Song of the Day 8/16: Phish, “Moma Dance”

WXPN in Philadelphia has been doing its Funky Friday for more than 30 years now, long enough that I automatically associate Fridays with soul and funk. One band I never hear on the show is Phish, despite their late-’90s foray into what Trey Anastasio labeled “cow funk.”

Phish can, and has, covered just about every kind of music (the less said about their dalliance with JayZ the better), but they embraced the funk with gusto in 1997, a favorite period for many fans. Granted, Anastasio himself says that what the band plays is more groove-based than funky, because “four white guys from Vermont” can’t credibly play funk.

I don’t know about that – six average white guys from Dundee, Scotland, made a pretty good career of it – but he’s got a point about his own band; they play too close to the beat for proper funk. But whatever you call them, their cow funk songs still make people want to dance. Okay, white people, but still.