A question about the funk...

As for new funk I haven't the slightest idea, to answer your question about the Mighty Boosh its a BBC tv series and one episode happens to be about a mythical creature known only as the funk.

Aside from EW&F what do you like? Do you like Tower of Power, for example? I tend to stick with 60s and 70s and trend more motown but I will ask my more musically diverse friends about any modern funk.

If you kind find them online (they're kind of regional) The Almighty Senators and Deep Banana Blackout are pretty funky. Of course, I'm always down for some James Brown or P-Funk.

There are a few bands out there keeping the funk name alive like 'The Bamboos' and 'Galactic'.

Althpugh not purely funk, there's Sharon Jones and the dap-kings, also on the same label there's a band called 'The Budos Band' who's sound could be described as Afro-Funk.

For some classic Jazz-funk you can't do any better than the Pulp Fusion, a compilation series of seventies funk songs, mostly instrumentals.

There's such an overwhelming amount of Funk rarities comps and reissues and most of them are good enough that I don't feel much of a need for contemporary Funk bands, much as I don't listen to straight contemporary Rockabilly. That being said, both these comps and interesting new artists are covered in "WaxPoetics":

http://www.waxpoetics.com/

Pick up an issue if you can, also has plenty of great stuff on Jazz and Hip-Hop.

You could try some Michael Franti and Spearhead.

Sons of the P by Digital Underground

And I swear that I read an article somewhere that said that the new funk torchbearers were Outkast.

Please check out THE HEAVY. I would especially recommend The House That Dirt Built.

You might also dig Atlanta's own Ruby Velle & The Soulphonics. They are great.

It's true that there are so many compilations of old stuff floating about, that you don't really need to find new bands to get your funk fix. Good labels to start your quest are BBE, Soul Jazz (who have the best anthologies around in whatever category) and Strut.

But there's still a thriving underground funk scene, you just have to know where to look. Here's some recommendations:
-The New Mastersounds: old school boogaloo style (think JB's, Booker T & MGs). Also have a great label named One Note Records.
-The Dap Kings: you know the sound on Amy Winehouse's B2B album? These were the guys largely responsible. They're now touring with a fantastic black vocalist named Sharon Jones, while Winehouse squanders her talent on god knows what.
-Galactic: best New Orleans style funk band I know. I think they had a guest performance on Treme recently.
-Dâm Funk: Essential listening! Great instrumental funk, somewhere between Zzapp!, eighties electrofunk and nineties G-Funk. He had a debut album out just last year.
-Clutchy Hopkins: Another westcoast essential... nobody knows who's behind it, theories range from Beastie Boys to DJ Shadow to Madlib. Very deep psychedelic funk with weird instrumentation (flamenco guitars, peruvian flutes). Also very hiphop inspired- in fact it sounds like Wu Tang productions played on real instruments.
In the same vein: Misled Children, and Lord Newborn (=Money Mark with skater/guitarist Tommy Guerrero)
-Weapon Of Choice: P-Funk is largely dead nowadays, this is the only recent example worth a listen that I can name (and even they are inactive since a couple of years).

And some album recommendations (not spanking new but not 'vintage'):
-Red Hot Chili Peppers suck nowadays, but Blood Sugar Sex Magik is the best white funk album ever made.
-Voodoo by d'Angelo: about the closest thing to Sly Stone's 'There's a Riot Goin' On' we have in this century.
-Return of the Space Cowboy by Jamiroquai: also a matter of 'sucks now, used to be cool'. This one still had Stuart Zender on bass (before he had a fallout with Jay Kay) and it shows- insanely funky bass on this.

Oh and really... I'm the world's biggest Parliament-Funkadelic fan but even I can't think up a reason for anyone to go check P-Funk Allstars nowadays. Clinton's voice has become atrocious, and the live show has become the Vegas jukebox version of what was once the most subversive act on the planet. Steer clear!