Konk
A New York dance band of the 1980s that mixed no wave, Afrobeat, funk and disco with a big percussion-and-horn line-up, best known for the 1984 club hit "Your Life".
New York, 1980 to 1988
Konk was a New York band, formed in 1980 or 1981 (Wikipedia's text and MusicBrainz say 1980, its infobox 1981) and active until 1988. Wikipedia names the avant-garde jazz figure Dana Vlcek as the founder; Resident Advisor names the saxophonist Vlcek and the trumpeter Shannon Dawson, who had been an early associate of Jean-Michel Basquiat in the band Gray. Their manager was Ken Sitz. Geordie Gillespie played drums and percussion and co-produced, and Richard Edson, who played on Sonic Youth's first record and later acted in films including Stranger Than Paradise, Do the Right Thing and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, is listed as a drummer by Wikipedia and a trumpet player by Trouser Press. Angel Quinones played congas. Trouser Press describes a seven-piece with three horn players.
They played the same post-punk dance scene as Liquid Liquid, Bush Tetras, ESG, the Peech Boys and the Lounge Lizards, and their sound has been described as a new wave attitude with disco's dance floor appeal, drawing on Afrobeat, jazz, funk and hip hop, highly percussive over simple, strong bass lines.
Records
Their debut single, "Soka-Loka-Moki", came out in 1981 on their own Konk Organization, distributed by 99 Records, and a live set recorded at CBGB on November 6, 1981 was released digitally in 2009. The four-track Konk Party EP followed in 1982 (Les Disques du Crepuscule and Interference, or Rough Trade according to Trouser Press) and on Celluloid in 1983, the year of their album Yo!. "Your Life" (Sleeping Bag, 1984) reached number five on Billboard's dance chart on August 11, 1984. Love Attack came out in 1986 and "Machine" in 1987 on Dog Brothers, followed by the album Jams (1988), and the band broke up in 1988.
Their output is scattered over singles, EPs and compilations, which Resident Advisor's Oli Warwick noted in reviewing The Magic Force of Konk 1981-1988 (Futurismo, October 2019, three LPs with a booklet by Ezra Gale); an earlier compilation is The Sound of Konk (Soul Jazz, 2004). Trouser Press's Ira Robbins called their sound slick and supple New York big-band funk, and Tim Lawrence, quoted by Resident Advisor, called it a rough-at-the-edges, good-time, global-funk jam. They appear in the book New York Noise (2007) and on Disco Not Disco (Strut), and "Love Attack" was used in the film Bright Lights, Big City.
Songs
- Konk Party 1982
The title song of their 1982 four-track EP, over 23 minutes in all.
- Your Life 1984
Their 1984 single on Sleeping Bag, a number five dance hit.
Sources
- Konk (band), Wikipedia
- Konk, Trouser Press
- The Magic Force of Konk 1981-1988, The Big Takeover
- Konk: The Magic Force of Konk, Resident Advisor (2019-11-09)