Funky Sole pulls plug at the Echo
Popular soul bash exits Live Nation-owned spot and looks for a new place to party.
One of Los Angeles’ most celebrated dance nights cut the music in Echo Park late Saturday after 14 years of funk, soul and sweat.
Organizers of the Echo’s monthly all-vinyl ’60s soul bash announced last week that Saturday’s installment of Funky Sole would be its last at the club.
“We will be moving to a new location to be announced soon,” the event’s Instagram page said.
The news was a surprise, considering the event’s track record as a staple in L.A. night life, drawing sellout crowds for years before COVID-19 hit.
Funky Sole was paused during the pandemic, but the club night made a shortlived comeback at the Echo in July, with its resident DJ Miles Tackett — the founder of the event known as Music Man Miles — and current fellow resident Hector Waluyo, plus DJs Adam Hayden, Mixmaster Wolf and Octavio Comacho holding it down on the club’s patio.
According to Tackett, the main reason for the club night’s exit from the Echo was a disagreement over contract terms with Live Nation, which acquired Los Angeles-based concert promoter Spaceland Presents
and its local music venues, including the Echo, the Echoplex and the Regent, in 2019.
“It’s a multitude of factors, some that are beyond Live Nation or the Echo’s control, but it was just getting really weird, and it was definitely affecting our turnout,” Tackett said.
Tackett said changes at the Echo since Live Nation’s takeover made it harder for organizers to continue doing the night for which they’d grown famous.
Aside from the standard mask requirements, the changes included mandating the use of clear plastic bags for belongings instead of purses and putting tables on the dance floor to comply with COVID-19 restaurant and bar guidelines.
Tackett said a surge in drink prices and rental charges to book the Echo — more than $3,000 per night for the 350-person capacity club — made the situation untenable for the event to continue there. Representatives for Live Nation did not respond to requests for comment.
Funky Sole had been a staple in the L.A. club scene for 21 years at various venues, including the Echo — its longest-lasting home — and its revival of rare, raw funk records made it a hot spot for locals as well as such Hollywood celebrities as Billy Zane, Susan Sarandon, Ellie Kemper and the late Willie Garson, who frequently came to get down while flying comfortably under the radar in a sea of dancing funk fans, promotions and marketing coordinator Nancy Arteaga said.
Even James Brown’s grandson, Jason Brown Lewis, a.k.a. DJ Grand Soul Son, was a regular.
Arteaga, who has been with the club night for 11 years, says one thing most in the crowd have in common is a love of cutting loose.
“Everybody’s just so happy to go to Funky Sole, because everybody knows they’re going to have a good time and they’re going to listen to good music,” Arteaga says.
“It’s my favorite to see so many failed Shazams, when people try to figure out the songs being played, because the DJs are spinning so many deep cuts that [the app] can’t gauge it.”
As a resident DJ at Funky Sole for four years, Waluyo — who took over for previous resident DJ Clifton Weaver — credits the club night with spurring his love of collecting records.
Waluyo was drawn in by the crowds, legendary DJs and hypnotizing grooves of hundreds of funk pioneers and Brown sound-alikes. He said that the scene and the culture fostered by the club are essential to L.A. and that they even led him to open his own record store, Twelves, in Long Beach.
“I probably started going 10 years ago and poked my head in,” he said. “At the time, I didn’t know that the DJ scene can also include ’60s funk and soul and just people playing records. It was completely new to me. Funky Soul just really exposed me to a lot of music.”
Dennis Owens, guest DJ for Saturday’s event and creator of the Good Foot, a legendary Long Beach dance club that helped inspire Funky Sole, said the club night thrived regardless of the popularity of funk in mainstream music.
“Funky Sole has kind of been the flag bearer for raw funk music,” Owens said. “In a day and age where that kind of music has kind of gone in and out of vogue, somehow, Funky Sole has stayed extremely popular regardless of what the trends are. That’s a testament to the fact that they play great music, and people always respond to that.”
Meanwhile, the search is on for a new home for Funky Sole, Tackett says. Until then, one-off events are planned at clubs around L.A., including a pop-up during at downtown bar El Cid on Oct. 29.
“I’ve told myself since the beginning of Funky Sole that this party has to happen, one way or another,” Tackett said. “It’s a place for us to show this music, and it’s a place for people in L.A. to get this music. People need to have it.”