MO PHAT & SONNY BOY @ R-Bar

MO PHAT and SONNYBOY

At the R-Bar - NYC (10/27/07)

The beautiful Lisa Michaels!

After a full night of funk at Da Funky Phish in Bay Shore, NY (with The Funk Dynasty), it was time for a second dose of DA FUNK with Mo Phat and Sonny Boy. At 8:20pm, the fans settled in for some extra, extra strong funk medication provided by Mo Phat called "You Make Me Feel Like Funkin'", featuring some super-tight drumming by Lamar, heavy thumpin' bass by Rashi, strong lead guitarisms by Groovalicious, smokin' synthesized melodies by The Pearl, and the rapping of one Lisa Michaels!! "Disrespect" and "Caught in the Middle" were in the same vein...the only problem was that Lisa's vocals were drowned out by the instruments during part of "Disrespect". Lisa was down in the audience, working the floor like a mug! "Early Morning Hornies" was a welcomed surprise (sounding almost like a classic BOOTSY ballad), but it would have sounded better with The Funk Dynasty's Eric-Jay Pierce adding his smooth raps to it...the bigger problem was that backing vocals (guitarist Groovalicious & vocalist Naomi) were too low in the mix. Following that was a nice R&B tune, but better was when the band went into a hard funk groove (dominated by The Pearl's clavinet riffing) during the band introductions. Afterwards, the groove became more raw & nasty with the blazing lead guitar rock solo and drumming taking over the spotlight for a minute!! "Mo Phat's in the House" was another hardcore funk jamming with Lisa working the floor, doing her raps and getting the fans to sing "Mo Phat's in the house!" The Mo Phat set was over at 9:00pm.

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Guitarist/vocalist extraordinaire, Sheldon Riser!!

At 9:30pm, Sonny Boy started with the strong, organ-driven funk of "It Don't Matter"...the organ riffs of Brandon were churning, the bass riffs of Mark Bass were thumpin' & kickin', and lead guitarisms & lead vocals of Sheldon Riser were smokin'! (YES -- THEY COOK ON HIGH HEAT IN THIS SKILLET, BABY!) I loved the way the band "finished" the song, and after about 15 seconds they went back into it. "Josephine Brown" featured a nice jazz breakdown mid-song....my man Sheldon was seriously crankin' out some white-hot rock guitar licks and the drummer Poet was laying it down extra thick on the drums!! "Soul Junkie" featured a nice and funky bass spotlight. "Leavin'" was good, and was followed by "Jonesin" featuring a killer rhythm that reminded me a little bit of Jimi Hendrix's "Little Miss Lover" and included a piece of "Devil's Got You High"! Sonny Boy's ended too soon at 10:10pm.

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