I am sure the U Street Corridor on up to Adams Morgan will be jam-packed with party goers this New Year’s Eve. For folks looking for a bit less congestion and authentically funky good time that won’t break your pockets, then the “Soul Train” New Year's Eve 2012 party at Ras Hall is just what you are looking for.

Sister Zurii Conroy tipped me off a few weeks back that she was working something special for New Year’s Eve at Ras Hall. She mentioned specifically she was interested in having a funk music party. A real one, where folks could come and let it all loose on the dance floor like we used to do back in the day—as "One Nation Under a Groove."

No show in television history promoted funk, soul, and R&B music to the world masses like Don Cornelius’ Soul Train. It’s the longest-running nationally syndicated show in history, with over 1,000 episodes broadcast between 1971 and 2006. As a kid, I remember waiting for Soul Train to come on Channel 20. Thinking back on it, I think my favorite part of the show were the dancers! The way they would move to the music was incredible. On the dance floor everyone looked GOOD! The fellas were fly and the ladies were smoking hot. Each episode, the Soul Train line was what everyone looked forward to. I don’t think anyone who has ever seen Soul Train can forget the sexy Asian sister with the smoking dance moves who was a staple on the show. In fact, if you wanted to learn how to dance, you would watch Soul Train. Then, once perfected, you would show up with your people at the party and show the funk off.

Sister Zurii wants you to get on that very same Soul Train with her to help ring in the New Year. She wants you to know, "This party is for anyone who's looking to do something new, different, and festive (& easy on the pockets) for their New Year!" The Soul Train New Year’s Eve 2012 party features D.C.’s own DJ RBI in charge of making you move on the dance floor—spinning a range of styles from different funk eras (classics, hip-hop, soul, reggae, house). There will be catering (Ras’ cuisine is DELICIOUS!), drink specials, and a champagne toast at midnight to ring in 2012 in the spirit of Love, Peace, and Soul!

Soul Train/70’s Attire is recommended!

Soul Train New Years Eve 2012 bash begins 9pm this Saturday at Ras Hall, 4809 Georgia Ave. NW. $15/advance. Click here for more info.

Put differently: Bushwalla doesn't just perform concerts; "I do like a 5-year-old's birthday party for adults; that's pretty much the Bushwalla show."

With a new set for late April, Bushwalla, the constant touring partner of good friend Jason Mraz, is currently making his own rounds on the east coast. With songs ranging from breezy, acoustic guitar duets with Dawn Mitschele like "Mayhem is Beautiful" to beat- and trumpet-laden fan-favorites like "Gangsta" ("It is hard to be a gangsta, gangsta / With a basket on your bike"), Bushwalla's pretty hard to resist.

Q&A below the jump.

BUSHWALLA PERFORMS TONIGHT AT JAMMIN JAVA, 227 MAPLE AVE. E., VIENNA, VA. $10 IN ADVANCE, $13 DAY OF. (703) 255-1566.

WASHINGTON CITY PAPER: What kind of music did you listen to growing up?
BUSHWALLA: I started at 9 years old in a theater company called Kids on Broadway in Ohio, and my earliest influences are probably—a lot of musical theater, to be honest with you. And on top of that, we would do summer shows that were like touring festival shows and that's where I fell in love with John Prine. I also fell in love with ... early forms of rap music. And then my father listened to a lot of '50s music, which I really loved, like the Big Bopper, Little Richard ... a lot of old '50s and '60s tunes that I really dig, and you know, so it was all over the place – it's kinda why I'm all over the place.

WCP: Do you have a preference between rapping and singing?
B:I write and I don't think about it. I sit, and whatever comes out is what comes out. I always like to challenge myself writing to write something that's out of my realm of comfortability, so at the end of the day when you have, you know, your 10 songs or whatever that you just wrote over the last week or couple weeks, there might be one in there that's a gem that's kind of out of your ballpark, but that's going to expand your evolution as a singer or a performer. When you think you got it, that's when you don't got it.

WCP: Do you have a favorite place to tour?
B: I just love touring. I'm happy right now, I'm on the road, I got a couple of buddies with me that are playing, and it's just like, "Shit yeah, this is awesome!" Because for so many years, it's just like, "All I wanna do is get on the road." And I get on the road, and it's like, "All I wanna do is take out my band mates with me" I did a show with G. Love ... it was an after-show, and the earlier show was canceled 'cause of rain, and he turns to me and he says, "Isn't it rad?" and I'm like, "Is what rad?" And he's like, "We get to do this again." And I was like, "Yes! This is rad! We do get to do this again!" And it was really inspiring to hear that from him, a guy that I've been listening to for 15 years, still have that same ... kid-consciousness about it, which is what you gotta have—we're just playing, you know what I mean? We're just playing.

WCP: You hosted Jason Mraz's tour this past year—what's the difference between playing a large venue and a more intimate setting? Do you have a preference?
B: It's really wild 'cause [one] weekend I played Berkeley, the Hollywood Bowl, and the Cricket Wireless Amphitheater, and that was for a total of about 50,000 people. And then the next week, I played a house show for like, 20 people. And the house show scared the hell out of me. Everybody's looking at you. The 20,000 people become this sea, and I'm on stage and I look out and I'm like, "I got this, I got this." But Bruce Hughes, Jason's bass player told me, "Just look at them as a bunch of little clubs." And I was like, "Aw yeah, that's all it is. 10,000 people is just a hundred 100-person clubs." ... It's kind of an ass-way to think of it, but it also made a lot of sense at the moment.

WCP: How important is comedy, your circus background and just improvisation in general to your live music act?
B: The show, you know, is where it's at for me. It's where it's at for my fans. It's everything, you know what I mean? For me... I love improvisation—it challenges me, it challenges my band. And the guys that I play with, my band, who have been with me upwards of 10 years, they're so open to it. Nobody ever gets mad at me for not doing what we planned, and that's huge, because a lot of bands really go by the ABCs and the 123s of performing. They tell their story, they sing the song, they put some emotionality into it, and then they end their song with some emotionality and then they close their eyes and reflect... And I just really like to explode.

Photo of Bushwalla by Maryam, via MySpace.

Taking a look at the Numero Group label's new Light: On the South Side release, Jason Cherkis also took to some tippling. At the suggestion of the label's co-founder, Ken Shipley, he dug into the hefty book-and-LP set—featuring songs and Michael L. Abramson's photographs from Chicago's mid-’70s funk-blues scene—with some Crown Royal and can of Schlitz. Cherkis writes:

I realize that this exercise is almost racist: the Crown Royal, the Schlitz, and the Kools are all stereotypes of a certain experience, a certain scene. But there’s a point: They are all bridges to Pepper’s. So I stick with it, gulp down the cheap beer, turn the pages, and admire the men with Eddie Murray sideburns and the pimp scepters. In a few years, crack would take over and the blues would start to sound a lot like a Disney version. I don’t see anyone lavishing a box set on the House of Blues.

I want to keep staring at Abramson’s pictures.

Johnny Pepper opened the original Pepper’s in 1956 with a $500 loan from Ford Motors. He played host to the Chess record label’s masters and the wannabes, the harp heads and the guitar gods never to find a flock. The joint changed locations, grew a theme for Mondays called “Blue Monday,” and its owner eventually joined up with a harmonica player/label owner/drug dealer. The club stayed true, taking in feminism, funk, and a killer house band all within its small dance floor.

Read the full article here.

Dam Funk will perform Thursday, May 7, at 930 Club with Peanut Butter Wolf, James Pants, and Mayer Hawthorne.

Washington City Paper: What appealed to you about this type of music, late '70s and early '80s boogie and funk? What about it inspired you to make music?

Dam Funk: You mean, where does my music come from? I just want to give people music that feels good, certain types of chords. Stuff from the early 80s had that type of sound. It's still funky, but not cornball. When I DJ, boogie is what I play out. But modern funk is what I record.

WCP: Is this a DJ tour, or are you performing your music?

DF: Both. The set will consist of me dropping some of the rare wax stuff that I have, you know, to give the audience a treat. Then I'll be sharing some of the songs from album and singing on top of the tracks. I wanted to do something different than a DJ spinning records.

WCP: Your music is almost all programmed into synthesizer and drum machines. Is it hard to coax machines into being funky?

DF: Oh, no. It just depends on the chord that you hit. That’s why I liked synths instead of keyboards with patch sounds. You can change the sound, allow the sound to be created. It’s the analog equipment.

WCP: You keep mentioning certain types of chords. What kind of chords are you talking about, what kind of chord are you trying to get?

DF: The best chord that I’ve ever heard in my life. It can hit your heart strings. Not that Lil Jon effect–those are the devil chords. I’m trying to get the beautiful chords, to get to something inside. But, I mean, it's something you can still roll to, something that's still urban. I keep the bottom hard, that’s the key.

WCP: You recently posted a bunch of songs on your Myspace that you made when you were still a teenager. What made you want to share those early recordings with everybody?

DF: I posted that just to show other people that you can start off a certain way, but you can come to a level where you feel confident about making music. Back then I was messing around and making tapes for my friends.

WCP: How has the way you make music changed since then?

DF: I was using the same stuff that I’m using now. All that stuff that you hear right now, it’s all part of the equipment from back in the day. Nothing has changed, it's all coming from the same place. It’s just that now it got, like, straight and narrowed out. I know what I’m doing now, I have a more confident approach. There’s a direction I have in my head that I’m going to try to will out for the people to enjoy. I want them to feel how they felt when they rolled in their cars at certain time. It's not just about the past, though. It's more like memories from future. You're moving toward the future, but you don’t forget about the genuine times you had with your family and friends, or anything you want to keep inside when you get older and find out about what a harsh world this is. I wand people to know that it's not just a strip-bar stuff out there. There’s another kind of urban music. It’s there. I’m just trying to crack the cement and let the flower.

WCP: When you say another kind of urban music, what are you in opposition to? What's the other side?

DF: Like, a lot of the autotune strip-bar music, that type of stuff. It’s fun, but there’s more than that. What’s wrong with making a 10-minute instrumental? What’s wrong with having that on an album?

WCP: Not a lot of people are still making funk music, at least not in the same sense as they used to. Do you feel like funk and boogie were abandoned when hiphop arrived?

DF: Some people did [continue making funk]. It was the major labels that kind of did it in as well, because they jumped on the cardboard boxes. They were like, "Let’s go strictly hiphop." People did it too, though. I was one of those cats. I loved Run DMC. The golden-era of hiphop was one of the best times ever. Tons of records you can’t deny. Then the avalanche of new jack swing came and really rung it in. I think that over the years funk did get abandoned. The mind state, not just music. I mean, funk was a mind state. It was about freedom. There were no baby-oiled-pecs-in-the-mirror, like 50 cent.

You could be anything you wanted to be. Everybody is so stuffed in a box now–you gotta be hard. But you don’t have to always represent that part of urban experience. I mean, when I saw Prince–idiots now would probably say that he looked like a bitch–but it was a fantasy. People like that gave you an escape from things. I want to give people a fantasy, not the guy down the street. Other genres of music are doing that, so why can't this?

That’s what makes the whole boogie thing great, record collectors are involved. It’s almost like collecting baseball cards. It's like, "You got that one, well what about that one?" I know hip hop has some of those aspects left too, but everybody's so serious. The boogie and funk scene, I hope it never gets to that.

WCP: Do you communicate with any of the DC boogie and funk collectors?

DF: Oh yeah, Andrew Morgan (founder of Peoples Potential Unlimited and Earcave), Max Dunbar, a few other cats. We’re all down with each other. We talk about the music. I can’t wait to meet these cats face to face finally. Andrew Morgan, I'm actually releasing a side-project of mine on his label. It's called Wavelength. But Beautiful Swimmers and those cats, they’re doing some good work.

I mean, it’s just a great time. People don’t realize what’s happening and what’s about to happening. It’s like you’re on a road and it gives people a chance to get off at this exit. And there’s all kinds of carnival rides there. And people, they can stay long time, if they want to. I know I’ll be at the carnival for a while. But if they want, they can get back on the road. Funk is not a fad, it’s a way of life. Get off the freeway for a minute and check out this incredible scene that’s going on and try to nurture it and grow it.

This could be the perfect getaway from all the official events.

This past weekend, Local Legend Tom Porter held a massive vinyl sale in his backyard. We hyped it.

Some of you complained that you missed out. Today, we are glad to report that Tom Porter is hosting another vinyl sale in his Chapin Street backyard (1435 Chapin Street NW). The sale will be on Saturday. We will have more details on this soon.