The Mountain Sun hosts free live music every Sunday. Did you know that?

This I learned last Sunday when my friend-in-the-know suggested we go see some band named Sophistafunk. It took no great deal of intuition to know this was a band I needed to see.

Sophistafunk. Yes.

This is a trio from Syracuse, New York.

Emanuel Washington holds it down on his hip-hop tuned drum kit which really kicks. He also proved he can pick it up, as he did seamlessly when Master of Ceremonies Jack Brown dropped the second verse of “Juicy”.

On the whole, Brown delivers conscious lyrics that provide occasion for both self-reflection and putting one’s hands up in the air and waving them as if one cared very little.

Adam Gold sits behind a collection of keyboards with limitless potential for funky squawks, wacky chords and face-twisting fills. He plays the bass with his left hand and the melody with his right. For me, it is Gold’s musicianship that is the wind in the sails of this outfit. His licks range from spaced-out to in-the-pocket, RATM-style rock-ish to funky disco through to smoothin’ groovin’ jazz.

Mountain Sun was packed with dancing souls until closing time. I am very much looking forward to seeing them perform in a proper venue with some decent room to dance.

Sophistafunk will be at Quixote’s True Blue in Denver this coming Saturday night, the 17th of December.

Tickets are $10. In this economy, can you afford not to go? Right, so, see you there.

The rest of their tour dates are as follows:

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Dec 19
First Avenue- 7th Street Entry
Minneapolis, MN
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Dec 20
Upfront & Company
Marquette, MI
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Dec 21
Pyramid Scheme
Grand Rapids, MI
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Dec 22
Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
Kalamazoo, MI
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Dec 23
Waterhole #3
Saranac Lake, NY
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Dec 30
Empire Brewery
Syracuse, NY
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Dec 31
Coleman’s Authentic Irish Pub
Syracuse, NY
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Feb 03
Sullivan Hall
New York, NY
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Mar 03
The Rock Shop
Brooklyn, NY

For your listening pleasure, please peep this informational videos.

This first one is from way back in the day (2008 is almost 4 years ago now…)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3-0rXXFuKg

“I do it to make people dance”

A pretty good promo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLm79y6B28A

Okay, let’s funk it up…
“Same Old Mistakes”