Some Mo'fo Awards and Recognition
Read the First
Reviews for
the new CD, "Finally Over", it's a great one!
The
Mo'fos Win the Disc Makers' - Band World Series 1996 - San Francisco
The Mo'fessionals judged the Best Unsigned Band in Northern
California - out of over 800 bands entering
Final judging took place at Great American Music Hall, SF - April
1996
SoCo ROCKS - 1994 and
1995
Two Years in a Row, Club Goers voted for The Mo'fessionals as
their
Favorite Bay Area Band 1994 & 1995
East Bay EXPRESS "Best of the Bay - 1994" Bands category
BAM 23rd Annual BAMMIE
Awards - The
Mo'Fessionals LIVE at SLIM's
nominated Most Outstanding Independent Album of 1993
SF Weekly's 3rd Annual
WAMMIES, Alternative Music Awards - 1992
awarded The Mo'Fessionals - Best Funk Band
Bay Guardian's 19th
Annual Salute
named The Mo'fessionals - Best New East Bay Funk Band 1992
California Music Critics
Write
about The Mo'fessionals:
The Mo's Reviews run in Superlatives
Mo'fessionals tighten up their
sound...
Excerpt from an article by Wayne Saroyan
Five years ago, before urban jazz swept across San Francisco's South of Market club scene, the Mo'fessionals were at the vanguard of a new movement in music. Along with the Limbomaniacs, the Freaky Executives and the Broun Fellinis, the Mo'fessionals were opening up the conservative stylings of modern jazz to freer, more adventurous side trips into funk, soul, rap, rock, reggae, world beat and groove-drenched dance rhythms.
Stripped of their familiar horn section and pared down to a tight eight-member lineup, the Mo'fessionals are still out workin' the circuit, primed to play with a new slate of songs in the can, a hightech CD-Plus project in the works, and bust-out gigs .....
The Mo'fessionals were born from a band called the Church of the Grand Funk ..... the Mo'fos became the musical role model for a new generation of rappin' jazz funksters.
"All of a sudden," recalls bassist and Mo'fo cofounder John Wilson, "there were dozens of bands just like us. It was like overflow. So we decided to work the horns out of the mix and get a keyboard player to give us that rhythmic punch, but really emphasize the vocals and the rhythm section, and still maintain our own individuality. We all wanted something new to happen."....
Excerpt from an article by Wayne
Saroyan
Correspondent, Contra Costa Times
December 1995
"Playing Favorites - Best of
1994"
" Everytime I hear them I'm blown away by their nearly
perfect ability to blend backward glances to faraway roots with
forward leaps into new musical spaces. .. The result is a
consistently vibrant musical playgroup where deep soul, raw funk,
swinging jazz, slamming hip hop and good old-fashioned R&B
come to hang out, have fun, and climb all over each other...the
Mo'fessionals are a band on the verge of becoming a local
instituion. .. a pivotal and crucial role in the continuing
growth of the Bay Area music scene.
Josh Kun
East Bay Express
The Mo'fessionals spend four nights a week rehearsing. Such diligent work habits may help account for the steaming, polished sound that belies the relative youth of these musicians who smoothly blend funk, jazz and rap.
Joel Selvin
San Francisco Chronicle
The band is a true funk orchestra -- in the classic style of Parliament/Funkadelic, Tower of Power, and Sly and the Family Stone -- but its sound is '90's fresh, with the bite of Public Enemy. After working its way up the ladder over the past few years with great showings at both the "Oaktown Sound" BMI Showcase and New York's New Music Seminar, the band last year released its first CD, a smoking South of Market set "Live at Slim's .. plus some studio cuts"
Will McCormick
The Oakland Tribune
...twelve-piece Mo'fessionals started the party right with a unique blend of funk, rap, soul and Latin grooves. The musical influences were as varied as the band members themselves. Horns, guitars, bass, and percussion roamed around riffs, exploding and reconstructing traditional verse-chorus structure, From soaring vocals to percussive raps ...their short, tight set left the audience wanting more, much mo'. "
BAM review of Slim's show
Daphne Gottlieb
BMI Showcase at DV8
"11-member Mo'fessionals tore it up on stage in a slammin'
set, looking and sounding like a new P-Funk..."
BAM
Billy Jam
"Mo'fessionally speaking, there's hardly any music out there - with the possible exception of polka - that hasn't made its way into the grooves of the 11-piece funk powerhouse from the East Bay. Drawing on soul, hiphop, and funk, the Mo'fessionals have been rocking clubs in a multiculti way since their inception..."
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Chris Norris
"the shiner at the BMI Showcase was the scorching hot sounds of the Mo'Fessionals, an orchestra of rap and funk and R&B and other stuff which burns. The eleven pieces which make up this super-group swoon and churn and burn through percussive, brassy, five alarm flashes of '90's brilliance.... the Mo's lay raps and harmonies over purely original funk...they raise the roof ...This group has its finger on what rap needs to do to move ahead in the '90's take it out live in style."
URB Magazine, Los Angeles
Todd Barrett
Gavin Convention Industry Showcase - Bimbo's, San Francisco "The Mo'fessionals came out of the last BMI showcase smelling like a rose. This big bang is where funk, hip-hop, and rock meet, marry and settle down.
BAM
Scott Schalin
"MO' BETTER FUNK" "Unlike many funk/punk/punk peers who seem to have learned everything they know from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Mo'fessionals combine an array of homegrown sounds - .... gospel singing, hip-hop rhythms, and jazz improvisations - into a stylish, high-energy urban dance music all their own.... Burger's upbeat aggressive raps are full of personal stories, political slogans, and an Afrocentric flavor."
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Jason Fine
"MUSICAL MASALA" "Sample Free R&B ... the Mo'fessionals add a twist to their 70's soul rhythms by giving a number of songs a hiphop flavor. The Mo'fessionals are a multi-ethnic group laying a melange of musical styles to a divers group of people. Attend a Mo'fessionals' show and you're bound to see a racial, generational and sexual mix of fans dancing to soul, funk, hiphop and even Caribbean grooves.... Many of the rhymes ... suggest a politically inspired direction."
San Francisco Weekly
Rap Lady G
"New Sensations - Registering for the New Music Seminar (in NYC) ... I show up for ...Bay Area band at Sweet Jane's...the space is ideal for the bootie-grinding grooves of the Mo'fessionals...the group's excitement at playing in New York comes through strongly for six songs. The rhythmic swells...vocal teaming...deeper and more soulful than ever...Burger flips phrases like a man possessed."
The Bay Guardian
Carter Harris
"GETTING MO' from the MO' FO's. "the line (at the Berkeley Square) was nearly a block long and people were let in only when others left. Word is definitely out on this band.... and, they lived up to their reputation as frenetic, unstoppable performers ... ability to write songs that bridge the gap between old and new and to perform them professionally without sounding trite or derivative, makes a fearsome combo. And, literally without stopping the Mo'fo's delivered an hour-and-a-half tour de force of '70's soul, '80's funk, and '90's hip-hop, often within the space of one tune! ... wicked-quick unison horn-riffing, tasty instrumental improv, close-harmony a cappella gospel, witty rhyming, tricky song structure changes and one thumping nation under a groove."
East Bay EXPRESS
Harold Olaf Cecil
"the Mo'fessionals don't simply Cuisinart white-boy funk, soul. gospel, and hiphop with jazz improvisations and Latin grooves. Their effect is more like dialing across the radio band. A fiery salsa-tinged intro might give way to the primal thunder of one of C.B.'s raps... something about the mix really works - the band has stormed to the top of the city's club circuit ...... overflowing premier nightclubs like Slim's with a loyal, even fanatical following... Label interest was buzzing even before the group's MTV exposure at the summer's New Music Seminar in NYC."
San Francisco FOCUS Magazine
Mike Behrens
"20 ESSENTIAL UNSIGNED ACTS - BAM's Talent to Keep a Tail On" "musician's who would not be denied; their names were mentioned repeatedly by sources outside of our staff ... The Mo'fessionals already proven ability to cause a stir on the club scene...already has all the pieces in place."
BAM
If you have comments or questions just email The Mo'fessionals at :mofo at straw.com (replace 'at' with @)
Return to the Mo'fessionals Home Page
Last modified on January 16, 1997
URL of this page is http://www.straw.com/mofessionals/revus.html