LIVE: TURKUAZ – December 27, 2017

Venue: El Club

City: Detroit, MI

Date: January 9, 2018

Review and Photographs by: Kevin Alfredo

This past Tuesday night, the music scene of Detroit came alive with the high-energy funk of Turkuaz, a nine-piece band out of Brooklyn, NY.  El Club, a relatively newer venue in Southwest Detroit, provided an intimate setting to see this band’s first visit to Detroit since they started touring in 2012.  Turkuaz has been gradually gaining notoriety across their seven years of touring, and, as of late, has donned the lineup of highly popular music festivals such as Lockn’ in 2016 and Bonnaroo in 2017.  In May of 2014, I was unexpectedly introduced to them in “The Den”, a tiny side venue of the Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans’ warehouse district.  For anybody who has not had the pleasure of visiting the Howlin’ Wolf, “The Den” can’t be more than a 30ft x 100ft room which you pass when moving from the larger music venue to the side bar / dining area.  As I passed the doorway to “The Den”, I heard this larger than life funk jam coming down and was instantly sucked in.

Fast forward to this week at El Club, and Turkuaz is still providing their fans with a funk sound that is so layered, that it’s difficult to simultaneously enjoy the talents of each of the nine individuals in the band.  At any one point in the night, the simultaneous live feed from each band member was at a maximum state, sometimes bordering on a euphoric mind-blowing sensory overload.  If you’ve never seen Turkuaz, the breakdown is a solid three-piece horn section, killer dual female vocals, mated with an anything but traditional rock band layout of drums, bass, lead guitar/synth, and lead vocals / guitar.  Stocked with an arsenal of originals, including their latest LP, Digitonium, they came ready to showcase to a highly anticipatory Detroit crowd.  For those looking for a taste of what influences this band, included in the set was a Sly and The Family Stone cover, “Babies Makin’ Babies”, which featured Josh Schwartz providing and amazing range of vocals which riled up the crowd and set the stage for the remainder of the show which never really let up.  Ending the set with “Monkey Fingers” off their self-titled debut and encoring with “Bubba Slide”, arguably their most popular single, the crowd did not leave disappointed. If you have not seen Turkuaz, they’re sure to hit your neck of the woods on their current extensive winter tour (http://www.turkuazband.com/tour/) which ends with two shows with Galactic at the end of March.

TURKUAZ LINKS:

OFFICIAL SITE

FACEBOOK

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Category: Live Reviews, Photo Galleries