By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The BGSU School of Cultural and Critical Studies and WBGU-PBS are bringing on the funk next weekend when they host a popular culture conference exploring the music’s enduring influence.
The Funk Music in Popular Culture Conference, will be held Friday, April 25, and Saturday, April 26, in the Bowen-Thompson Student Union on campus.
Matthew Donahue, professor in the Department of Popular Culture, is coordinating the conference. He said that the PBS series Independent Lens reached out to WBGU about coordinating events tied to the airing of the film “We Want the Funk,” which premiered on April 8, and is now available for viewing. Click here for details.
“We Want the Funk” will be screened in the BTSU theater at 6 p.m. to conclude the first day of the conference.
Donahue has organized several popular culture conferences and has done a number of projects dating back to the film and book “I’ll Take You There: An Oral and Photographic History of the Hines Farm Blues Club” more than 25 years ago.
This conference offers him a chance, he said, to come full circle with his work on members of Tackhead, who recorded on some of the early hip hop records.
He’s worked with guitarist Skip “Little Axe” McDonald and drummer Keith LeBlanc, bringing both musicians to campus for events.
Now the bassist for the group Doug Wimbish will be a featured guest at the funk conference.
Next weekend’s conference will conclude with a “legacy interview” entitled “Doug Wimbish: Cinemasonics, Trippy Notes for Bass…One Life in Music”
Having a conference here, he said, is fitting because of Ohio and south east Michigan’s strong ties to the music. “I often refer to the area as the Midwest funk zone because of so many great groups coming out of Dayton and so many great groups coming out of Detroit and, of course, Bootsy Collins coming out of Cincinnati.”
To the north there was George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic.
In the early days of hip hop, musicians such as Wimbish would lay down live music tracks for artists to rap over. That evolved into using recorded samples. Even today funk samples help drive the music, and introduce the classic acts to a new younger audience, Donahue said.
Funk resonated throughout the music scene including jazz fusion and later alternative rock.
The conference is drawing speakers from across the country as well as close to home.
Dana Nemeth, reference archivist at BGSU’s Browne Popular Culture Library, will talk about the signature bass riff from “Seinfeld.” The lick, Donahue noted, was composed for the show. (Friday, 10:10 a.m.)
Walter McKeever, a founder of the band Big Hunk O’ Cheese, will discuss “American Funk Influence on Ohio Alternative Music Acts in the late 1980s & early 1990s.”
Big Hunk O’ Cheese, which disbanded in 1993, performed regularly at Howard’s Club H. (Friday, 11:10 a.m.)
Local reporter Roger Lapointe will talk about “James Brown and the I-75 Media Machine.” (Friday, 3 p.m.)
Kayla Minniear, who teaches part-time in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies and is co-owner of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Retro in downtown BG, will speak about funk’s place in Christian music. ( Saturday, 11 a.m.)
All presentations are in room 314 in the student union. Click for a full schedule.
