A SYSTEM TO LIVE BY: MODERN ELECTRONICS GET FUNKY

A SYSTEM TO LIVE BY:

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MODERN ELECTRONICS GET FUNKY

Iman Lababedi

Mic Murphy and David Frank are best friends. They spend around 18 hours together every day developing their vision of a system. A system that affects us, mainly, because the net result is a grand slab of hard fresh funk. Yet a system which, for the main participants, is a way to work and a way of life, a freedom from the confines of rigid rock band structures via the acceptance and use of modern electronic musical instruments. A far mo're compact version of the gang group. The System is two men with dynamically different personalities, functioning like a well-oiled, well-aimed machine, directing you to dance, dally, and be delivered.

“But the system is more than that,” Michael Jackson lookalike Mic Murphy enthuses. “It connotes politics, the way in which we write our music, the way we use electronics to link things together, the way we hook up and take things further.”

Mic and Dave produced, arranged, composed, and performed their debut album, Sweat, manage themselves, have made a video for “You Are In My System”—a song Robert Palmer covered (and Dave played on) excellently on his new album, Pride,— and recently produced a band called Attitude. Very busy by anybody’s standards— and nearly ridiculous when you considered they formed the System barely a year ago.

The first side of Sweat more than lives up to its name. The title track, “You Are In My System” and “It’s Passion” thrust you onto the dancefloor with a powerhouse rhythmic combustion that doesn’t let up. In many ways it’s the continuation of the black funked Stone/Clinton/Brown axis they view it as; in some ways it’s akin to modern popster Prince, or even the sounds-like-the-unrealthing-but-isn’t of ABC. It is definably the modem R&B pop, with Mic comparing what he hopes the ’80s will bring (“urban contemporary” he cracks) with the golden ’60s, and Dave casually noting that they wrote “It’s Passion” around a sequence on his drum machine.

So how did the System get so smart? Both Mic and Dave are bubbling over, ready, willing and able to face the press. “We love interviews. After spending all our lives jeading other people’s opinions, it’s nice to have our own say.” David looks like your usual unusual music person; all leather jacket and denims in dirty blonde crewcut. Mic might not be as dapper as Martin Fry, but his white suit and Hawaiian shirt amplifies his expressed love of image. It’s Mic who’s interested in video so much, it’s Mic who got the contract with Mirage; it’s Dave who spends each concert programming machines.

Their pasts shed some light on the differences. Dave played classical music when a child and went to the Brooklyn College of Music; Mic was brought up in Jamaica, Queens (five minutes from where I live), and it was Eddie Hazel—guitarist with Funkadelic—who brought him into the rock ’n’ roll world. “The first time I really wanted to get into music,” says Mic, “was when I saw how many girls they got.” Mic was going to Queens College and deciding whether he should follow his natural ability to learn over to Harvard: Dave was starving in New York, taking any musical jobs he could find.

Mic had been handling the road manager/all-round manager for Kleer when he went down to JP’s with an Atlantic Records scout and saw Dave playing keyboards with a band. “Forget the lead singer,” he said, pointing at Dave, “now he is good.” Kleer was looking for a replacement and Dave joined them. The pair became friends and were offered some studio time. They wrote “It’s Passion” one day, recorded it the next, and signed with Mirage the following. “That was the most amazing thing that has happened in my life,” admits Mr. Frank.

And the System aren’t only black and white opposites (“we never realized the biracial thing ’til the first interview we did when it was pointed out to us”). Although Mic will sing a verse of Led Zeppelin’s “Black Dog,” his heart seems to lie with stuff like the Temptations “Psychedelic Shack.” “I like anything that’s HARD—you know!” he admits, mirroring his partners outspoken preference of Bootsy Collins to Motown. Maybe more important, they are both doers. “I’m not into astrological signs, but Dave’s a Scorpio and I’m a Capricorn, and we’re both like that. Always. As we came to know each other more, we found that in all our past bands we’ve both been the ones that got the gigs, got the rehearsal space—‘let’s do this, let’s do that.’ We’ve both done that so together, we fill out the void that might have existed. Where in another situation I’d have needed four people, Dave does it by himself.”

“It’s like a relay race,” Dave continues, typically finishing a thought. “I run this far, I give him the gauntlet, he goes that far, I come round the corner and pick it up. If I feel lazy one day, he’ll be in the mood to TURN TO PAGE 59 work. It’s very interesting, it is a system.”

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And all this energy and love is channeled into a distinctive, sensual, moving sound, which if not the best that modern pop can offer (“we’re still virgin vinyl”), can engulf you in a delicious escapade. I recently watched a street comedian comparing black music to white. He thought black music is better. “Whites can do many things,” he cynically noted, “But they can’t make music worth shit.” His point: “Pretend you’re trying to make out with a girl and on your stereo is ‘Penny Lane.’ You think she’s gonna put out for that? But if it’s Barry White singing ‘uhh huh uhh huh, little girl,’ down go the panties. ”

Obviously that is not quite true (I’ve tried), but it points to a truth in rock ’n’ roll: blacks innovate, whites copy and transform. Which might well be a truism but is probably closer to a reason for the magic of the System.

Mic speaking: “I don’t think we’re trying to impose any kind of mentality, we’re just trying to impose our musical inflictions on them. We have, through living in the city and listening to the music, been affected. There’s a lot of energy, a lot of tenseness, and I think that comes out. We’re able to really be ourselves, and we want to draw people to that. At the moment we’re not that political in our music, though there may become a time when we’ll become very political. It’s good to open people’s heads.”

A very ’60s comment—and if the ’70s were one long ’60s hangover, we are well into the ’80s now. And if there is the transmogrification of pop into the unifying ideals we were once suckered by, perhaps we’ll know enough to use it now. Then, perhaps, a person could use the term “rock ’n’ roll” with pride. And perhaps the System will be at the helm of Camelot.