The Cold Queen City which chills on the easternmost banks of the ever tumultuous Lake Erie has spawned more funk than blizzards, yet until now it has been infamous only for the latter. What you hold in your mitts right now, an unprecedented mix of twenty rare Buffalo funk gems spanning twenty years, intends to change this. Most of the funk contained within was only distributed locally and regionally by small independent labels scattered throughout the city on Hertel, Delaware, Main St., High St., ‘East Side’, etc. In runs of as little as a few hundred, one song came from a west coast label which signed a Buffalo artist after he was stranded on tour; one record was an independently distributed private pressing from a Buffalo funk legend early in his career. Some songs are straight B-Lo funk, some high-flying jazz fusion, some psychedelic horn rock, some smooth soul serenades, and a few are groundbreaking hip hop sleepers which influenced the much better known artists of the Golden Era. The entire mix, however, is cohesively bound by a unique Buffalonian style and identity which can be described no better than as ‘Blue Collar Funk’. Close your eyes, listen closely and you can feel the soot of Bethlehem steel permeate the cold East Side air as you wait in line at the Rockpile to see O.J. in all his sunday splendor…

Track List