I hear the Ice Cream man coming...

"Forever" & "Money in the Meter" by Bing Ji Ling -- Bing Ji Ling brings the soulful white-boy funk - reminds me a bit, vocally at least, of Beck or Hall & Oates with a better funk backing band. Hailing from San Fran, Bing Ji, (that's the guys name, but it also translates to "Ice Cream" in mandarin - ed: his real name is Quinn something!) is the man behind it all, on his first album anyway, and played most of the instruments, with the production power of Merkley??? at the helm. "Money in the Meter" is from the first album, and "Forever" is from the upcoming album (that's coming out soooooon). Both tracks come highly reccomended ("Forever" is my favorite though) - I wish I'd heard about these guys earlier this summer, because its perfect for those drowsy summer afternoons, and, I'm guessing here, hot summer nights if you know what I mean (woot!). When 'the band' plays live, Bing Ji is backed by drummer Adrian Young and guitarist Tom Dumont from No Doubt, and former pro-skater turned multi-instrumentalist/production guru Tommy Guerrerro on bass. It turns out they recently played at the Independent in San Fran with ?uestlove, and were at the Knitting Factory in NYC - these guys have some high-power friends, having also appeared on songs by Romanowski and DJ Greyboy, and he did a cover of "You Shook Me All Night Long" on a Ubiquity comp (a pretty good stable of artists represented there, right?). Currently working on independent distribution for their second album, which they finished recording almost a year ago, their first album Doodle Loot Doodle a Doo (which was very favorably reviewed up and down on this here internet thing) is available to buy from their site (click the buy tab). Also, check out the songs on Merkley???'s site, which are damn cool breaks-y funky tunes, and check out his photo gallery for tons of the Bing Ji crew, including Gwen Stefani (yowza)...