Portland, Oregon-based funksters Porterhouse had been selling their debut album, Thumbs Up, Little Buddy, off the side of the stage at their shows for over a year before it was picked up by Luaun Records last year. The extended reach offered by a label resulted in the album landing in my review stack, from which it promptly jumped onto my Top Five of 2001 list. When the band, which had morphed from the Porterhouse Quintet to a quartet called Porterhouse in the meantime, was booked into Seattle's Rainbow Bar & Grill, the date was moved to the top of my "must see" list. With fellow Cosmikite Eric Steiner in tow, I showed up at the Rainbow and had a chance to sit down with keyboardist/composer Joey Porter and saxophonist Josh Cliburne, the mainstays of the band through a series of lineup changes that have featured such notable inclusions as former Leftover Salmon bassist Tye North, and the cream of Pacific Northwest rhythm players. For the Rainbow show, the lineup included Joey, Josh, bassist Dan Scollard and drummer Michah Kassell.

Before a show that featured a fine opening set by Seattle's own Mother's Milk and a Porterhouse show that more than fulfilled the high expectations I brought with me, we had a wide ranging conversation about the band's music, influences and future. I'd be remiss if I didn't say up front that Joey and Josh are two of the most open and personable musicians I've had the pleasure of meeting as an interviewer, or in any other setting, for that matter. I'd be even more remiss if I didn't tell you that Thumbs Up, Little Buddy is an album you simply must own.

Here's some of the best of what they had to say....

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Cosmik: There are a lot of bands that will use some slap bass, or throw in 4 bars of a JB's sample, and make their music "funky," but it doesn't make them a funk band. What's the line, the thing that makes Porterhouse a funk band instead of a band that does funky material?

Joey Porter: Well, they misuse the word funk. If there's any hippie element in the music, it's not funky. It seems like all the hippie bands say, you know, "we're funk."

Josh Cliburne: It's thrown around a little bit too much. Like the word "genius."

Joey: A lot of rock bands are called funk bands too, but they're really rock bands, even if they put a little slap bass behind some heavy guitar. I think we fall in between so there's really nothing else to call us. We don't really rock out that much, and we don't do any hippie kind of music really.

Cosmik: Well, I'm old enough that the first music I think of as funk is from the early sixties, soul jazz stuff.

Joey: Right. Really.

Cosmik: There was a time when Jimmy Smith, Ramsey Lewis, guys like that could have AM hit singles and they were pure funk, then that faded until Herbie Hancock brought it back a little bit, and then P-Funk and bands like that turned funk into a jam vehicle, so it was no longer the 3 minute nugget of funk, but whole albums, concept albums of funk. Which I guess is how a funk band ends up on a jam band label...

Josh: Well, funk has definitely evolved a long way, just like any other genre of music, you know, classical or jazz...

Cosmik: Thumbs Up, Little Buddy is definitely in that old soul jazz vibe. It reaches back to a time before you were born.

Joey: (laughs) Literally!

Cosmik: So how do you end up playing that as opposed to the seventeen or whatever variations of funk that have evolved since?

Joey: Well, I think it's because we listen to the best funk, and we model our music after that. I was born in '72, and that's when all the stuff I like, the Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder, all that stuff, happened. So we model our music after the right funk instead of, like, Red Hot Chili Peppers, which a lot of these bands are more like.

Cosmik: That's the kind of stuff that I think of as funky but not funk...

Josh: In our music we actually try to incorporate as much funk from different periods as we can. You know the song Juicy from Thumbs Up, it's very 80's Prince slash Cameo funk group, then you go a couple tracks down and we're doing soul jazz off Blue Note break beat stuff.

Joey: We try to take a little bit out of each one. On the next record, we have even more. We have some Latin type funk....

Cosmik: You have a guitar on the next record!

Joey: Yeah, we do, but not just any guitar.

Josh: If it wasn't this guy, it wouldn't have been anybody.

Joey: This guy's named Douglas, he was in a Portland band called Pleasure. They toured around with Cameo, the Gap Band, Earth Wind and Fire. He's in his forties, and he's one of the guys who helped bring the style in. A lot of guys now are taking things from him.

Cosmik: Among your contemporaries, if someone asked me what you do, the names that would come up would be like Galactic, or Karl Denson, but they seem to be more intentionally marketed to the jam band scene.

Joey: Well, they do more of a retro style, like Robert Walters, all that stuff. They're doing stuff from the 70's, all their instruments are from the seventies. I don't know if you've heard the new Robert Walters record. It's really good, but it sounds like it's from 1970-something. We're not trying to be as retro as that. We're trying to say, here's the old stuff but with a brand new outlook on it. The reason we get associated with the jam band label, Lauan, and a lot of jam bands, is only because we improvise.

Cosmik: Sure. I don't know what jam band really means anymore. One of the other bands Randy Alexander (Porterhouse publicist) represents is The Big Wu, and they made my top five list too, but, they really fall into the Grateful Dead lineage of jam bands, and I'm an unabashed Deadhead, so I dig that stuff. On the other hand, I was raised in a house full of jazz and rhythm and blues, that was my Dad's music. So I like real funk, and when I got the album, I looked at it and said, oh boy, a white guy who went to school in Eugene, Oregon and has a funk band on a jam band label. Oh sure...

Joey: (Laughs) That's what I'd think, too!

Cosmik: But I put it on and thought, jeez, it is a funk album! How'd that happen? Because I know the jam band tag is applied to everything that's improvisational, but not all improvisational music is really jam band music.

Joey: We don't really think we're a jam band, but we don't mind being called one because it opens up a whole new demographic. You can't really fight it.

Cosmik: Are people who come expecting a jam band surprised by what they get at a show?

Josh: We get all kind of different reactions. We get everything from people absolutely loving what we do, saying yeah, love that Herbie cover you did, to people asking us to play Aretha Franklin songs....

Joey: (Laughs)

Cosmik: Then you hire Tye North playing bass, and I've been to Leftover Salmon shows, and I dig 'em, but they don't do anything like what you do....

Joey: He just did one tour with us, and now plays a show here and there. He's not with us tonight, but he'll be with us at the Leftover Salmon show later this month.

Josh: He's playing a show in Portland with us tomorrow night.

Cosmik: Well, I'm just thinking that he has his own audience based on his association with Leftover Salmon, and if people come to hear Tye, they might be pretty startled.

[Pictured: Tye North]

Joey: Well, he's never been in a band like our band before. He's only been in bluegrass based bands. So it was pretty out of character for us to even consider, but he did a good job so we thought, hey, bring him along with us. He's a real easy guy to travel with and he nails the parts.

Cosmik: Joey, you're from Nashville.

Joey: Yeah.

Cosmik:One of the forms of segregation I associate with Tennessee is that Nashville is the ultimate white music town....

Joey: It is.

Cosmik: And Memphis is the ultimate black music town.

Joey: Used to be.

Cosmik: Right, but that's my stereotype. So if you grew up in Memphis and ended up playing this music, I'd totally get it, but you grew up in Nashville and ended up playing this music, and I don't get that at all.

Joey: Well, that's the whole thing. I was rebelling against the whole whitebread music scene. When I was a kid, my mom was a dance teacher so there were dance records around and by the time I was 4 I was already into James Brown and the Gap Band and all that stuff. But I wouldn't have been into it if I hadn't been from the south. People just don't listen to soul music on the west coast that much, it seems to me. So we sound like a straight funk band because I was listening to it from a very young age. I was in another funk band, and those guys heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers first, and went backward from there. I was lucky enough to start from the beginning and move up from there.

Cosmik: I wondered whether growing up in the south made the difference....

Joey: I think so. I mean, I could have grown up in Detroit or something too.

Cosmik: Right. It can happen anywhere. I grew up in Seattle, but because of the music my Dad listened to, I grew up hearing jazz and R&B. The second live show I ever saw, in 1966, was a James Brown show and if there were 10 white guys there, I didn't see five of them. The difference, though, is that in those days the AM radio stations played everything. The same station that played the Beatles played bubblegum and "Papa's Got A Brand New Bag," and they played it all back to back. That doesn't exist anymore, so kids don't get exposed. But now you're working in the northwest, on the west coast....

Joey: The whitest part of the country!

Cosmik: Yeah. A funk band from Portland. Give me a break. How do you build an audience for that up here?

Joey: Well, we have a better audience in places other than the northwest. We do best in Colorado. That's pretty white too, but they have a really good music scene around Boulder and towns like that, because people like to go out and pay money to see live bands. They buy CDs, but they're willing to lay out the bread to go see the live thing. They don't want to just buy the CD and sit at home, they want to see you do it live. That's the difference between there and Portland, where unless you're huge people won't come out. They don't support the local scene as much.

Cosmik: Well, you told me you've had trouble building a following in Seattle, and frankly, being from Portland doesn't help much, because here, being local helps. If people are going out, and they have a choice of five bands to see, they'll pick the Seattle band. But for national acts, it's the same market. They can't afford to book just one, they have to book Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.

Josh: A lot of national acts just skip right over Portland altogether.

Joey: Herbie Hancock was suppose to play Portland and cancelled for lack of ticket sales. Twice. Once with Gil Scott Heron. But they didn't sell and he just said fuck it, we're going straight to Seattle.

Cosmik: Well, Seattle has a well established jazz scene, for a long time. We have Jazz Alley, which will book week long stands, and history. Ray Charles started here, Quincy Jones is from here, there's always been a jazz scene in Seattle.

Joey: It's nice you have that option, because we don't have a Jazz Alley in Portland, we don't have the place for the national acts.

Josh: At the same time, it's better for the local jazz scene in Portland, where the local scene in Seattle's not as good.

Cosmik: No, it's not.

Joey: I think it's only because we don't have the really cool national artists coming through, so we have to make do with the local scene.

Cosmik: Porterhouse has been through a lot of lineup changes. You two have stayed together, but everyone else has come and gone....

Joey: Yeah, we kind of do rhythm section by committee. We have guitar once in awhile, we used to have trumpet. It's hard when you're in a band that doesn't make a lot of bread. It's hard to keep everyone happy. I haven't had any problems with anybody who quit, but they've got to do their thing...

Josh: When you can do a gig for 50 bucks or you get offered a gig for 250 bucks...

Joey: Exactly. To play our music, you have to be a pretty good musician. You have to learn the parts. It's not like a I-IV-V in G or anything...

Josh: A lot of times we're asking these incredibly talented musicians to play for next to nothing, and it's really hard. They like us, and they like Joey's music, so they do it.

Cosmik: Are you still working day jobs?

Josh: I work part time....

Joey: Most of these guys do. I find odd jobs. Today I was chopping and stacking wood.

Josh: The life of a rock star! (Laughter)

Cosmik: Joey, you write all the material, and, how many keyboards are you going to use tonight?

Joey: Three.

Cosmik: Three. And you used something like eight on the album. You get a lot of colors out of your keyboards....

Joey: Well, when you don't have a guitar player, you have to play two different keyboards at once to make it sound full.

Cosmik: It makes me wonder, when you're writing, how conscious do you have to be of leaving space for the other players so it doesn't become Joey Porter, One Man Band?

Joey: What I do is write the drums and the bass first, then I look for where the spaces are and fill the spaces with keyboard parts, then I write the horn line after that. So nobody's stepping on anybody's toes, you know? It's better if one guy writes the music, because if everybody's jamming they'll step on each other.

Cosmik: But not all the parts I hear on the record are written...

Joey: Not the solos.

Cosmik: So you consciously create space for that.

Joey: Absolutely.

Josh: It's a jazz formula.

Joey: Funk music is a lot like Afro-Cuban, like salsa. Everybody's got their part. If everybody decides they all want to jam at once it's going to sound like shit. Funk music is not about "look what I can do." It's about "look how I can make you feel." So if you keep it simple, it's going to be more funky than if you try to be Mr. Fusion Guy.

Cosmik: Well, there are a lot of jazz formulas. In, like, your basic bebop group, you've got a front line of a soloist or soloists, who are blowing, and everything else is done to support that, but funk is busier, more an ensemble music...

Joey: It can be.

Josh: We try and mix that. We try to mix the ensemble playing of funk with the improvisational soloist taking charge, but it's still ensemble funk.

Joey: I think it's a pop song form. You know, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, like a regular radio song.

Cosmik: Well, that's it. Songs are real important....

Josh: Oh, songs are very important.

Cosmik: Which may be one of the places you diverge from the jam band stereotype, where songs are too often just a vehicle to get somewhere else, while for a band like Porterhouse, songs are central.

Joey: Absolutely. We're not a groove oriented band, we're a song oriented band.

Josh: Unless you're John Coltrane, you shouldn't be playing over one chord. One chord jams are for people who know what they're doing.

Joey: That's the problem with acid jazz and a lot of that stuff, is they don't have the songs. Their grooves are cool, but they can be kind of meandering.

Cosmik: Right. I think of a group like Martin, Medeski and Wood, and I respect them enormously as musicians, but I don't really get that much enjoyment from listening to them, because the song is so secondary to what they're doing.

Joey: Right, it's all about the trance. Their earlier stuff is more songs, it's the more recent stuff that's like that.

Cosmik: Yeah. But as the audience, sometimes they seem to be doing what they do mostly for themselves, and I want them to do something for me. I appreciate what they do, and that they can do it. I think it's amazing what they can do, but I don't think it's particularly entertaining.

Joey: Well maybe you'd be more self absorbed if you were as good a keyboard player as John Medeski is.

Cosmik: Right. That's true.

Josh: Of course, a lot of the direction they've taken with their music is the result of the ecstasy generation. A lot of the continuous, ever evolving jam is the direct result of ecstasy.

Joey: And the more they've changed to the more groove style, their audience has gotten bigger and bigger. There's no question of why they changed their music, it's money. Because they definitely didn't get bored playing all that crazy music. It's hard as fuck to play that. It's not like they said "This is getting boring. Let's just jam on G Minor."

Cosmik: Well, like I say, I'm in awe of what they do, but for me it's just not that entertaining. Maybe because it doesn't hit me on the physical level. A lot of my enjoyment is based on does it make me want to move my ass. That's why I loved old Memphis R&B. It made me move my ass. Which MM&W doesn't do, and Porterhouse does. At the same time, you guys have great jazz chops.

Joey: Josh does. I fake it. You notice on the record, I don't string any solos. I palm those off on the horn player.

Cosmik: You palm off a lot of parts on the new album. There's guitar, vocals, a Porterhouse I've never heard before.

Josh: It's a lot different music, for sure.

Joey: It's less fusion style, more straight funk.

Cosmik: What's that mean to you, straight funk?

Joey: There's the James Brown style, and the 80's style, Prince, Cameo, stuff like that. Anything where the main objective is to make people dance, that's funk. Pre-90's. If nobody's dancing to your funk, you're in trouble.

Cosmik: That's where I worry about the jam band crowd you draw. How are the twirlers gonna do their thing to your music? (Laughter)

Joey: They can do that thing, they just don't feel it like they're supposed to.

Josh: I've had some people tell me it's hard to dance, which I can understand with some of our songs.

Cosmik: Well, your stuff makes me move, but I can also get caught up in the solo and forget. So the groove is there, but sometimes you have to pay attention and stay in your body without getting all caught up in the head stuff. So what else will we hear on the new album?

Joey: It's a kitchen sink thing. Anything that has funk in it.

Cosmik: Move your butt is the bottom line

Joey: Exactly.

Josh: We try to find the funk in other kinds of music, too. Jazz, and Afro-Cuban music. Afro-Cuban music and funk are almost the same music, really.

Cosmik: Well, people have been talking about funky music at least since the boppers, over 50 years ago. George Clinton didn't invent the word, though some people think he did.

Josh: Right. It evolved.

Cosmik: And ultimately, well, funk means sex, doesn't it?

Joey: All music means sex.

Cosmik: Not all music. Yanni is still making records.

Joey: And John Tesh, too. But all my music does.

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Since doing this interview, I've had a chance to see Porterhouse again, opening for Leftover Salmon at Seattle's Showbox Theater. Tye North was on hand for that occasion, with the rest of the band from the Rainbow show. The change in lineup only confirmed that with songs as good as the ones Joey Porter writes and frontmen as tight as Joey and Josh play, Porterhouse is a killer live band no matter which of their exceptional roster of rhythm players they bring along. A new album, Prime Cuts, is due in the spring, and will almost certainly be the occasion of a tour that you should not miss. Meanwhile, I'll take one more chance to plug Thumbs Up, Little Buddy before thanking Josh and Joey for their cooperation, and Randy Alexander of Randex Communications for his assistance in setting up one of the best nights of conversation and music I've ever enjoyed.

(C) 2002 - Shaun Dale