FUNK

The Soulful Light of the Missionary Monk Messiah" touched down on Earth via the Dunster House dining hall Saturday night. As Daryl Norcott '94, leader of this "exploratory movement of funk," preached elegant couples like "Fee Fi Foe Funk/ let's get down and do this Junk," his 20-person band took its audience into the upper funkisphere.

A late start to the evening gave roughly 350 of Harvard's would-be funksters ample time to gather in the Dunster courtyard for what at times looked like an impromptu high school backyard party. At 9:30, the doors to the Dunster dining hall opened, and most audience members got their hands marked with the letter "F". An anonymous sources close to the Missionary Monk Messiah revealed to this reviewer that the "F" stood for "Funk."

Inside, audience members did not see your average dining hall. They beheld a "Funking Hall," complete with raised stage (altar?), multicolored lights, DJ turntables, drums, synth, piano--nearly everything except the soulful musicians themselves.

After another brief delay, the musicians, sporting predictably funky fashions, entered in a single-file procession, led by the snare drum beat of "groove regulator" Yosef Siegel. They mounted the stage and began the "Funkmove," a churning groove heavy with bass, drums, and wa-wa guitar effects. This introduction went on for nearly 20 minutes while the crew struggled to get sound to the singers' microphones. The funknical difficulties seemed to sap some of the crowd's thump-with-your-rump energy.

But Carlo Martino, a.k.a. Funkalumpagus, kept hope alive, jumping onstage to exclaim, "It's too funky in here!" and leading a chant of "We want the Monk." The anticipation mounted as Peter Stepek, a.k.a. Jedi Master Miracle Man, took the microphone at the end of "Funkmove" and announced the entrance of the bearer of a "sublime message to the people," the "Missionary Monk Messiah." To no one's surprise, the "Monk" turned out to be none other than Norcott. Famed for his rubber wranglings with the Harvard Police over a piece of poultry with sentimental value, the Chicken Man was most definitely a Funky Chicken Man on this particular night.

Combining James Brown dance moves with a classic late 70s aesthetic, Norcott was quite the Funk Monk. He has a commanding stage presence, cool sunglasses, and can throw a frisbee the length of the Dunster dining hall with the flick of a wrist. Norcott spoke lines of deep meaning; such rhymes as "I'm just a man with soulful intentions, I've crossed the bridge to unmistaken conventions" deserve painstaking exegesis to unlock their message for a contemporary audience.

At times it seemed as if the sound and theatricals of Parliament-Funkadelic were being recreated down to the last detail. Songs such as "How Much Soul" and "Hands to the Heavens/Feet to the Floor" were interspersed with skits including the heated battle of Funk and Anti-Funk, "The Cataclysmic Duel Between the Messiah Monk and Funkistopholes."

The sound was standard funk, with grinding grooves punctuated by horn blasts and organ riffs and Norcott in call-and-response with his backup singers. But standard funk, by its very funkiness, makes for a booty-shaking jam. Even Funkistopholes, played by Seth Mnookin, the vanquished evil anti-funk, was witnessed in the audience grooving to the tunes of his nemesis.

The "Missionary Monk" almost brought the audience to tears with a heartfelt sermon backed by a string trio; the audience could only express its rapture with exclamations of "Cello! Cello!" Then it was funk, funk, funk, and more funk, with the full power of the band, horns, and "Celestial Chorus" cruising alongside the "Monk."

As the crowds paraded out of the Dunster dining hall, quivering with funk aftershocks, it was obvious that the Soulful Light, "conceptualized, visualized, and realized" by Norcott had reached the multitudes. Amen.