutty, so I said I was in the band.”
Boogie Lip eventually became The Black Sox with Scott Russ taking over on bass when Moody grew too busy with other projects. But the disco funk thing is something he always wanted to do and he’s grown restless of all the serious music.
“I don’ think this town has enough of that - out there, fun, crazy dance music. For the time being I’d like to see Wilmington get a shot in the butt.” The city will get to come May 18th at The Whiskey in downtown Wilmington.
“Seth married Courtney and they started noodling around at home on this funk disco music and decided to call it Sweaty Already,” Barbour says, talking up a new band he’s in over a slice of pizza downtown. “We’re a mish mash of the same group, sort of an extended family that continues to morph into different bands,” referring to the new project, The Black Sox and Yesterday’s Love Song.
Moody wants to set it up as the atypical band show in which they’ll play an early set, pump classic tunes for about an hour through the bar’s sound system and then come back on and do another set.
“I’m trying not to layer the songs with solos, we want to keep the groove going the whole time,” Moody says confidently of the band. “Matt’s always been an amazing groove drummer. His timing is really good and he has a good sense of rhythm. He doesn’t mind sticking on one beat for a long time. Tripp has a tone on the bass that is real old school, 60’s mid range, a low end tone. I think it’s that giant Gibson bass he’s got or something.”
Billy Joe Murphy fronts his own band but is playing keyboard and percussion in Sweaty Already. “I think Billy Joe can use a break from being the front man of his own band and giving him the task of playing keyboard parts and percussion. I’ve always enjoyed being a sideman in other people’s projects and I wanted him to experience that. He can have some drinks and play the keyboards.”
The show is not going to be a cliché ridden performance, Moody’s ambition is to have a show that embraces what was good and fun about that type of music before big record labels strangled it.
“It’s serious. If we wanted to be goofy we’d just do a bunch of covers.” He bought some old Roland electronic drum pads off eBay that have an 80’s sounding clap, sort of Prince electro percussion noise.
“We like the nostalgia feel but we’re not going with the whole money making angle that happened to that music by music execs.” The plan is that if people dress in that type of disco gear and show up to the show you get in for free. “We want that type of atmosphere, fun, letting loose.”
Song ideas are no different: partying and going to clubs. Some are tongue in cheek. Take ‘The Snow’ for example. “It’s about if you want to mack on the ladies you shouldn’t do a lot of blow because your schlong gets small, you know public service announcements like that, and then maybe we’ll do a song about staying in school,” Moody says with a heart laugh. “Laid back and random lyrics. We’re not trying to make any big point with the lyrics. It’s about the melody and something that stays in your head.”
The germination of the idea and recording is fairly simple, inspiration and ideas. “We go get a bottle of Jager or something and I have an old machine, Courtney comes up with a beat and I come up with a bass line. Then I’d go over with a guitar part while she comes up with lyrics. In an hour or two we have a song.”
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