(Matt Rowland wrote and posted this piece on Now-Again’s old website three years ago. We dug it out and updated it with an mp3 download of one of Manco’s funkiest tracks.)
LOS ANGELES, CA – JULY 12, 2006: The heroic image of Turkish psychedelic rock icon Baris Manço adorned the birthday cake of Now-Again Records CEO, Eothen “Egon” Alapatt, last Wednesday during an impromptu celebration. Revellers gathered at Alapatt’s Glassell Park residence to commemorate his 28th year on this funky planet.
The Manço-adorned dessert provided the evening’s highlight. A treat for the eyes as well as the palate, the frosted rendition of Turkey’s beloved singer provided a tasty way for the half-dozen partygoers in attendance to enjoy a lesson in flavor from the other side of the globe.
While today’s most astute and eager young raw funk enthusiasts look to Now-Again to clear their path to the hipness of tomorrow, Egon can be found, as usual, about a hemisphere ahead of the curve. While even the most clued-in vinyl consumers out there are presently raving about the latest Now-Again funk release, Egon and Co. have already traded in their dashikis and bell-bottoms for Baris-style capes, belt buckles, and matching gauntlets. (… On second thought, we’ll still be needing those bell-bottoms, thanks.)
Anyway, it’s Bosphorus Fever around the Now-Again office, and it’s entirely due to the monumental influence of Mr. Manço – the Funky President of the Ottoman Empire. Manço’s unparalleled decades-long career in outlandish music bridged generations, as well as continents, by incorporating traditional Turkish instrumentation and harmonies into the ’70s Rock format so popular in the West. Intertwining the sinuous melodies of his electric zither with the fuzz-toned fury of psych, Manço resoundingly affirmed that “that hot shit” knows no geographical boundaries.
While such audio alchemy blew minds on an intercontinental scale, Manço’s highly sophisticated graphic design sense imparted his musical message with an appealing and potent visual dimension. When he passed in 1999, this mustachioed maestro left civilization a complex musical legacy, enriched all the more by a truly awe-inspiring run of some of the flyest album covers known to man. Manço’s graphic presentation – not to mention his taste in clothes – sustained an impeccable degree of quality and relevance over a span of time which is perhaps unrivalled in popular music history.
It is for these and many other less tangible reasons that Baris Manço has come to represent the human standard of artistic completeness to which we at Now-Again Records humbly aspire. As future generations continue to bear witness to the far-reaching achievements of this aesthete par excellence, may their creative spirits be fertilized by his most dynamic, transcultural seed.