The Funky Chef & Nogood Nick!

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The November Funky Kingston affair was the most fabulous one yet! Funky Kingston is held on the fifth Saturday of the month—when there is one—at the Salt Box in downtown Kingston, NY and hosted by Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus. He encourages his guest DJs to play funk, soul, reggae, ska, boogaloo and assorted rhythmic beats as the Bat Signal is displayed on the ceiling. This particular Funky Kingston featured two incredible guest DJs that most definitely delivered the goods: Jeff the Chef and Nogood Nick.

Nogood Nick and Jeff the Chef swing at the Funky Kingston!

Jeff the Chef is a legend. He was one of the movers and shakers behind the Empire State Soul Club—the grandpappy of sixties soul music DJ nights in New York City during the late eighties and through the nineties and even a bit into the new millennium. The others involved with the ESSC were the late, great Warren Lee, Brother Weems (who is now the official MC of the Keystone State Soul Weekender) and Connie T Empress—who continues her fantastic DJ activities in New York City. This was a coming out party of sorts. Jeff the Chef hasn’t spun his great records for anybody in about eight years, and before that, probably five years. The Funky Kingston hosts were proud of themselves for being able to coax this fellow out of DJ retirement! What a spectacular job he did, too, playing all sorts of extremely funky tracks for the Funky Kingston faithful. Among those in attendance were his ESSC co-hostess Connie T Empress—the Empress of Soul. Glad to see her smiling face in the Box!

Although happy to be out and about and spinning his records again—Jeff the Chef succumbed to geezerdom and insisted on going home early. He was gone before midnight when the original version of our theme song is played. That’s okay, though, because warming up in the bull pen was Nogood Nick.

Nogood Nick has been one of our favorite DJs for a long, long time. He was a regular guest DJ at the Subway Soul Club (in fact, he guested at the last one a month ago) and nearly every DJ night that was hosted by Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus, including The Dynagroove, The Wham-O-Watusi and other assorted events. Nick hosted his own Rip! Rig! Panic! mod jazz night and recently has a show that runs occasionally on the WFMU Give the Drummer Radio web stream called Electric Lazy Susan. He knows his stuff, that’s for sure, and he played some wonderfully funky records for the crowd at the Funky Kingston.

The entire night went very well: Miss Nancy made some yummy snacks, dancing people didn’t knock over turntables, the sound system never cut out and some glasses were smashed! All-in-all, a very successful event.

Here’s a list of all the records played by Phast Phreddie the Boogaloo Omnibus at the Funky Kingston, including a series of ‘hot pants’ and ‘thing’ records:

None of these records are for sale.

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