On what was arguably the best weather in the last few years, kicking off a week of beautiful weather, before the volcano madness, it was a bit weird heading into the darkness of the Twisted Pepper to see Creamy Goodness.
Creamy Goodness are a seven piece funk, soul, and R&B band headed up by Eamon Cooke.
Difficult to get space for this kind of music in Ireland today. Not least for what MTV and the like have done to the R&B tag; but the kind of music myself and some friends used to call dancey tunes with funky beats. Though come to think of it, it became a bit of an umbrella term; we used to have dancey tunes with funky beats, runners, t-shirts and general nights out too.
Eamon’s baby; he writes the songs, sings and plays guitar and is also the musical director. The rest of the “playaz” are Adam Taylor – bass, Eoin Grace – trumpet, Tommy Gray – drums, Marcin Kaerha – keys, Dennis Wyers – tenor sax and Nichola hegarty – backing vocals.
There was a different line up for the band a few years ago, and was put on hold until Eamon emerged from a reported four years of no life attending the intensive Newpark School of Jazz.
This current line-up has been playing together for a year.
Eamon’s influences are Wayne Shorter, incognito, The Rebirth, Erykah Badu and , and I quote “any kind of groove based, well arranged music with clever harmony (chords)” and you can hear this all the way through. Some tunes smacked of a band called Mother Earth to me, from waay back in the nineties.
Starting off with a few songs that made you feel like you could see the beautiful evening outside – you couldn’t – but they were a soulful hazy summer evening sound. Then it got a little more upbeat with those funky beats and a big brass sound that brings you back in time, even further than the nineties.
For a couple of tracks Tommo and Mathias, two break dancers took over the floor doing some very impressive headspins and the like, but this intimidated the already quite reserved crowd from shaking their stuff. I know I was certainly sticking with toe tapping and maybe a bit of a side to side hip shake, be that manically every now and then.
Congratulations given to a very sheepish-looking Dennis on saxophone as he just got engaged, so then they slowed it down a bit for all the lovers, or “lovaz” and a chorus of “Yowza,Yowza, Yowza”.
For a song called “Butter for Your Popcorn” they were joined onstage by MC Finnese from a band called Scuzzy Board. I used to absolutely balk at Irish people doing this kind of thing, but certain accents work like his which was enhanced by some gorgeous harmonies with back up from Eamon and Nicola. Eamon has worked with a few different MC’s but apparently this was the first time with Finnese.
Not sure when they are playing live next but do keep an evening free for a very diverse night out.
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