Double Mug by Inga McDaniel

Inga McDaniel is the Queen of Toejazz. Double bonafide. Double certified. Double Diamond jackpot. Double Double Cheese Cheese Burger Burger Please. And a Double Dewer’s on the rocks, s’il vous plait.

Muggy Saturday June ’23, we stumble upon Inga’s music down there in the haunted abyss of Spotify as we do. You know the vibe: Always be <1000maxing. Her album art catches our eye. Willy-nilly we toss on “Jamaican Sand” from an album called ‘The Business’ (which we’d very soon know as an avant-funk masterpiece). And away we go! Sucked right in to its highball glass of digital tinkling ice. Dubby footwork recalling Sun Araw or Actress. Digital tinkling cubes finding some impossible rhythm you’d maybe call imprecise — if not for that a millisecond shift in either direction would send the thing all afuck. Then it all just stops on a dime. We’re all footwork warriors frozen in time. 3 seconds of utter silence. Bout to check our phones for a glitch in the matrix when its second section slaps us upside the head. A malfunctioning New Jack Swing carnival ride — nuts and bolts whizzing by like shrapnel while a one-eyed carny dwarf [Tom Waits voice] hurries to extinguish the flames. But instead of terrified you’re totally delighted — maybe even a little aroused!

At once, we knew it was our mission to locate this Inga McDaniel. And after some LinkedIn sleuthing and Facebooking and emailing, we made contact. Area code 317. Holy smokes, she’s local. Quick text exchange and 24 hours later we’re seated with Our Queen of Toejazz at the Pawn Shop Pub. A Long John Silvers-turned-pawn shop-turned-locals only bar. Over Millers High Life and tenderloin sandwiches, we explained to her about Toejazz. She laughed her ass off and kindly accepted her coronation. That’s right — we found a proper legend in the bottomless pit of DSPs and she lives just 10 mins from our front door. The Queen of Toejazz is also Our Neighbor.

Inga McDaniel is a 63-year-old grandma living on the northeast side of Indianapolis. Named by her auntie whose role was to dole out names to the newborns in the family, Inga’s been making her odd brand of funk and house music for over 40 years. She was an organizer of Naptown’s Black Expo in the early 80s and once toured across Europe playing in a gospel group. Now, she’s a private accountant and likes to hit the penny slots at the local casino every now and again. All along, she’s been making eccentric bedroom house and sensual, perplexing Toejazz, diligently loading it all up to CDBaby.

On our new comp DOUBLE MUG, we’ve culled forth a small army of Inga gems. Her music is ULYSSA manifest. 16-bit, Tutu jazz made with utter abandon. Gnarsty, stankface lowdown synthwork. Rapturous bass recorded in 3D. Fancy chords choked out by a holographic Kool-Aid Man. Digital sax all horny like it oughta be. Quiet Storm live from Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Bottle service bops. Industrikal cokebrick dancefloor giddyup. Visions of Olympic dressage in which all the horsies wear cherry red stilettos. Avant-dub, Direct-to-MIDIO polyrhythms. 10 lbs of True American Wildass Excellence in a 9 lbs bag.

Somewhere along the way, we also fell in love with the cartoonish and finely crafted ceramics of Indianapolis artist Dee Schaad. We visited his studio early in the summer and proposed he make a caricature mug of our new friend Inga. “We want it took look like she just hit 777 at the casino.” And cotdayum if Dee didn’t get it just right. Yes, it's her mug on a mug — Double Mug. But it's also a big balls reference to the Mozart of footwork DJ Rashad. That’s how much we believe in our dear neighbor and friend. And so now we present to you, our lowly and beloved brainrot technoserfs and serfettes: Inga McDaniel, The Queen of Toejazz.

CERTAIN
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