Kool & The Gang – ‘Celebration’

Kool & The Gang are of extreme symbolic importance to me and they probably should be to you. Not only did the band write one of the best blaxploitation anthems (with the exception of the ‘Theme from Shaft’) ever in the shape of ‘Jungle Boogie’, but it’s one of the songs that I had the pleasure of jamming out to as a drummer in my highschool band and brings back wonderful memories every time I hear it on oldies radio. The veteran seven-to-ten-piece band, whose hit gained a wider audience thanks to Quentin Tarantino’s not-so-subtle use of it in Pulp Fiction also wrote another monster that puts them up there with Earth Wind & Fire as one of the greatest Afro-American retro acts, like, ever. That killer tune was ‘Celebration’, which is of continued symbolic significance to anybody who is Jewish because you are guaranteed to hear it played at any barmitzvah you attend in your lifetime, regardless of country or religiosity, including your own. Symbolically, then, it was extremely significant to see Kool & The Gang perform at Playground Weekender on Saturday night, not only for the reliving of my becoming a man or learning how to play funk drums but because god damn it those dudes can still rock a party better than Phoenix covering Daft Punk covering Jesus.

In the aftermath of the band’s highly entertaining and hilariously sexual set, a friend and I discussed the decline of various adjectives our parents used before ‘cool’ was invented and ‘gay’ suddenly became a catch-all for everything that sucks. Facing extinction were ‘daggy’ and ‘trendy’, as well as ‘hip’ and ‘funky’. By all accounts, Kool & the Gang are one of the daggiest musical outfit on the planet. They wear matching white suits. They have four lead singers, who dance and gyrate in time to well-syncopated horn stabs and multiple drum hits. Most vitally; they don’t actually hate anything. It’s been a good forty years since it was permissible to make music that simply took stock of the good things in life and made melodies to accompany it. Kool & The Gang are relics of that ancient era, which makes them all the more fascinating as a continuing live force but also as emblematic of an entirely different way of how we think about partying. I can say honestly that I hated ‘Celebration’, partially because it took me back to being an awkward teenager and partially for it’s inherent joyousness, all the way through my formative years, but even so, I always knew it was a great song. Seeing a bunch of fifty-year old cats blasting through it with more energy and love than any of the other artists on the bill changed my view of a track that has been largely ruined by MIDI-driven function bands the diaspora over, and let me tell you, dancing like an utter fuckwit has never been quite so thrilling.

For those of you who are either very boring gentiles or were unfortunate enough born in the age of the Ipod, here’s a quick rundown of ‘Celebration’. It has one of the most instantly recognisible bass/organ riffs in the history of modern pop. It’s disco, funk, soul and various other genres Crystal Castles don’t know how to do rolled into one. There’s a whole lot of ‘woo-hoo’ backing vocals, tight-ass drums and a guitar that skanks so close to the bone that it may hurt someone. Also, the bridge lyrics are so inclusive that even the KKK and Hezbollah can get into it:

‘It’s time to come together/It’s up to you, what’s your pleasure?/Everyone around the world/Come on!’

So yeah, it’s pretty daggy. I may have set OAD’s ‘trending’ level back to zero, but no regrets there. This is a fantastic tune that’s survived longer than vinyl, CDs and seven of my family’s Apple products. There is a very good reason for that. ‘Celebration’, particularly it’s recent live incarnation reminds me once again why it would have been more fun to be born in the sixties; flares and ‘Peace, man!’ and smiles and laughter and civil rights and wonky, white Jewish people learning how to dance from talented, artistic black people.

So lighten up, man.

Kool & The Gang – ‘Celebration’

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