Chocolate – Boss Hog

I used to use this song back when I was a DJ in clubs. The Der, Der Ner Ner, riff was great for stopping and starting things in a new direction. Sometimes a DJ needs a segue song to get from down dirty rock to something more dance oriented or to twist from gutter punk to power pop.

It’s a song that most folk in a club (if you’re in the right kind of club) will dance to even though they don’t know it at all. That louche groove and the funk breaks sound primal. The flutey whistle keeping everything  retro and light.  The female/male ‘My Baby’ delivered at the top of every line an instant ear worm. The fact that they then sing a different line each makes a fascinating mish mash.

“My Baby, she’s alright”

‘My Baby, he’s the man’

Those spoken parts between the breaks get people slut dropping, twerking, grinding and doing the fish stick with remarkable aplomb.

“I’m a lonely man”

‘God damn you can’

“Sophisticated sister down in New Orleans”

Boss Hog are a side project band of Jon Spencer. When he’s not Exploding the Blues he has a hand in this neat line of Cramps inspired slightly 60’s slightly modernist white trash funk.

The cool girl voice in Boss Hog is Jon’s good lady wife Christina. That’s her on the sleeves of most of their records too. The parent album for Chocolate is the millennium year release Whiteout. They’ve got another 3 albums prior to Whiteout but after the year 2000 they just seemed to stop.

Who knows when they’ll get back to

‘a kissin’ and a huggin’ and a mother fuckin”