Martin's funk thread

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So on Friday I got home from work to a package inside the front door, of CDRs filled with albums in MP3 form - just over 500 albums in total. I'd like to credit the person who sent me this fantastic gift, but since that might risk him being inundated with "Um, any chance...?" emails I'll wait for him to own up, or until he gives me permission. It's maybe a quarter jazz, the rest funk (I realise that narrows down the possible senders).

The process of spreading them out, avoiding cherrypicking so that I end up with stacks of stuff by people I'm not sure about, or leaving all the jazz to last, is interesting to me, but mostly I want to talk here about the actual music. I'm not promising a review of every album (I may start a parallel jazz thread, not sure), and they'll vary a lot in size, but I thought it might be worth scribbling things here about what I play.

General notes: funk evolved largely from James Brown moving more and more towards rhythm and away from melody - this is the key movement from soul to funk. It's been blessed with a lot of extraordinarily skilled musicians, and while this has permitted breathtaking tightness and precision, it has also allowed a freedom to get very loose, almost sloppy. Another major influence came from Sly Stone's having feet in the soul camp and in West Coast psychedlic rock - that strand is particularly well represented in these albums, especially by 100 or so that are part of George Clinton's P-Funk extended family. Note also that the '70s was a period when the rock album became a major critical paradigm, where profundity (or the illusion of same), difficulty, intelligence, technique (especially overt displays of same) were all highly lauded, and fun, partying and calls to the heart and feet often weren't - this made this strand of funk a very big one. We also have elements of '60s southern soul (that still set the vocal paradigm for funk even as rock had a huge effect on the instrumental thinking); Motown/Northern Soul and the sweet soul of the '70s (the line between this and funk is sometimes hard to draw); and it was these last and funk that led to disco, and many acts from both went into this more commercially successful but less critically admired genre; and although I've said these DVDRs were three funk albums to one jazz album, the two aren't so separate, in that jazz-funk was a big area. Again, we have the critical approval (up to a point) and the respect for musical technique, and this was a major strand in soundtracks especially, alongside the now-funky soul veterans like Curtis and Isaac.

Anyway, I'll start a new post for each album I want to say something about. Besides the ones I have already listened to at home, I have burnt a CDR for walkman listening during the week: albums by Albert King, the Barkays, Betty Davis, Charles Mingus, Funkadelic, Graham Central Station, Grant Green, Jimmy McGriff, Maze, Sly & the Family Stone, Zapp.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Note: the title isn't meant to exclude others talking about any of this stuff, of course.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:47 (eighteen years ago) link

Mandrill - Mandrill
Their debut. A largeish funk band. It starts well, but does ramble off down some experimental blind alleys here and there. My heart sunk a little when I saw the title 'Peace and Love Movement I (Birth)' - and four more movements after it. Too much fannydangle, as a friend of mine would put it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:47 (eighteen years ago) link

Trey Lewd - Drop The Line
Great name - sex and, by rhyming association, drugs. This is post-PFunk stuff, with the occasional hint of an awareness of hiphop (it's from 1992). It's mostly solid enough and perfectly fine to listen to, but I can't remember too much more about it already.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Bootsy Collins - Live In Oklahoma 1976
This would be just after he spun the Rubber Band off from the main PFunk outfits, and the fact that Stretchin' Out is the last number played probably ties it to the time when that was a hit. It's great: that odd mix of sloppiness and tightness (remember Bootsy was James Brown's bassist for a couple of years - he could do tight with the best of them), and fun throughout.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Isley Brothers - Givin' It Back
The sense of going for intellectual appreciation more than party fun is obvious from the album cover: the three of them sit there looking serious in black and white, each with an acoustic guitar. This 1971 album is between their occasionally wondrous Motown days and their shiny-jumpsuit fuzz-guitar disco glories. Fortunately it isn't a folky album, but kind of a sweet soul workout with a singer-songwriter flavour, and they are as ever a joy to listen to. The songs sometimes deliver a clear political message, despite being all covers, except when they are simply covering Stills and Dylan (Lay Lady Lay) and James Taylor - the highspot is the opening bootleg soundclash of Neil Young and Hendrix. A fantastic and odd album from one of my favourite bands ever.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Donald Byrd - Electric Byrd
This is jazz-funk, unless it's funky jazz, and very impressive, though its music is rather introspective and slow to get going. Three of the four tracks on the album top ten minutes. Byrd was a trumpeter, and the influence of Miles Davis is audible here even to me - Bitches Brew, most clearly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 13:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Bookmarking this thread. Thank you Martin.

― Masked Gazza, Sunday, 29 January 2006 15:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin's started a funk thread! God that makes me happy.

― Bimble brings a lawn chair to antartica so he can sit and drink silver coff (Bim, Sunday, 29 January 2006 18:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Brides of Funkenstein - Funk Or Walk
This is a 1978 George Clinton album, more or less, but the name stars are two female singers who toured with the P-Funk setup. There's also some kind of association with some of the Dramatics. Anyway, this is Clinton, and most of it sounds like Parliament at the time, but a couple don't, including one slow ballad. I don't think the singers are particularly terrific, sadly, and since showcasing them is the main distinction here, it's not that thrilling.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I was more expecting a "haven't you got a blog you can fill up with this drivel?" response, so thanks!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 19:24 (eighteen years ago) link

I have that Brides of Funkenstein album, sadly the sleeve's the most entertaining thing about it.

http://www.whizzkid1.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/bridefunkenstein.jpg

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Sunday, 29 January 2006 20:21 (eighteen years ago) link

I like that Brides album. I have it on vinyl too. The Trey Lewd is rubbish though.
I think you will prefer the other Mandrill stuff, Martin. The 2nd album is my fave.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 29 January 2006 20:25 (eighteen years ago) link

Rick James - Come Get It
Someone I know much more by reputation and image than by his music - I think I'd only heard Superfreak. Big in the US at one time, but no hits in the UK at all. There's all sorts in here, Motown and funk jams and rock and ballads and seduction and drugs and glamour. He holds it together really well, and while it's uneven, this is a terrific album. He might become a favourite - and the megastack includes half a dozen of his albums, hurrah!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:11 (eighteen years ago) link

One of the effects of all this is probably that a P-Funk album a bit below par will seem poorer than it actually is among all the prime ones; whereas something a little different - and Trey qualifies by it being a '90s record rather than a '50s one - sounds fresh and gains points for that.

Possibly still to come tonight: Headhunters, Kool & the Gang.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:16 (eighteen years ago) link

This thread is making me happy!

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:19 (eighteen years ago) link

By the time he's reviewed every album maybe the thread will rival the Dave Matthews Thread.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 29 January 2006 21:34 (eighteen years ago) link

I think that Bootsy live album is the one I've been after for years. It is if it has the version of Psychoticbumpinschool (or whatever) that's on the best-of.

― Jordan (Jordan), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:22 (eighteen years ago) link

It does indeed have that track on it, but I don't know if it is the same as the version on the best of.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Headhunters - Survival of the Fittest
This is really great - my favourite so far. The Headhunters were mostly Herbie Hancock's band, and this was their first outing without him. It's mostly instrumental, spacey jazzy funk with lots of terrific percussion. The playing is particularly great on this, with lots going on, wonderfully arranged and produced and coordinated - by Hancock. Musically it seems to combine so many of the best virtues of jazz and funk, seamlessly. Really wonderful.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Re the Trey Lewd/90s Pfunk I think my favourite of that stuff is the Michael Hampton album and the O.G. Funk album which I shall reprint what AMG says about it.

In contrast to the multiple side projects that involve Parliament-Funkadelic alumni (such as Slave Master and Hardware), O.G. Funk is actually a P-Funk project through and through. Some of P-Funk's most legendary graduates -- Bernie Worrell, Billy "Bass" Nelson, Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey, and Gary "Mudbone" Cooper, along with such collaborators as Grandmaster Melle Mel and Bill Laswell -- construct a sound that's very close to mid-period Funkadelic records such as Let's Take It to the Stage and Cosmic Slop. The music ranges from the "Maggot Brain"-like epic "Music for My Brother," an instrumental tribute to Eddie Hazel, to the thundering funk-rock of "Yeah Yeah Yeah" (which recasts the intro to Funkadelic's "Music for My Mother") to "I Wanna Know" (a reworking of "I Wanna Know If It's Good to You"). Unfortunately, such borrowing does highlight the album's one noticeable flaw -- frequently, it seems that Nelson and Brailey are simply resting on their laurels by rehashing their earlier, more successful Funkadelic songs. It is certainly true, though, that Worrell, Nelson, and Brailey have every right to reaffirm their connection to a past they had a big part in creating. (It doesn't hurt that the musicianship is top-notch.) The album also has enough original tracks, such as "Don't Take Your Love From Me" and the title track, to be worth one's while. Out of the Dark should be required listening for P-Funk fans, but even newcomers will find plenty to enjoy here.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 29 January 2006 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Trey Lewd was George's son, yeah?

― kit brash (kit brash), Sunday, 29 January 2006 23:30 (eighteen years ago) link

No idea.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Just googled it. It's his son Tracey Lewis.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:24 (eighteen years ago) link

great thread martin, keep it up.

― Hairy Asshurt (Toaster), Monday, 30 January 2006 00:48 (eighteen years ago) link

God I better take notes pretty soon here, when I'm less inebriated.

― Bimble brings a lawn chair to antartica so he can sit and drink silver coff (Bim, Monday, 30 January 2006 01:27 (eighteen years ago) link

I hope Martin does a jazz thread too.
Maybe this will inspire others to do a similar thread on other genres like krautrock/hip hop/prog rock/metal/dance music etc

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 09:47 (eighteen years ago) link

Not many people will suddenly have several hundred new albums in one genre.

Also, I'm not sure about a jazz thread, partly because I think I have even less of interest to say on that than on funk, and partly because the selection is more dominated by a few people - out of at a guess 130 jazz albums, 25 are by Grant Green, 22 (this is from work and therefore from memory so may be inaccurate) by Charles Mingus, 17 by Jimmy Smith and that's already half of it. I think Funkadelic may be the only act in the funk three-quarters to hit that high a count, and that's out of 370 or so. I may have something to say about Grant Green, but it seems unlikely I'll have new things to say about each of his albums.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 30 January 2006 13:47 (eighteen years ago) link

So Martin's Progressive And Psychedelic Rock Thread is not going to happen then ? ;)

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 13:57 (eighteen years ago) link

The Headhunters' drummer was Harvey Mason, who was pretty ubiquitous as a session jazz musician in the 70's, but rarely gets as much praise as some of the more flashier drummers of ythe era, such as Billy Cobham (not that there's anything wrong with him). Anyway, he's among my favourite drummers of all time, just listen to "Shiftless Shuffle" by Herbie or Sunburst by Eddie Henderson and you know why.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 30 January 2006 13:58 (eighteen years ago) link

What about Mike Clarke? Didn't he drum for the Headhunters?

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Monday, 30 January 2006 14:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Big in the US at one time, but no hits in the UK at all.

I cannot comprehend this (not that I would question Martin's knowledge).

just listen to "Shiftless Shuffle" by Herbie or Sunburst by Eddie Henderson and you know why.

Sunburst is one of my favorite albums of the era. Galaxy: UNGH!

"Never Buy Texas from a Cowboy" is easily the best thing the Brides of Funkenstein did. Rhino Handmade needs to reissue the album of the same name, just so it can be back in print.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Monday, 30 January 2006 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link

POST MORE MARTIN! I'm loving your writing and envy that you have all this funk to listen to!

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Monday, 30 January 2006 14:58 (eighteen years ago) link

So on Friday I got home from work to a package inside the front door, of CDRs filled with albums in MP3 form - just over 500 albums in total.

If I was you Martin, I'd check I hadn't died and gone to (funk) heaven.

http://www.rerock4ever.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/TS/PRLTSDRK304.jpg

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:08 (eighteen years ago) link

An absolutely astonishing gift, and Martin's easily one of the few folks I'd trust to do justice to the subject. :-) Rah this thread!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Have you got any Gap Band in this lot Martin? (Not that I want to pre-empt yr expositions.)

― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link

He doesn't. I told you that last night.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:27 (eighteen years ago) link

LOLZ.

I don't remember asking. Was I harping on?

― The Man in the Iron-On Mask (noodle vague), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:30 (eighteen years ago) link

You asked if i knew if he had any gap band and I said that they weren't on the dvdrs he got. He may well have the original vinyl.
Soul/Disco et al is very much his field I think.

I'm hoping Martin might review some of his own collection eventually to enlighten us all more.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:32 (eighteen years ago) link

... give the boy a chance, he's got 500 albums to review here, ov vey!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Monday, 30 January 2006 15:35 (eighteen years ago) link

What about Mike Clarke? Didn't he drum for the Headhunters?

Yeah, sorry, I got things mixed up. Harvey Mason was the drummer for the original Headhunters, but Mike Clarke replaced him, and does indeed play on Survival of the Fittest.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 30 January 2006 16:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Andy K, Rick James had five singles chart between 41 and 60, but since we have never had more than 40 highlighted on TV or radio, this counts as no hits.

My Gap Band album collection remains at zero, sadly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Dammit I accidentally deleted my 'Kool & the Gang' (their debut) review, and don't have it in me to recreate it, but: 1st track, album title and act name are all the same, which I don't think I've come across before; tragically it doesn't go "Hey hey we're Kool and the Gang"; this is funk, but the roots of the more shiny, glossy, romantic disco act are all very obvious. It's a fine album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh no!!! Please rewrite it!!!

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - Black Rock - Gotta Groove
This is actually two albums, but I didn't realise that when I grabbed it off one of the stack of DVDs, since it's in one folder (a twofer, presumably). It's kind of patchy, but you forgive a lot of a band that had most of its membership killed along with Otis Redding. There's all sorts tried here: the ground is Memphis soul, as befits Booker T & the MGs' stand-ins, but there's Sly-style psychedelia, a couple of bloody Beatles covers, soul ballads, and plenty of party music heading towards funk. Some is misjudged, but these people can really play, and when they get it right it's tremendous. There are about 10 Bar-Kays albums, and I'm looking forward to hearing the rest.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah thats a 2 albums on 1 cd job. Love it. Apart from the bloody beatles covers. Which were quite ubiquitous in soul and jazz albums in the 60s.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Yes, and almost always a terrible mistake. They were the worst tracks on a short sequence of Aretha albums, for instance.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Ha! I've learned to love or at least like the Aretha versions of "Eleanor Rigby" and "Let It Be," but I know what you mean.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:32 (eighteen years ago) link

I like The Beatles, but i don't wish to ever hear any covers.
Especially "Yesterday" which is always bloody covered. It's impossible to escape.

My parents have a Tijuana Brass Band lp of Beatles Covers that someone gave them many years back. I doubt it's ever been played.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Maybe you should give it to the JBR and that could be her "way in."

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Betty Davis - s/t
This gave me a bit of a shock - it started with funky very heavy rock, kind of Led Zeppelin in style - and when she does rawk, her voice is very much in the Robert Plant territory. Once I'd adjusted (and much of the album is more clearly funk), it's a tremendously powerful bunch of musicians, a match for her might and aggression and sexiness. This is a really terrific album, maybe a great one.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link

But the Beatles covered "A Taste of Honey"!

xpost

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 20:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Found this on another site

Independent Lens
WPBA Jan 31 11:00pm Add to My Calendar
Series/Documentary, 60 Mins.

You can record this program to your TiVo. Learn more...

"Parliament Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove" Episode #701.
George Clinton expressed the cultural alienation of young African Americans with his band Parliament Funkadelic.

Original Airdate: October 11, 2005.

I hope this appears on the web somewhere.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link

It's great and disappointing.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 21:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Baby Huey - The Baby Huey Story
He had a lively soul band, a big voice, something like James Brown in style, but there wasn't much of him (musically - physically there was lots) and it's really patchy. Some of it is routine funky soul instrumental work, some of it falls very flat - but a few covers are spectacular. A 9-minute A Change Is Gonna Come is extraordinary, with some of the loudest and most piercing screaming ever: listen with caution. There are also a couple of excellent Curtis Mayfield covers.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 22:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Walter 'Junie' Morrison - 5
A major talent who had a very important hand in some of the greatest moments of Parliament, Funkadelic, the Ohio Players and others - and yet... This is limp. It's mostly pleasant, but the first two tracks go nowhere, and it's a hell of a job to get off the ground then, even though he punches it up here and there after that. Very disappointing indeed.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link

The other junie stuff is much better. Especially "Bread Alone".
Baby Huey died before he finished the album so i think Curtis Mayfield and the band had to finish it for him hence the instrumentals.

His one album was released posthumously.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 22:53 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm fuckin jealous! I never even knew that '76 live Bootsy thing was available! bah.

Otherwise Martin's opinions so far are pretty close to my own - you'll dig the other Betty Davis albums. she sure was sumthin.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Maceo is on it.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 22:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Hit submit too soon. I meant to say Maceo is on it (Bootsy Live In Oklahoma).

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 23:00 (eighteen years ago) link

aaaargh!

*shakes fist at sky*

someone trade me a copy...?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 23:11 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't know if it's an official release or not. I downloaded it a while ago.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link

Shakey check your email.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 00:17 (eighteen years ago) link

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0001EFU4Q.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 03:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Bootsy's Rubber Band
04/07/78 Unknown, Washington, DC is a bootleg.

I have this too
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0000257CV.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 03:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - As One
This is a 1980 album, and they'd long ago moved conclusively from soul instrumentals to being a funk band. There are plenty of vocals on this too. It's very uneven: some strong and solid funk mixed with some very poor ballads, slushy and weak. I'll get to several '70s albums in due course, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is right at the end of their good period. There's a sense of exhaustion, in parts.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 23:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - live, 1981, Dayton, Ohio
A bootleg I assume, and a really fiery performance. It is in parts too heavy rock for my tastes - always a partial problem with Funkadelic - but a lot of it is great, really potent and hugely enjoyable. There are lots of live albums in the megastack, but I bet this ranks as one of the most exciting.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 23:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - s/t
It's Larry Graham of course, post Family Stone - but I don't think that excuses the dismal band name. You rarely feel confident that a slap bass solo isn't coming any moment now, but he doesn't do that too often, thankfully - and he is a hell of a bassist, so you do kind of forgive it when he does. More or less. It's a little uneven, but even on the weakest parts the playing is good, and at other times the beats are pounding and thrilling. I really liked it, and I'm hopeful that later albums may be even better.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link

and I know this is the funk thread and not a jazz one - and I will have even less of interest to say about the jazz quarter of the megastack, so don't really intend to start a jazz thread - but I must mention that I also got to my first today by: Grant Green (First Session) - groovy guitar playing, entirely likeable though I never got that excited; and Jimmy McGriff (I've Got A Woman) - really thrilling hammond organ, edging very much towards Memphis soul from the jazz roots, and absolutely spectacular.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link

That is actually my least favourite GCS. (i still like it but the others are better)

The 70s Grant Green is jazz-funk so im sure that A) you will love it B) write about it. The live albums are wonderful.

and Martin... Funkadelic will NEVER be too heavy rock for me.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 1 February 2006 23:11 (eighteen years ago) link

weird - I think the 1st GCS is probably the best, maybe cuz its the most Sly-ish...? I *love* that Freddie Stewart/"funk box" workout on the record. Kerr I'm curious which ones you like more...? Their career seemed to be about steadily diminishing returns to me. My attention's pretty much gone by "My Radio Sho Nuff Turns Me On" (tho there's at least one great track on each album).

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 February 2006 00:27 (eighteen years ago) link

"It is in parts too heavy rock for my tastes - always a partial problem with Funkadelic"

DOES NOT COMPUTE

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 February 2006 00:47 (eighteen years ago) link

Ain't No Doubt About It, Release Yourself,Now Do You Wanna Dance, My Radio Sho Nuff Turns Me On are my faves.

I forget what "Mirror" sounds like. I havent listened to GCS in a long while So I guess i'll play the cds this week. Maybe i'll like the 1st one better?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 2 February 2006 00:52 (eighteen years ago) link

"Ain't No Doubt About It - produced by GOD"

never fails to crack me up.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 February 2006 00:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Whats the GCS like after those albums? I just recently got Star Walk but I haven't played it yet. And I haven't heard the stuff they did after that either.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 2 February 2006 01:23 (eighteen years ago) link

Maze ft. Frankie Beverly - Joy and Pain
This is more smooth soul than funk, from a few years after my love of soul fades away. Beverly is a very good singer, but I find the music a bit bloodless - the whole thing sounds like they've replaced studio musicians with some machines, without using any of the advantages of that. I didn't care about any of the songs, and the funkier numbers seemed perfunktory (sorry). I can just about imagine adjusting to its style and growing to like it (it's not so far from my favourite act ever, Al Green, in some ways), but today I didn't. (Also it's quite quiet, and with these volume-capped walkmans of today and a temporary partial deafness in one ear, I may have failed to appreciate some subtleties.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 2 February 2006 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & The Family Stone - Dance to the Music
An uneven album - lots of psychedelia and funk, quite a lot of rock and soul, some pop and R&B. The title track is of course a spectacularly successful mix of all of these things, but they don't necessarily find the same kind of blend on all of the others. Even so, the quality of the playing and the sense of fun and brightness more than sustains a good level - it just doesn't hit great too often after the opener.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 2 February 2006 20:24 (eighteen years ago) link

the Dance to the Medley thing in the middle really wears out its welcome. Martini makes fun of it in the "Off the Record" Sly book (paraphrasing: "Dance to the Medley, Dance to the Shmedley - it was all a joke to Sly, just bullshit")

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 February 2006 21:02 (eighteen years ago) link

My memory of it is that Sly was hurt and disappointed by the commercial failure of "A Whole New Thing" (which is, incidentally, a WAY better album than "Dance to the Music") and that he adopted the "glorified Motown" beats on "Dance to the Music" just to get an easy, quick hit and gain some clout in the record industry to do what he wanted...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 February 2006 21:05 (eighteen years ago) link

Have you got a Whole New Thing, Martin?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Yes, and it will come along in due course here. If you are right on how he came to make Dance To The Music, hurrah yet again for contemptuous selling out!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Buddy Miles Express - Electric Church
Unsurprisingly, this album is late '60s blues-rock, though it is much closer to funk than producer Jimi Hendrix's music. It's lively enough, with the drums shockingly forward in the mix much of the time (drummers shouldn't be leaders of bands - look what happened to Genesis), well played (when they don't get carried away and indulgent - but you'd need a different producer to haul that back), with some quite sweet singing in parts. I like it well enough, but in a shrugging kind of way really.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:19 (eighteen years ago) link

hmm, don't think I've ever heard that one. Buddy's album output has always seemed kinda weak to me (tho the Band of Gypsies album is pretty great).

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 2 February 2006 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Band Of Gypsies is my fave Hendrix album. I really like the 3 Buddy Miles albums I have. "Them Changes" is probably the best.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 01:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I suppose it's not worth checking out later albums then?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 02:09 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm under the impression that Martin's not too fond of the "rock" side of funk, since he seems to be on the fence about Buddy Miles, Betty Davis, etc....

(To be truthful, Sly's DANCE TO THE MUSIC LP never sounded too hot to me either, apart from the title track and "Higher" - not to be confused with "I Want To Take You Higher.")

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Friday, 3 February 2006 03:10 (eighteen years ago) link

I loved some of the Betty Davis, but I am certainly far less keen on the rock end of funk.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 February 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link

Maybe you will be converted by the time you've listened to all those albums...

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 20:27 (eighteen years ago) link

I didn't like that Betty Davis album much. Good bass playing by Larry Graham but a bit lumpen on the whole and she can't really sing.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 3 February 2006 20:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Betty Davis can't sing = you are insane. I love her voice.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:07 (eighteen years ago) link

maybe i'm kinda over straight funk, but there's not a single album on this thread so far that i really love. the baby huey is probably the one i like the most

― team jaxon (jaxon), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - Live in Houston - The Summit
Another bootleg. I guess this is going to get repetitive to read, but these tracks go on forever (one is over 27 minutes), and sometimes they are grooving on a funk tip and it works, and sometimes they are doing rock freakout stuff and showing us how fantastic they are on their instruments and it doesn't work for me. This starts too much in the latter category, but blessedly has plenty of the former thereafter, and is really good. Bit short on my favourites of their tunes.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:27 (eighteen years ago) link

Zapp - s/t
Mixed feelings. The first track's excellent, and the rest is all good but I've never liked the vocoder (it's why I love Daft Punk less than everyone else), and that's all over this. It rather spoils it for me, mostly, and maybe it's also what made it seem as if it was leaning towards a more electro '80s funk sound. I've several more by them, and I'm not sure if I'll adjust to the vocoder or get increasingly bored with them.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:27 (eighteen years ago) link

Cameo - Cardiac Arrest
I was expecting a lot from this, and maybe I am disproportionately disappointed. It is a good album, often strong and raw, often interesting. It's a bit less distinct from the obvious funk forebears than I expected, I guess, and I wanted something more from it. I suspect it's one I'll come back to, and I think there's half a chance I'll grow to like it enormously, but it fell a bit short today.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Fatback Band - Let's Do It Again
I had this on while commuting. I was only really aware of hearing the last few tracks, which were rather lovely, smooth and sinuous. I'm inclined to think that the rest was as good, but it didn't exactly grab my attention. I must give it another go sometime.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I guess this is going to get repetitive to read, but these tracks go on forever (one is over 27 minutes), and sometimes they are grooving on a funk tip and it works, and sometimes they are doing rock freakout stuff and showing us how fantastic they are on their instruments and it doesn't work for me

And my reply will be just as repetitive ;)

Thats why I love the bootlegs because of the rock freakout stuff. Stretching out from the studio stuff. It means i could never tire of Parliament/Funkadelic.

I just wish I had some bootlegs of the 1969-74 period. 1 1972 bootleg is just not enough (plus the official boot from Live- Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan 12th September 1971)

haha I can't wait til martin hears that one!

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 21:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin give me all the "too rock freakout" P-Funk bootlegs that you don't like k thx bye

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 February 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Bit short on my favourites of their tunes

What are your favourite funkadelic/parliament tunes?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 22:49 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm guessing not "Alice in My Fantasies" or "Super Stupid"

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 February 2006 22:56 (eighteen years ago) link

or "Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow" or "Red Hot Momma"

Funnily enough...these are some of my faves.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 22:58 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah me too - listen sorry I haven't YSI'd you that stuff yet, I've been super-busy, should have time to do it tonight (and most of what I'll be sendin you I got from jaxon anyway - ha!) Def. lookin forward to hearing the Bootsy!

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:04 (eighteen years ago) link

No worries. Theres no rush. Still got some newish cds and lps to play(non funk stuff so won't bore you with details) and i'm relistening to the funkadelic boots i have. Do you have any?
Enjoy the Bootsy boots!

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:18 (eighteen years ago) link

coolio - I've got a few live Funkadelic boots, mostly from '76 on. Probably my most prized one is the vinyl copy of "Rocky Mountain Shakedown", which has an unbelievable version of "Comin Round the Mountain" (which I think made it onto that live P-Funk box set thing? not sure about that).

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:23 (eighteen years ago) link

I never did get that p-funk live box set.
Theres only one bootleg from before 1976 that I have. They just don't seem to exist. I have about 9 from 1976 onwards.
Don't have any p-funk all stars boots at all.
I do have on videotape somewhere Funkadelic live at Rockpalast,Germany from around 85 or 86. the RHCP are on the bill and play on an awesome version of Cosmic Slop.

I got it from VH1 and i've never seen it on since.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:29 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah pre-76 boots seem like they don't exist. A huge bummer.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On and One Nation Under A Groove are probably my favourite Funkadelic songs. Maggot Brain, Get Off Your Ass & Jam, Free Your Mind And Your Ass Will Follow. I like most of Parliament, but Up For The Down Stroke might well be my favourite.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 3 February 2006 23:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm sure if George had early live recordings he would've released them by now.

What do you think of the official live album on Wesbound from 71?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 4 February 2006 00:26 (eighteen years ago) link

I like it quite a bit - but it does suffer cuz of it being their first set with the new drummer, and without Tiki! :( The comments from the stage about how they're "gonna get it together anyhow" are funny tho

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Saturday, 4 February 2006 00:33 (eighteen years ago) link

George has boxes of stuff he recorded in the studio but never released, i'm sure he has a fair amount of early live recordings, someone just needs to find his stash

― mentalist (mentalist), Saturday, 4 February 2006 04:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin, with all due respect, I don't think you like funk at all. Do you? I've noticed with these reviews, the very things that make funk funk, you find fault with someway or another. I guess for me, the one-chord vamps and the acid-rock overtones are a given with this music, so dismissing funk for those reasons is like complaining that all gospel songs are about God, or that all metal is loud. It just goes with the territory. It is what it is.

No offense, but were you expecting something like the O'Jays? Or did you think that all funk is just jazz with a backbeat? Just wondering if you're getting what you're looking for.

Don't get me wrong, still enjoying these reviews...

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 4 February 2006 08:14 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't know how to answer such idiot questions, really. I'm not much of a jazz fan at all, and I do have some familiarity with funk. It's a genre with a bunch of tendencies, as I said at the beginning, and I am entitled to like some and not like others, to prefer certain blends over others. My preferences are the soul and James Brown and disco territories over the psychedelia and rock territories - and the jazz end is not too much to my taste either. That doesn't amount to not liking funk, it amounts to liking some funk more than other funk. I assume my tastes aren't yours, and that's why you think they are invalid.

Also, the trouble with gospel is indeed that the songs are about God. What is wrong with that standpoint?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 4 February 2006 12:50 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - Ain't No 'Bout-A-Doubt It
I'm not sure how good this is, but I really enjoyed it. The first track is terrific, a Slyish groove, and although some of the rest doesn't get going in any comparably major way, I found it at the least pleasurable all the way through. I think bassist and leader Larry Graham had integrated his playing better into a band here, after a start where he was wanting to be a kind of lead guitarist.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 4 February 2006 12:59 (eighteen years ago) link

so kerr did YOU send martin all these cds? :-)

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Saturday, 4 February 2006 13:02 (eighteen years ago) link

You dont get the funk, dont hate on it for not getting it. Its about dancing, making music from your soul, having fun, fighting the man, turning something bad into something good. I suggest you go back to your white classical music and leave black music alone.

― Kim Kenzo, Saturday, 4 February 2006 13:17 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah that's really STICKING IT TO THE MAN

martin plz continue to "give up the funk" or perhaps that should read don't give up the funk.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Saturday, 4 February 2006 13:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I can assure you that martin does indeed enjoy the funk and trolls please fuck off.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 4 February 2006 13:45 (eighteen years ago) link

MARTIN: ain't nothing wrong with liking certain kinds of funk. But SINCE I HAVEN'T SEEN ANY REVIEWS OF YOUR KIND OF FUNK YET - everything we've seen so far, you've had reservations about - I mistakenly assumed that you stumbled into something that wasn't your thing.

Wasn't meant to be a slam, either. I DID say I liked the reviews, and I come in peace so you can put that damn shotgun away!!! :-) But like J.B. Hutto once sang: "I'm gonna speak my mind this morning..." Funk on, Martin.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 4 February 2006 17:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Okay, tell me how these reviews, from the first ten on the thread, suggest so much as noticeable reservations, let alone that they aren't my kind of thing (was it lines like "one of my favourite bands ever" that gave that impression?):
review 3: Martin's funk thread
review 4: Martin's funk thread
review 8: Martin's funk thread
There are a couple more in the first ten where any hint of reservation is small, and it's obvious I like the album a lot. I don't know why you want to believe I don't like this kind of music, but this opinion is hardly backed up by... well, anything at all.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 4 February 2006 22:18 (eighteen years ago) link

MARTIN: it wasn't those three reviews you excerpted that made me doubt your "funkitude," it was three more - Funkadelic, Betty Davis and Graham Central Station (their first s/t album), where you seemed very on-the-fence about what they were doing (I think the blatant rock influences may have put you off).

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 4 February 2006 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't much care for the more obvious rock influences - I've certainly made that clear. It's your translating that into "I don't think you like funk at all" that is plainly ridiculous. And three reviews with real reservations is very far from "I HAVEN'T SEEN ANY REVIEWS OF YOUR KIND OF FUNK YET - everything we've seen so far, you've had reservations about". You can't expect me to respond to what you mean if the words you use are so distant from what you intend.

I have zero funkitude. I have no pride about liking funk music any more than I do about liking soul or rock or country or hip hop.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 4 February 2006 22:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Cameo - Cameosis
Having adjusted to Cameo not sounding the same so long before Word Up with a previous album (see above), that seemed to make it easier to just enjoy this, despite some lame slow stuff and some clumsy vocal phrasing. There is also some fun for UK listeners if Shake Your Pants reminds them of Trevor & Simon. I don't think this is a great album, but I did like most of it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 4 February 2006 22:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Hurrah! back to the reviews.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 4 February 2006 23:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Foolish arguments were never going to slow the reviews down - they'll keep coming more or less in synch with my listening to all these funk albums.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 4 February 2006 23:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Ok a little treat for all you funkateers!
A great little track by Funk, Inc. From the album "Superfunk"
and believe me it's a prime slice of superfunk indeed!

hxxp://s52.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3CMBGS8PEQMR52QC36FCDQJD8A

All who download it please say what you think of it.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 5 February 2006 02:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Sounds pretty great to me.

― Austin Still (Austin, Still), Sunday, 5 February 2006 04:18 (eighteen years ago) link

that Funk Inc is an Axelrod production. one that i've wanted to hear for a really long time

― team jaxon (jaxon), Sunday, 5 February 2006 04:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Glad to be of service.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 5 February 2006 06:36 (eighteen years ago) link

hxxp?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 5 February 2006 15:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Bloodstone - Train Ride to Hollywood
As jawdropping a 'WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS THIS???!!!' album as I've ever heard. Yes it's partly funk, with some very good James Brownish material, but most of it is a selection of picks from the rest of the cetury up to 1975, in style as well as songs, so we get As Time Goes By, Yakety Yak, Sh-Boom and much more - including one in an unmistakeably minstrel style, virtually Al Jolson. Some research (Dave Marsh writes about them on AMG) reveals that this album accompanied some sort of movie. I think it's a fine and highly entertaining album, and they certainly demonstrate versatility, but mostly it was too WTF for me to form much of a coherent view. I do want to see the film now!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 5 February 2006 15:26 (eighteen years ago) link

hxxp?

Just replaced the x with t. It's so the links can't be traced back to here.

The Bloodstone album I haven't actually heard yet. I saw it in someones shares and grabbed it.

Does anyone have the 1st self-titled album? It's not out on cd and 4 of the tracks are bonus tracks on the 2nd album which was released on cd.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 5 February 2006 15:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Con Funk Shun - Candy
I didn't like much of this. '70s soul ballads are of course very up my street, but late '70s and coming from a funk angle = almost always not my thing. When they play uptempo funk (and this has a relatively low proportion of that) they're very good, strong and punchy, but even then all of the singing is horrible, so there isn't that much that I cared for here.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 5 February 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link

James Brown - Live At The Apollo (Vol.2, 1968)
This feels like history. People have, perhaps reasonably, claimed that I underrate Louis Armstrong in saying this, perhaps because of my own range of interests, but I see James Brown as the single most important figure in 20th Century music. Here we catch him at a period where he is doing old-fashioned ballads (That's Life) and his old R&B stuff like Please Please Please, and we get the beginnings of those extraordinary extended funk numbers. It feels like one of the key tipping points of music history - and that impression is reinforced by the concentration on funk that this thread records.

Anyway, he of course had a magnificent band (though I think they got even better over the next couple of years), and It's A Man's Man's Man's World was always one of the stellar moments of any JB set, and it's fantastic here, and very long, and there's a great sequence where the funk really gets going on CD2, with some fabulous guitar playing. At times the album doesn't know what it wants to be, but at times it catches the best of one world or another, and it's about as good as music ever gets.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 5 February 2006 22:40 (eighteen years ago) link

I thought you would like that one, Martin.

Did anyone else download that Funk, Inc track?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 6 February 2006 00:04 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.coolforever.com/temp/mezzoforte_observations.jpg

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 6 February 2006 00:36 (eighteen years ago) link

I downloaded but haven't listened yet...

― kit brash (kit brash), Monday, 6 February 2006 13:08 (eighteen years ago) link

Yes, James Brown is about as safe a bet as it gets with me.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 February 2006 13:50 (eighteen years ago) link

I've got a copy of the movie. I think I posted about it a while back somewhere on here. It's a dream sequence thing in which one of the guys in Bloodstone takes a spill and imagines that they're porters on a Hollywood-bound train filled with people who impersonate film stars like Bogie, Eddy and McDonald, W.C. Fields, Bela Lugosi, et al. it is also a murder mystery. sorta the really stupid companion to glamour-obsessed proto-disco records like the Miracles' "City of Angels" and "Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band." except it's really stupid. but of course, I love it, especially the "rock and roll" number which is sort of like something Roy Wood might've thrown in his wastebasket except that it's performed by a black harmony group on a train. I gave my DVD copy to a friend who needed it even more than I do--the whole thing is a what-the-fuck; the trailer is better than the movie; when I show it to friends, a certain...silence descendds upon the room, a respectful silence. and did I mention that it's really, really stupid?

great thread. funk didn't really begin with James Brown, tho--you got to go back further to drummers like Hungry Williams and Earl Palmer, New Orleans guys, to get at the roots of it. James Brown codified it, maybe, but if it ain't tightened up in the rhythm section, if you don't feel an alienated jerk, it ain't funk music. in my opinion a fan of perhaps the dumbest movie ever, of course. anyway, Martin, you are the man!!

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 6 February 2006 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Edd, I don't know where we draw lines, and I do have some familiarity with NO R&B. This is like the Rocket 88 vs Good Rocking Tonight vs... debates - there's no right answer, but just like I semi-arbitrarily go for Ike for R&R, because that's the first record that sounds like my understanding of R&R, I go for JB on the same basis. I can see how musically the NO R&B feeds into it in a very big way, but there's something in the guitars and the stripped down nature of the sound JB was developing around the time of that live album that sounds like '70s funk, whereas the NO stuff doesn't. That doesn't mean I don't love them too - same as I love Wynonie Harris - but it's not my choice of starting place.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 February 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Junie Morrison - Freeze
I'm not at all sure about this. Frankly, listening to it on the tube while deaf in one ear is hardly a fair hearing - hardly a hearing at all - and it's complex enough to need unusual attention anyway, I think. It's at least interesting, and varied and ambitious, but I think it suffered by being next to Lonnie Liston Smith. Smith's ambitions seemed not wholly dissimilar - complexity, spaciness, depth, quiet experimentation - but his seemed entirely successful, while I wasn't at all sure Junie's were.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 February 2006 19:43 (eighteen years ago) link

P-Funk Guitar Army - Tribute To Jimi Hendrix
Well, this will come as no surprise to those who've spotted that I am less keen on the P-Funk empire's leanings towards rock, and those who know how much I dislike Hendrix, and hate his legacy. I don't like this album. I could leave it out of here, since 95% of the time there is no discernible connection with funk, but I may as well say it before I'm asked - not at all my thing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 February 2006 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link

just my take on it all, Martin. great quote from Earl King about the origins of funk, from the great book "Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans" by John Broven:

"The root of funk was created in the studios. Earl Palmer, the drummer, was really responsible for that word 'funk.' He would say all the time, like if them guys like Lee Allen were playing at the recording sessions, he would say, 'Look, man, let's play a little funkier,' and the word would start going around....Then it emanated right on out until everyday people just say it. It implies a concentrated rhythm and stiffness and more concentration. Sometimes Charles Williams, 'Hungry,' they called him, a drummer that intensified everything....he would tighten everything up and this would be funky because everything would get stiff, man." As a description that, in my opinion, can hardly be improved upon. It really comes down to the rhythmic conception, the drumming, the "tightened-upness" of it all. And so I think it was happening before James Brown did it; I look at it not as some genre of music but as a more general *way of thinking about music*. It's like "Northern Soul": I mean to me, an American, that's a meaningless term, I know what people mean when they say it and I love the songs folks lump into "Northern Soul," but I think it's just some records British people like Ian Levine decided he was gonna make popular, that mostly weren't popular in the United States (at least until they started cutting records specifically for that market, which is a different thing). Hats off to him for finding those records in Miami, but that term just describes a regional *taste*, that's all. What musicians do is a lot different from what people make out of it. So, I kinda think people tend to put the cart before the horse when they think about all this--I like to keep it basic. None of which is to deny James Brown or Sly or Clinton props, but to say that those ideas were in the air long before someone decided to lock them down and name them. And they come from
New Orleans, if you ask me.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Monday, 6 February 2006 23:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, I wouldn't argue with any of that, nor do I know as much - but also it kind of doesn't contradict my view, which is not that of a musician or musical expert but a fan, and I still feel the same way.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 February 2006 23:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin, I'm not surprised you didn't like the pfunk tribute to hendrix.
A) Theres no Hendrix covers.
B) its pretty shite.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 00:30 (eighteen years ago) link

no disrespect to Palmer, but I pretty much always find arguments where people claim to have exclusively "invented" slang terms ROFFLicious.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 00:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Has anyone read the book "Funk : The Music, The people, and the rhythm of the one" by Rickey Vincent?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 04:31 (eighteen years ago) link

i started it, but like most books, i got bored or distracted half way through and never finished it.

he used the word FONK a lot. kinda annoying.

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 04:55 (eighteen years ago) link

I haven't read it in years but I thought it was quite a good book.
I think I might read it again actually.
Martin perhaps you should try getting a copy.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312134991/qid=1139300488/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-3182528-1209630?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 08:22 (eighteen years ago) link

I almost never read books about music, for some reason. And I don't think I'd want to combine this project of listening to a vast stack of funk albums with reading about it, or it would feel more like research, like trying to become an expert - it would shift how I see what I am doing.

(Actually I'm listening to Mingus at the moment - my work CD drive has been repaired, which might up the review rate. I will have very positive things to say about Mutiny and the Ohio Players tonight.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 13:41 (eighteen years ago) link

The 1st Mutiny album is one of the best p-funk spin off albums.
Fantastic album.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 15:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Vincent's book was enjoyable enough but the discography at the end was the best part.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 15:13 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah that was great. It was also my pre-internet days.
I emptied the FOPP in the west end of Glasgow of their vinyl(lots of the stuff wasn't available on cd for some reason yet there was vinyl repressings) on that books recommendations.

Tower Records was good for some vinyl and CD's too.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 15:40 (eighteen years ago) link

i thought the Mutiny album was terribly underwhelming. i think i have completely different tastes on funk than you

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 18:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Threads about funk by clueless rock fans called Martin are pure comedy.

― $ LYRICALLY I'M LIKE MR PERFECT $, Tuesday, 7 February 2006 18:35 (eighteen years ago) link

But the ROFFLES are mere riffles on the surface of the ocean until the clueless troll insults the regular, unleashing a belly-laugh tsunami.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 18:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Hurrah, proof of my balanced views - I'm getting abused for not liking rock and for liking it!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Mutiny - Mutiny on the Mamaship
I enjoyed this a lot. Very Clinton, but without much of the rock intent, just wanting to be funky and make you dance, and messing around and having fun. Really terrific, especially when at its absurdest, as on Lump.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Ohio Players - Pain
I loved this instantly - their playing is magnificent from the start. It's very silly in places, but underneath it we have one of the best groups of musicians I've heard, really tight on the rhythm and horns, able to do bluesy stuff as well as James Brown-style funk. I feel positive I can add them to my list of favourites.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Parlet - Play Me or Trade Me
It's been a good day - this may not be the most potent P-Funk I've ever heard, bit it's sparkling and very enjoyable, perhaps largely because it's P-Funk going disco a lot of the time. As someone who loves Chic more than almost any band ever, this is plainly a great move. Thoroughly fun.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Brothers Johnson - Blam!!
Very slick, highly polished, kind of gentle - unfortunately I found some of this kind of bland, but we have here some more excellent musicians, and even on the slushier bits it's still at the least pleasant. Sadly, most of the time it seemed at the most pleasant as well.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Blam's the least of the first four BJ albums.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 19:27 (eighteen years ago) link

The Mutiny album has no input at all from Clinton.
As you can gather from the name and album name Jerome Brailey left the mothership to make his own stuff.
And as i said earlier, Mutiny On The Mamaship is great and is as good as any of the official pfunk releases of that time. Alongside Sweatband and Quazar.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:00 (eighteen years ago) link

No, I realise Clinton wasn't on that Mutiny album - I look many of these up on AMG, to try to sound as if I have the faintest idea what I am on about - but it still sounds very like him.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:07 (eighteen years ago) link

last of the famous international, where were you when i needed you:

Uncut Funk RFI: Quazar

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:11 (eighteen years ago) link

The Ohio Players are split into 2 periods. The Westbound years with Junie Morrison and the major label years without. They are pretty much great in both up until contradiction.

Do you like the album covers?

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f594/f59486jardx.jpg http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/dre100/e161/e161293scl8.jpg
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f542/f54204h03d1.jpg

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f556/f55606zhy8t.jpg
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf600/f600/f60027w60jy.jpg
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc400/c479/c47980hrh9o.jpg

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:15 (eighteen years ago) link

Scott> I have no idea how I missed that.
Did you buy it?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:16 (eighteen years ago) link

no, i didn't. i think it's still there though. i might have to pick it up on my next CD trade-in visit.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:20 (eighteen years ago) link

speaking of junie, i have a pretty good j.s. theracon 12-inch. i should dig it out.

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 21:23 (eighteen years ago) link

No, I realise Clinton wasn't on that Mutiny album - I look many of these up on AMG, to try to sound as if I have the faintest idea what I am on about - but it still sounds very like him.

i think i read somewhere that Brailey was actually trying to mock and/or show how easy it was to make music like Clinton.

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Someone who played with him for a while being able to copy him is hardly proof of anything, surely?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Ohio Players are an interesting intersection of P-Funk and James Brown, and I have most of their stuff (sooooo cheap on vinyl), but I don't think any of their albums are really solid all the way through. And without Junie my attention def. wanders. "Pain" is probably my favorite ("Funky Worm" obv so classic)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:22 (eighteen years ago) link

here's what i had to say on mutiny way back:
I just picked up a Mutiny twofer called "How Loose is Your Booty?". it's got "Mutiny on the mamaship" & "Funk Plus The One". overall i think it's sort of mediocre but good. there are just too many same tempo slap bass tracks that all run into each other. i think he forgot to write a good song most of the time. but there are some excelent tracks on there, it's just hard going through two whole albums to find them

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Someone who played with him for a while being able to copy him is hardly proof of anything, surely?

after just re-reading the amg bio this is what they say, just in better english than what i was trying to say: Mutiny's debut album, Mutiny on the Mamaship, was released by CBS in 1979 and featured several pointed satires of Clinton, even as the music mostly replicated his style (though it did so quite effectively).

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Is the Mutiny on cd then now? I only have the 1st 2 albums on vinyl. FOPP in glasgow repressed a lot of albums on vinyl as they acquired the licenses.

I do remember seeing some 90s Mutiny cds in there too, but I never bothered with them.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link

i picked up the cd xmas of 2004 in seattle. it's on sequel records and was put out in 2000.

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:43 (eighteen years ago) link

I probably bought my vinyl in 97 or 98. I cant really remember.
Unless theres bonus tracks I don't need the cd. Unless i saw it somewhere really cheap.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:47 (eighteen years ago) link

it's hard to tell. i think it's actually missing one or two tracks from the first two albums and it might include a few tracks from "A Night Out With the Boys".

so i'm relistening to the whole thing right now. it's been over a year since the last time i listened to it and i actually think it's pretty alright. at the time, i had been in a BIG soul/funk/pfunk addiction phase and this musta come at the tail end of it. so i was probably just getting sick of hearing all the same kinda shit. now that i hardly listen to any of that stuff, it's not so bad on fresh ears.

― team jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 7 February 2006 23:56 (eighteen years ago) link

That Rickey Vincent book overlooks a whole lot - like giving blowfly one stinking paragraph.

While I disagree with most of Martin's opinions, it's "Martin's funk Thread" folks. No need to hate on the man because he's the disco kid, instead of the undisco kid.

― Uncle Tom (Uncle Tom), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 02:01 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin's deliberately leaving some of the best stuff to the end as he will probably take the best part of this year to listen to and post his thoughts on here. He doesn't want to be left with stuff he wouldn't be interested in.
Plus i'm sure he will play albums again if he gets the chance and who knows what he will think of those albums then.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 03:24 (eighteen years ago) link

Rare Earth - Get Ready
Didn't like this at all. It rarely sounds like funk - this is a psychedelic rock album, with immensely long solos all over the place, plus third rate singing. They can play, and occasionally there are hints that they could make good records, so I don't totally despair of the other Rare Earth albums in the stack, but I will approach them gingerly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link

Steve Cropper - With a Little Help From My Friends
This is the first solo album by one of my all-time favourite guitarists (Booker T & the MGs, plus he was Otis Redding's songwriting and production partner), so it was a totally safe bet that... actually I thought it was dreadful. All the things I love in his work are as part of a band, often behind a singer. He plays his part, he does small things with a sharpness and brilliance that makes them big anyway, he plays his part in carrying the tune onwards. Here he's in charge. I don't know who the musicians are - they're very good indeed - but they are firmly in the background, in every way. Cropper gets to play loads of big early '70s chords, some rocky, some fuzzed, and he is superb, but it abandons the stuff that made him the #1 guitarist in soul in favour of being another rock guitarist. I guess I might like it better on future listens, once the disappointment of what it is and isn't has passed.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:06 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - America Eats Its Young
It's been a string of rock albums I didn't care for today. This is the least funky Funkadelic I've heard. It seemed to drone on for a very long time, and while there was nothing I hated, there was nothing much I liked either.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Fuzzy Haskins - A Whole Nother Thang
Today this sounded pretty good, but I suspect in reality it's kind of mainline basic P-Funk, well played, very listenable, nothing very special at all.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:07 (eighteen years ago) link

"there was nothing much I liked either."

Nothing????? Oh my.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:10 (eighteen years ago) link

My least fave Funkadelic album but theres still some really good tracks on it. "Loose Booty" "I Call My Baby Pussycat" "If you dont like the effects dont produce the cause".

Fuzzy Haskins 2 solo albums are pretty good.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:35 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm amazed you didnt like the Steve Cropper. Did someone steal your seat on the tube or something?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:36 (eighteen years ago) link

i always liked that cropper album, but i don't play it much.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:38 (eighteen years ago) link

the one i really like is the album he made with albert king and pop staples.

― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 8 February 2006 23:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Which album is that?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 00:11 (eighteen years ago) link

"Jammed Together" - I only have one track off it, but its pretty good. Pops Staples is a huge idol of mine - love his tone.

There's a great "America Eats Its Young" thread around here on ILM somewhere, involving chuck eddy - that's a weird album, but its become one of my favorites over time, particularly because there isn't much else like it in the P-Funk catalog. Really its closest analogue is "Osmium".

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 February 2006 00:41 (eighteen years ago) link

yeah, jammed together. it's a good one. not to go on and on about it, but i just find it a little hard to believe that someone who liked p-funk couldn't find SOMETHING to like about america eats its young. for the record, i have always loved it. so vast and deep and sprawling. something for everyone!

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 9 February 2006 00:45 (eighteen years ago) link

america eats its young is the only pfunk album i've sold back

― team jaxon (jaxon), Thursday, 9 February 2006 04:44 (eighteen years ago) link

JaXon, U crazy! You should have kept it for "Philmore" alone.

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Thursday, 9 February 2006 04:50 (eighteen years ago) link

It took me a while to get into it so maybe Martin will do the same IF he plays it again sometime.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 06:03 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin> Re the Rare Earth. Norman Whitfield had something to do with them in the early days and again on ""MA"
Infact he wrote and produced all the songs on that album.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 06:12 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't much like "America Eats Its Young" either. To me it doesn't sound like should even be a Funkadelic album, it sounds like it's really Parliament's follow-up to "Osmium" (not as good as that album of course). There's not much of Eddie Hazel and Billy Nelson on it is there?

― Dadaismus PBUH (Dada), Thursday, 9 February 2006 16:47 (eighteen years ago) link

hazel had left.though he is probably on some stuff here and there. it's the first album with bootsy and the rest of the JB's. ginger baker played drums on one track. is it a mess? yeah, but what a mess! so many great songs. i would keep it for "Balance" alone. ah, whatever...

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:14 (eighteen years ago) link

... that's what I thought, if Eddie Hazel and Billy Nelson aren't on it, that's probably why it doesn't sound like a Funkadelic album

― Dadaismus PBUH (Dada), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Do you like the O.G. Funk album then?
or the Tal Ross solo album?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:22 (eighteen years ago) link

What Scott said. I love over half of it.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:23 (eighteen years ago) link

there is some interesting info here, even for haterz:

http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/motherpage/albums_funkadelic/alb-ameats.html

― scott seward (scott seward), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:24 (eighteen years ago) link

http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/motherpage/albums_solo/alb-talross_detrimental.html

haha x-post

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link

Do you like the O.G. Funk album then?
or the Tal Ross solo album?

Never heard them

― Dadaismus PBUH (Dada), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link

O.G. Funk
http://www.duke.edu/~tmc/motherpage/albums_spinoffs/alb-ogfunk_outofthedark.html

x-post.

Dada theyre quite good albums. Kinda like mid period funkadelic.
I'd recommend them to those who are very familiar with pfunk in general.

Have a read at the two reviews i posted the links to.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:28 (eighteen years ago) link

I've heard OG Funk - which was pretty good but I did end up selling it back. It reminded me of a lot of other Bill Laswell/P-Funk (Material, Axiom Funk) projects in terms of the production. Never heard the Tawl Ross album.

I def. prefer America Eats Its Young to Osmium. No "Silent Boatman" for one thing. Or bagpipes. But "Miss Lucifer's Love"! "I Call My Baby Pussycat"! Funkiest slide guitar ever on "Biological Speculation"! (which also has some of my favorite Funkadelic lyrics)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:37 (eighteen years ago) link

"Silent Boatman" is one of my favourite things of all time, ESPECIALLY the bagpipes!

― Dadaismus PBUH (Dada), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:39 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm curious if we can come to a consensus about what the worst song on "America Eats Its Young" is. I'm not sure what my nomination would be... "We Hurt Too" maybe?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 February 2006 17:50 (eighteen years ago) link

We hurt too is SHITE!.

Silent Boatman is awesome. Maybe Dada and I get goosebumps with the bagpipes playing the skye boat song though ;)

Dada I could YSI you the O.G. Funk and Tal Ross (he calls himself tal not tawl now) albums if you like since i'm not sure if they're in print now.

Have you heard Sweatband and Quazar?

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 18:00 (eighteen years ago) link

Johnny 'Guitar' Watson - Ain't That a Bitch
I occasionally have my doubts about Watson's voice on uptempo numbers - his nasal and slightly drained tones suited the blues better - but otherwise his '70s funk reinvention was a roaring success. This is varied - there is still blues here, and other things - but its heart is funk, and most of it is really tremendous.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Blackbyrds - Blackbyrds
Kind of like Isaac Hayes blaxploitation soundtrack jazz-funk, and nearly in that class. They play really well, individually and as a band, and this is largely excellent. It maybe lacks a great track or two, but it's very good indeed.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Commodores - Caught In The Act
This is not 'Easy Like Three Ladies' territory. You might recall Machine Gun - hyperactive, exciteable and punchy funk. If not, think Stevie Wonder's Superstitition, but mostly without singing. When they go slow and Lionel Richie gets to croon at us (no 'HELLO!' moments) it's not so good, but the rest is thoroughly enjoyable. Sadly the Lionel quotient does increase after a very strong start.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:30 (eighteen years ago) link

There's a great "America Eats Its Young" thread around here on ILM somewhere, involving chuck eddy
I don't know about one featuring chuck, but I do know about this thread:
teaching mark s a *LESSON* response three: FUNKADELIC

I shall be talking about AEIY on my blog in a few days time. I like it - in fact I think I prefer it to a lot of later P-Funk stuff, but I can see why it's not Martin's cup of tea.

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:32 (eighteen years ago) link

ah yes mark s not chuck e - sorry I confuse cantankerous cranks occasionally.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:40 (eighteen years ago) link

America Eats Its Young is always the one you end up back playing because it's not played as much as the others and you kinda forget a lot of stuff on it so you play it again.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 9 February 2006 19:58 (eighteen years ago) link

That Mark S thread is some serious reading.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 10 February 2006 00:54 (eighteen years ago) link

mark s can be very tiresome.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 10 February 2006 00:56 (eighteen years ago) link

mark s cantankerous?!?!??! Surely some mistake!

Johnny 'Guitar' Watson - Ain't That a Bitch

I got this only a few weeks back. To explain, I remember John Peel playing a lot of JGW (if I may abbreviate) on his show and I always remember liking it, in spite of the fact that at that time I wouldn't have known what funk was if I'd tripped over it on the way to school in the morning. So I was delighted to eventually find a cheap JGW album but... a bit underwhelmed when I actually listened to it, boo! Not that it's bad, it just seems a lot less wild and wacky than I remembered - but, as this was his sort of breakthrough funk-era album, maybe the later ones are a bit more freaky?

This album is quite smooth and sedate and, the more you listen to it, the more and more like a blues album it sounds. Because there's not a band on it as such, it doesn't have a great feel - I think it's bass playing I find a bit pedestrian and Johnny's vocals don't have much of a range. The title track is a CLASSIC however - brilliant lyrics (Johnny knows computer programming and Japanese but still can't get a decent job). And, amazingly, Paul Dunmall played on this album!

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 10 February 2006 11:08 (eighteen years ago) link

Sorry to have vanished for a while - thanks to BT I have been offline for six days. I have some review notes for lots of things, so expect catch-up sets of reviews for a few days.

Yes, I do realise that there won't have been many people losing sleep and lamenting this thread's disappearance...

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 16:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - Now Do U Wanna Dance
This is often strong and punchy funk (along with too much leaning towards prog, plus more palatable doowop references), but something like their version of 'Love and Happiness' demonstrates why I don't like a lot of '70s funk anything like as much as early-'70s soul. The Al Green original has the most beautifully played intro in the history of recorded music; this is clodhopping in comparison. The original finds a groove that gets me moving, and stays with it, with the right amount of minor variation. This is too keen to show off virtuosity - and I don't think any of the musicians here were as good as those in that Hi house band, including Larry Graham compared to Leroy Hodges. And finally, the singing - funk had some terrific singers, but it had too many poor and bad ones, and the comparison here with the peerless Al Green is painfully stark.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Meters - Cabbage Alley
I love the Meters - one of my favourite collections of musicians ever, maybe especially drummer Joseph 'Zigaboo' Modeliste. This is a tremendous set of New Orleans late soul/early funk numbers, a total pleasure throughout, if lacking any real standout classics.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:26 (eighteen years ago) link

Drugs - The Prescription for Mis-America
A very dreary '90s US alternative rock album, mixed in with the funk - I am guessing, from the DVDR it came from, that someone in the band is linked to P-Funk in some way, but that's hardly deducible from the music. Not my thing at all.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:27 (eighteen years ago) link

Funk, Inc. - Chicken Lickin'
Hmm, just two days after playing it I can't really remember anything much about this, beyond that it includes a cover of B.B. King's The Thrill Is Gone. I think I liked it, mostly. Jazz-funkish, well played.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link

General Johnson - All In The Family
I had high hopes for this, as I love the Chairmen of the Board, and it starts with a rereading of Patches, which he had already done beautifully with the band. The rest of it is less stellar - he sings well, of course, but he is looking for something other than the post-Motown hits with Holland-Dozier-Holland, something different, maybe trying to grasp disco, and it doesn't really take off.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Isaac Hayes - At Wattstax
I love Isaac Hayes. This is a live show from 1972, but not just another gig, this was more meaningful in a political sense. I think it was the occasion he debuted his golden chains, which must have been an absolutely breathtaking moment. It also catches him at the height of his powers, especially evident in the strong and confident singing, with great versions of Never Can Say Goodbye and the Shaft theme, and an epic 17-minute Ain't No Sunshine which ranks with his greatest moments. Glorious.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & the Family Stone - Thee Thesaurus of Funkasaurus
Lots of live clips and short interviews from TV appearances in their heyday. The sound quality is very patchy, and most of the talking clips are horribly awkward, and the 2.5 hours is kind of repetitive, in that the biggest numbers of the day are performed again and again - but since all those Dance/Stand etc. numbers are magnificent, this is not a burden, and some of the performances are really outstanding - but even at their least special, in their prime, they were still pretty magnificent.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:31 (eighteen years ago) link

"epic 17-minute Ain't No Sunshine which ranks with his greatest moments"

omg this is def. one of the greatest things ever. totally blew me away the first time I heard it - beautiful the way it builds up and drops down and back up again, such a groove.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 21:11 (eighteen years ago) link

WQelcome back to the land of the internet, Martin.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 16 February 2006 07:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Pleasure - Joyous
The first track is the horn part from the Sugarhill Gang's great Kick It Live From 9 Till 5! Hurrah, I spotted one! (It is blindingly obvious - I'm lousy at spotting samples.) This is musically terrific throughout. When there is singing it's kind of ordinary at best, but there is wonderful playing of guitar, bass, keyboards, strings and horns all over this. Good tunes too. At the jazzy end of funky.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 20:51 (eighteen years ago) link

Cameo - She's Strange
The title track is clear evidence of their finding their mighty late voice when most funk acts were going or gone; still a bit awkward here, but powerful and rich. On the other hand, the weedy and lifeless Tribute To Bob Marley is a painfully feeble attempt at reggae. Very patchy.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 20:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Brothers Johnson - Look out for #1
Smooth funk that isn't punchy or exciting or especially lovely - it's kind of okay, pleasant, but I find it hard to imagine anyone getting passionate about this. Includes a Beatles cover, which is no good at all, of course.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 20:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - Soul Finger
Late '60s instrumental soul, mostly quite like a party-oriented Booker T & the MGs, and as wonderful as that implies. I love this album, and I think it'll get a lot of plays, down the years. It's desperately tragic that most of them were killed in the plane crash that also killed Otis Redding, soon after this was made.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 20:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Quazar - s/t
Another of those countless P-Funk-affiliated acts, this is a pretty enjoyable funk album that I was kind of forgetting by the time it had finished. That might be a bit harsh on it, since I didn't have any bad thoughts about it, but I can't see it making many people's lists of all-time greats.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 20:55 (eighteen years ago) link

James Brown - Live In Zaire
This is from 1974, towards the end of his long peak. I'd be tempted to cite a five-minute sax solo as a sign of wrongness, but actually it's terrific, as you'd expect from Maceo. It suffers a little from James's regular tendency to remind us of songs then move on. For the previous several years, there were at least some where he'd get into them in a big way - Man's World was always a highlight, but here it lasts one minute, and he doesn't really get his teeth into anything. It's all very enjoyable, but I have at least half a dozen better James Brown live albums.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 21:09 (eighteen years ago) link

The title tune from Joyous is one of my all-time favourite songs. Good to know the whole album finds favour with you. I must get this sometime.

I have Pleasure's first two albums Dust Yourself Off/Accept No Substitutes on a 2fer. Some good stuff on these too.

― Jeff W (zebedee), Thursday, 16 February 2006 22:17 (eighteen years ago) link

They're both in the stack too, as is Future Now. Dust Yourself Off might come along as early as next week, in fact.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 16 February 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link

so what's yr system for ordering how you listen to all this stuff?

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 16 February 2006 22:35 (eighteen years ago) link

Ahh Martin the Quazar is fabulous. I'm disappointed you don't think it's anything special.
Glen Goins was the best p-funk singer of them all. A real tragedy he died before the album was completed.
(and yes I love Fuzzy Haskins)

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Friday, 17 February 2006 00:25 (eighteen years ago) link

Too complicated to explain, Mo! I stopped short of a database, but have a complicated spreadsheet with all the albums listed, assigned to categories (basically 3x2: P-Funk, other funk, jazz; pretty sure I'll really like it/don't know), with counts of any act with 5 or more albums, to enable a fairly even distribution of all the categories and acts. Then I have to sort out sizes and organise them in folders for burning onto CDRs, as well as just putting some on the PC for home playing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 13:34 (eighteen years ago) link

Chairmen of the Board - S/T & In Session
I thought this was a best of at first! 24 tracks (it's a twofer) of great tunes and great singing (though I like those where one of the others sings classic show tunes a LOT less), the natural successors to the Four Tops thanks to Holland-Dozier-Holland moving from Motown to Invictus, where this lot filled the gap. I guess General Johnson is a notch short of Levi Stubbs' greatness, but that's no kind of put-down - his qualities are actually pretty similar, and equally well-suited to the material. This is about three quarters magnificent.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Rufus & Chaka Khan - Ask Rufus
I was expecting punchy funk with potent vocals, but actually this is almost entirely soul ballads. I think I've not given her enough attention as a singer, probably because of the caricature performance on Lady Marmalade, which was when I first heard her. She's really very good on this, with more subtlety than I had expected, as well as the strength I knew about.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:11 (eighteen years ago) link

Tower Of Power - Back to Oakland
The singing here is entirely middling, but the playing is good enough to more than make up for that, with lots of horn-powered soul-funk. I listened to it in fragments on noisy streets and the tube while doing other things, but it's one I'll go back to, to get a fuller grasp on it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Politicians - Psycha-Soula-Funkadelic
I enjoyed this at the time, but don't remember too much about it, other than particularly liking Love Machine (not the Girls Aloud one, sadly).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Errrrrrrrrr, Patti Labelle on "Lady Marmalade" surely Martin!

― Adidadaismus (Dada), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:12 (eighteen years ago) link

Parliament - Chocolate City
This seems like the epitome of what I like best about P-Funk: get in a groove and stay there, relentlessly. Very funky, strong and kind of rough sounding. Really terrific.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

ha, sorry - misremembering my disco classics there! The first Rufus I recall was what I always start singing as (when not concentrating) 'Climb Every Woman'.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Ruth Copeland - I Am What I Am
She has a strong and rich voice, and the P-Funk musicians are good of course - but mostly they are going for a West Coast hippy rock sound, more Jefferson Airplane than P-Funk. Not my thing at all.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:17 (eighteen years ago) link

War - All Day Music
I was thinking while I listened to this that I think of War as one of the blackest acts ever (irrespective of their actual mixed race make-up, which I don't think I knew way back when), then I tried to work out what that meant, and why.
1. The era was big on asserting blackness, lots of pride in black skin, lots of bare skin on album sleeves and so on, especially within funk.
2. Something about the looseness of their grooves - there's a relaxing into a beat which reminds me of some hip hop.
3. Their range of references: jazz, soul, blues, reggae even - it sometimes seems like a deliberate attempt to integrate black music history.
Anyway, nonsense about blackness aside, I really like their sound. This album also has an old favourite, Slipping Into Darkness, which I am sure Bob Marley must have heard before writing Get Up, Stand Up.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:18 (eighteen years ago) link

And by the way, what you said about "Love and Happiness" - spot on

― Adidadaismus (Dada), Friday, 17 February 2006 20:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Politicians - Psycha-Soula-Funkadelic

Didn't you recognise the bit Primal Scream nicked for Losing More Than I'll Ever Have/Loaded?

Oh wait i bet you only know Loaded. Well its obviously on that anyway and a lot of people mistakenly think that was a Wetherall bit. But it's on the original.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 18 February 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Chocolate City is one of my fave Parliament albums.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 18 February 2006 12:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Gainin' on ya!

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Saturday, 18 February 2006 13:33 (eighteen years ago) link

Slave - The Concept
Enjoyable enough funk, and I've a notion there may just be more to be had from this one, but it didn't really hook me or demand my attention enough - seemed too polite or something.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 13:59 (eighteen years ago) link

Bloodstone - I Need Time
Good singing, lacking the WTF element of their soundtrack album reviewed upthread. I like Bloodstone and enjoyed this, though I can't say that any particular track here really shone.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link

BT Express - Do It ('Til You're Satisfied)
A couple of excellent disco numbers here, and the rest is more than pleasant, if filler really.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:00 (eighteen years ago) link

Curtis Mayfield - Roots
This I think is a genuine masterpiece: his second solo album, and it is a masterly combination of his so-sweet voice, one of the most lovable ever, with the dance-soul music - those distinctive vaguely Latin rhythms and his fine guitar playing - and the lyrical ambition. It's an album to set right next to What's Going On, I think, without suffering by the comparison, and I love it totally.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:01 (eighteen years ago) link

George Clinton - Computer Games
A huge amount of referential moments on this - lots to his own past, with little quotes from old Parliament/Funkadelic tracks, but also nods to for instance the Four Tops, and parts that were later quoted by Dre & Snoop, all of which gives it something of a spurious pivotal feel. This also has something in common with Rod Stewart's solo abums a decade before: yes this is a solo album, yes it has pretty much all the band members on it, what is your point exactly? Anyway, very lively and enjoyable.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:02 (eighteen years ago) link

I am now up to date!

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:03 (eighteen years ago) link

i wish i heard more parliment

― anthony easton (anthony), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Just like to say I'm really enjoying this Martin, especially since the idiot trolls have disappeared (for time being anyway).

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Sunday, 19 February 2006 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link

I expect they'll be back. They always are. Thanks, Billy, and to the others who are liking this, as it is indulgence on my part.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 February 2006 15:24 (eighteen years ago) link

What ILM's own Statler & Waldorf Think of Funkadelic.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 20 February 2006 15:53 (eighteen years ago) link

haha.

Zappa sucks.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 20 February 2006 22:17 (eighteen years ago) link

I like zappa but ...they are so wrong.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 02:02 (eighteen years ago) link

well I hardly ever agree with chuck abotu anything, George I don't know anything about, but criticizing Clinton for doing something "Zappa did first" is so bald-facedly ridiculous (and pointless)...

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:17 (eighteen years ago) link

Went to the store and picked up the Westbound 2005 reissue of Funkadelic's Stand On the Verge of Getting It On and while it's fair, I'm also not exactly getting it. They high regard, anyway.
If the hard rock numbers, of which there are about three, are supposed to be great, in 1975 these boys easily get stomped by second and third tier white boy blooz bands in the arenas. "Alice in My Fantasies" is the best of them, but it's brief. "Red Hot Mamma" has way too much George Clinton cough syrup and speed freak vocal bullshit at the beginning. "Jimmy's Got a Little Bit of Bitch In Him" is average -- probably seemed audacious at the time because it was about the down low -- but Frank Zappa & the Mothers were doing a lot like it a few years earlier. "Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts" is sub-Hendrix guitar wank from Eddie Hazel who I assume often did better and more George Clinton theology through cough syrup recitation. Album art is great, so are the liner notes. Title cut is OK but the funk ain't THAT funky and the best part again is Hazel's guitar. It's better as the single edit on the bonus tracks because it's shorter. And "Vital Signs" is a funky hard rock instro which is fair, included as a bonus cut.

Title of songs, I've noted in the Funkadelic catalog, are often actually better than the songs themselves, what I've heard of them, anyway.

I don't think any of those white blooz bands could stomp on Funkadelic somehow.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:22 (eighteen years ago) link

I wouldn't exactly call "Jimmy's Got A Little Bit of Bitch in Him" a "hard rock number" either.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:24 (eighteen years ago) link

But I would call it the Zappa number

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:26 (eighteen years ago) link

note he's talking about "the high regard" more than music itself. these guys care more abt rock criticism than rock, no news there.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Martin, I would like to point out that I am loving this thread. Thank you.

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:38 (eighteen years ago) link

xpost:
Ahem

― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:41 (eighteen years ago) link

HAHAHAHAHA

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Oh, I kinda like those silly old rock guys

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

right on re: Roots

try P Funk All Stars Urban Dancefloor Guerillas

you might like the later Slave LPS better or solo Steve Arrington

great thread

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 18:43 (eighteen years ago) link

That's the latest Slave album I have (of three); and I don't have Urban Dancefloor Guerillas.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 19:14 (eighteen years ago) link

Rare Earth - Willie Remembers
Appalling medium-paced lifeless rock. If you concentrate, a couple of the late tracks suggest that the members may once have walked past a shop where funk was playing, but that's about it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Kool & The Gang - Spirit Of The Boogie
This is tremendous, really strong funk, beautifully played, rich and potent all the way through. I was sceptical about liking their funk better than their later disco stuff, but this has rather tipped the balance for me. Probably one of the best albums I've heard so far from the megastack.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Bootsy Collins - live in louisville 1978
Very enjoyable - I guess this is very close to his peak. All the big numbers, terrific playing, great fun.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Spirit of the Boogie is a great album (tho the latin excursions don't really do it for me), the great thing about Kool and the Gang is pretty much ALL their early- to mid-70s records sound like that. There's a couple standout singles, backed up with just a ludicrous amount of really tight jazz-funk playing, w/more snap than most. They're like a more urban/uptown version of the Meters or something.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:49 (eighteen years ago) link

That Slave album. You have no idea how hard it was tracking that down. No luck on Audiogalaxy because i didnt have a tracklisting to search each song individually. CD's werent in print.
Finally found it last year on slsk.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 21:57 (eighteen years ago) link

Roger - The Many Facets Of Roger
Starting with the WORST cover of I Heard It Through The Grapevine that I've ever heard is not good, especially after the title has already made me dubious. Lots of vox or vocoder or whatever it is, but otherwise the rest of the album is enjoyable enough funk.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - Uncle Jam Wants You
This is Funkadelic going disco, and while I mostly approve of that more than the rock tendencies, I think disco needs a tightness and clarity that is sometimes absent here. I did enjoy nearly all of it, but I'm not sure any of it is better than pretty good.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & the Family Stone - live bootleg 1976
Poorish sound quality, and the performance is kind of uneven too. Mostly enjoyable.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Fatback Band - Feel My Soul
A bit too much mellow and laid-back stuff for my taste, when it's funk, but the rest was pretty good. They always felt kind of second division to me, and the albums aren't changing that impression yet.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Johnny 'Guitar' Watson - Listen/I Don't Want To Be Alone
This twofer is Watson partway in his funk reinvention - here he has largely left the blues behind, and we have soul with some funkiness instead. He was better before the reinvention, and he was better when he'd really got it, soon after, but this is still pretty good.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Mandrill - Composite Truth
I liked this one a lot. It starts really well with some storming funk, and kind of wanders off to Latin and calypso rhythms midway, though those two are still fun, but I guess the thing that impressed me especially is how much I liked a long slow number near the end, as I've not cared for too many slow funk tracks so far. I'd barely heard Mandrill before these albums came, and they're really getting into my affections.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Isley Brothers - Brother, Brother, Brother
Fantastic - this is one of those guaranteed many repeat plays down the years. They do three Carole King songs, including a beautiful 13-minute It's Too Late, we get Ernie coming to the fore here and there with his fuzz guitar, and we get a bonus track live version of the peerless Summer Breeze. Wonderful.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - The Electric Spanking of War Babies
This is kind of weak, I think. Its reggae track's actually pretty good, which separates it from the other attempts I've heard in the megastack of albums, but none of the rest really stood out - but none of it was dreadful either. Maybe it was time for a change - this was the last album under that name, apparently.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly Stone is on Electric Spanking Of War Babies.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Thursday, 23 February 2006 21:54 (eighteen years ago) link

haha - I find Roger's ridiculous Heard it Through the Grapevine really entertaining... I gotta get me some of that mid-period Isley stuff, def. a gap in my collection there.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 23 February 2006 22:19 (eighteen years ago) link

I think "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" is a bit overrated in some quarters but it's still good. I mean, how can a track called "Electro Cuites" not be good??!?!?

― Rotatey Diskers With Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 24 February 2006 10:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Also, the trouble with gospel is indeed that the songs are about God. What is wrong with that standpoint?

lolololol u mad

― snakeshit ;] (eman), Friday, 24 February 2006 14:25 (eighteen years ago) link

More from George
Rolling 2006 Metal Thread

And which bands are you talking about here?

Funkadelic's Standing On the Verge of Getting It On, from '75.

For one, Foghat smoked Funkadelic's feeble stabs at hard rock. They
had a way better singer, too. Deep Purple. Anyone with a white Hendrix imitator generally did better than Eddie Hazel, in this case Trower comes to mind. Even Come Taste the Band -- which is Purp's explicity funk record -- is better than Standing. Frank Zappa smoked Funkadelic, and they seemed to be copying from him quite a bit in term of committing weird and zany to vinyl. But if you need some
barrel-scrapers, Tin House, the And part of Johnny Winter And, Stretch, Hustler, REO's first and second album when they were still
barrel-scraping...

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 26 February 2006 12:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Collectables put it on a 2-for-1 disc last year with Hardness of the World. The sound quality is quite good.

I love Slave.

― Andy_K (Andy_K), Sunday, 26 February 2006 13:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Last Of (and Shakey etc), what exactly is it that George wrote that you think is so wrong? I'm curious. (I've never had hardly any use for Zappa myself, but in my own case, that's part of what bugs me about some old P-Funk stuff -- Clinton obviously had way more use for Zappa than I did. But I've also been listening to Funkadelic records for most of my life; they're all through the metal book I wrote. My point is that I think I overrated them there; if you can convince me I didn't., I owe you one. But I doubt you can.)

I just noticed this thread, and I like it a lot. May comment more on it later.

― xhuxk, Sunday, 26 February 2006 19:09 (eighteen years ago) link

(And despite never having had much use for him, what George says about Zappa on that thread intrigues me, I have to admit. Anybody who doesn't believe that plenty of '70s hard rock had at least as much funk in it as plenty of P-Funk probably hasn't listened to much '70s hard rock, or they're in denial about how Clinton's own artsy-fartsy tendencies often sabotaged his own funkiness, I'm not sure which. Or maybe we just have different ears.)

― xhuxk, Sunday, 26 February 2006 19:52 (eighteen years ago) link

do you want those cornflakes with or w/o hamhocks? taste is subjective. thank god we've all got different ears and definitions.

of course lots of 70s hard rock has funk in it. Especially the Tommy Bolin album w/"Post Toasties" on it. But saying Deep Purple are funkier than an album containing the likes of "Red Hot Mama" and "Sexy Ways' just seems provocative. Wahtever. And hey, I like the first few REO albums. It's easy to imagine Geo Clinton never having heard Zappa but then again when I interviewed him ca. 1984 he cited Vanilla Fudge and Sgt Pepper as major influences so who knows? But accusing him of copying Zappa seems a stretch. For my money, There's A Riot Going On is more "artsy-fartsy" than any P-Funk but it's still funky as a mosquito's tweeter. Like the man said, different strokes...

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 26 February 2006 20:48 (eighteen years ago) link

Frank Zappa smoked Funkadelic

actually I think he smoked Winstons. And we all know George inhaled anything/everything he could get his hands on.

this is not to say there's a huge similarity/interesting parallel between their bodies of work. comparison VS competetion

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 26 February 2006 20:53 (eighteen years ago) link

not to say there isn't...fuck a double negative

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 26 February 2006 20:55 (eighteen years ago) link

"George Clinton once said: "Every black musician sould listen to Frank Zappa".

Also, on Funkadelic's 'Alice In My Fantasies' from 1974, there are the lyrics "Mama said, never eat the yellow snow".

In 2002, George Clinton used the intro horn vamp from 'I'm the Slime' during a show at the Electronic Music Fest in Detroit."

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 26 February 2006 20:58 (eighteen years ago) link

!!! wrong again. when you assume...wonder if the influence went the other way? "No Head No Backstage Pass" or "Jimmy's Got A Little Bit of Bitch in Him" might've worked as covers for Zappa.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 26 February 2006 21:02 (eighteen years ago) link

come to think of it Overnite Sensation is plenty fonky.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 26 February 2006 21:11 (eighteen years ago) link

"wonder if the influence went the other way?"

ALEXANDER: I once heard a story that Frank Zappa tried to snatch you, Gary Shider and Glenn Goins.

COOPER: It's a true story. Yeah, that was the week that we played the L.A. Coliseum in '79. Frank Zappa offered me a gig. Stevie Wonder offered me a gig. That's just the way it was. We was hitting hard, and a lot of people was coming after us.

― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 26 February 2006 21:37 (eighteen years ago) link

I think Funkadelic may have supported Zappa early on actually.
It seems that back in the 60s there was some bills that had lots of bands you wouldnt have thought played together(and when you see the posters it all makes sense that they did) bills that just wouldnt happen nowadays.

I wish there was more eclectic bills today.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Chuck, if listening to the records don't make you love them then theres nothing anyone can say to change your mind.
But you must have liked plenty of bands before that you changed your mind upon.
I've read your book years and years ago and it seems you've changed your mind on most of it apart from Kix and Teena Marie hehe.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link

Foghat smoked Funkadelic's feeble stabs at hard rock.

For one I don't think Funkadelic's hard rock was feeble at all.

Anyone with a white Hendrix imitator generally did better than Eddie Hazel

Is nonsense IMO.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Sunday, 26 February 2006 22:35 (eighteen years ago) link

JB's - Hustle With Speed
This is kind of more disco thank funk. It's all really well played, but there's something less than exciting about it. Maybe it's them getting past their peak or grappling with something they don't get as well as the funk of the last years, but it's far less invigorating than I expected.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:18 (eighteen years ago) link

Junie - When We Do
I'm still not feeling Junie at all. Every time I feel my foot tapping, there's some over-fussy fancy guitar or keyboard part to lose me again. By this point, I doubt this is going to change.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link

Tower Of Power - Urban Renewal
A very good album - better singing than on some of theirs, and their usual very punchy playing. I don't think the ballads are remotely in the league of Hi at the time (1975), for instance, but when they are up-tempo, this is terrific.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:19 (eighteen years ago) link

BT Express - Non-Stop
See above, to an extent - very enjoyable funk edging way over towards disco, and only let down by a fairly weedy Close To You cover.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:20 (eighteen years ago) link

Meters - Fire On The Bayou
An utter delight all the way through - not a single misstep, covering the New Orleans R&B territory with imagination and pretty peerless playing. Wonderful.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:21 (eighteen years ago) link

Michael Hampton - Live 2001 San Francisco - Justice League
The first album from the megastack that I've given up on. Hampton plays guitar loudly, and keeps playing it some more. It sounded like there were other musicians about, but since they don't beat Hampton to death with their instruments in the three tracks I managed to endure, it makes me think I might have been imagining them. Fans of fucking interminable '70s rock guitar solos may like this better than I do.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link

Pleasure - Dust Yourself Off
I wasn't sure about this. I quite liked it, but I kind of felt there were two conflicting pulls: towards a rough and tough funk on one hand, and a jazz sophistication on the other. Sometimes one or the other won out for a track, and that worked, and sometimes they more or less worked together, but I never felt like they were going to coexist too happily.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 27 February 2006 20:23 (eighteen years ago) link

don't think any of those white blooz bands could stomp on Funkadelic somehow.

Of course you wouldn't, but here, like on Rolling Metal, you never explain why or even feebly expand the point.

For one I don't think Funkadelic's hard rock was feeble at all.

It was. It has very little thud. No concussion on Standing On the Verge as far as I can tell. And, unfortunately, there were a number of other popular Hendrix-like men who made things lots lots better than "Alice In My Fantasies," "Good Thoughts, Bad Thoughts," and "Maggot Brain." Jim McCarty comes to mind. Trower sticks out like a sore thumb.

aying Deep Purple are funkier than an album containing the likes of "Red Hot Mama" and "Sexy Ways' just seems provocative.

Well sure it is. But Come Taste the Band, for practical purposes, was Deep Purple's funk record -- Bolin's on it -- and its hard rock rocks harder than the stuff I heard that was alleged to on Verge. What made me move Verge quickly off to the side piles was that it sounded half-assed and silly in a dopesmokers-took-over way. Were they fans of Cheech 'n' Chong?

So disagree. First time that's happened in the last five minutes. Black/white; red/green; oil/water; ja!/nein! It's the stuff Rolling Metal is grown on.

Fans of fucking interminable '70s rock guitar solos may like this better than I do.

Boy, that's me sometimes. These thumbnail reviews are great.

― George 'the Animal' Steele, Monday, 27 February 2006 20:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Thanks, George. As someone who lived through the era of fucking interminable '70s rock guitar solos once, I have no desire at all to revisit it. There were very few I could tolerate now or then (though as it happens Robin Trower is one of them).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:04 (eighteen years ago) link

Parlet - live in detroit mi - 10-30-78
Deeply horrible sound quality makes any further comment impossible.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:07 (eighteen years ago) link

Kool & The Gang - 1973 - Wild and Peaceful
This has some of their strongest material, particularly the mighty Jungle Boogie, but it seems a little uncertain what it wants to be, to the point where the title track sounds more like jazz than funk. Still, an excellent album, with loads of fun to be had.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:09 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & The Family Stone - 1968 - Whole New Thing
There are hints of funk and psychedelia, and West Coast pop & rock in particular here, but their debut is really a light soul album. It's likeable and mostly fun, but I don't imagine too many saw nascent greatness in it at the time.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Madhouse - Serve 'Em Madhouse
I didn't pay this huge attention as it was playing - it was in the P-Funk section of the megastack, but I would never have connected it to them from listening - no sign of the rawk tendencies, just lively and rather good funk.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:10 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - 1981 - Nightcruising
It's getting synthy here, a long way from their Memphis soul roots - and it's those roots that are my territory too. Nonetheless, other than dull ballads this is a fun disco album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:11 (eighteen years ago) link

"but I don't imagine too many saw nascent greatness in it at the time."

the record buying public sure didn't - but reportedly Miles Davis and numerous other luminaries of the day were quite taken with it. I think the album's hugely underrated... (and xpost but I'm not gonna bother arguing with chuck and George, a real lost cause there)

Madhouse album is fun, I just got that recently. Recorded in something like two days, apparently!

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 22:35 (eighteen years ago) link

Sorry for the gap - I've been offline almost continuously since last Wednesday. No idea if I'm back for good this time, even.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Ohio Players - Skin Tight
This might be the best of theirs I've heard so far. It's tremendously strong and immaculately played. What sets them apart from most, for me, is something like control.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Rick James - Throwin Down
Patchy. Some strong funk, not far from his best, a decent track with the Temptations, some okay ballads. It's a good album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:40 (eighteen years ago) link

Mutiny - Aftershock 2005
Poor late post-P-Funk effort (from 1995, in case the title misleads), attempting to incorporate some hip hop scratching and the like. Some of it's pretty dreadful, most of it is just not much good.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Pfunk all-stars - live at the beverly theater
This is my favourite so far of the live P-Funk albums, I think. This is one of their late reunion shows, when most of them got back together. They pretty much stick with extended versions of Funkadelic's and Parliament's greatest hits, but thankfully the extension is not guitar wanking but party funk.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Tower Of Power - Bump City
Another of those I quite enjoyed without having much to say, and without recalling much about it. More Memphis soul and less '70s funk than the stronger, later work.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Undisputed Truth - Face To Face With The Truth
The production on here is great - Norman Whitfield at the turn of the '70s is one of my three favourites of all time, and while I kind of felt that he saved most of his best ideas for the Temptations, this is still wonderful, in a 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' kind of way. Sadly, the singing is not in the same class - which isn't to say it's bad, but there are gauche and strained bits that make the minor standing of this band pretty understandable, despite the producer.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Rare Earth - Back To Earth
Less objectionable than some of theirs, but still it sounds like rock with an occasional funk flavouring to me, and I didn't like any of it.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Chambers Brothers - Love, Peace & Happiness
This was enjoyable - lots of boogying R&B in an MGs/Bar-Kays style, and the playing mostly isn't so much behind those great bands. There is the odd mis-step, but it's fun most of the way. It's half studio and half live, which is unusual.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Isley Brothers - Showdown
The early '70s fuzz-guitar style is still there, but this is short of great songs, and it suffers from the 'hey how come I don't get to sing lead?' syndrome of bands that have been round for a while, unless it's the new younger trio that are to blame for this, which it probably is. There is still some nice guitar and singing, but less consistently, and without the magnificent high spots. Only good, not great.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Funk, Inc - Funk Inc
I liked this a lot - loads of strong playing, enormous variety covering jazz, jazz-funk, '60s R&B, funk, Sly & the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, most of the black US territory of the time. Terrific throughout. It's their debut.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Ohio Players - Climax
A bit of a cobbled together mess by their previous label as they were starting at the next. Mostly well below par.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - Live 03-21-1978, Houston, the Summit
Not great sound quality, and while I enjoyed bits here and there, there's far too much standing at the front of the stage, pulling a face and trying to make the guitars scream. (Yes I know this is audio only, but you know I'm right.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - Star Walk
There's some fifth-rate singing on this that really drags it down. Otherwise it's generally pretty good funk and disco, with Larry restraining his slap bass solo tendencies.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Albert King - Years Gone By
Very classy blues album, produced by perhaps my favourite musician ever, the great Al Jackson, but since it isn't anything to do with funk it doesn't really belong here.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Zapp - 1984 - The New Zapp IV U
There's supposedly a fresh style on this one, but it's hard to spot. Solid enough funk plus horrible vocoder singing. A nasty version of the doowop classic I Only Have Eyes For You is particularly bad.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link

don't know if they're in yr stash but some of Albert King's Stax LPs are soul-verging-on-funk backed by the Bar-Kays. especially sweet is I Wanna Get Funky from 1972.Years Gone By is dope.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 6 March 2006 16:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, that one is there, and the change is clearly why there are Albert King albums in the stack.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 16:06 (eighteen years ago) link

is the Beverly Theater P-Funk thing the 2-CD thing with Dennis Chambers...? that's some good shit.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 6 March 2006 17:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Well I just got an MP3 folder, but I am fairly sure the answer is yes.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 18:11 (eighteen years ago) link

don't know if they're in yr stash but some of Albert King's Stax LPs are soul-verging-on-funk backed by the Bar-Kays. especially sweet is I Wanna Get Funky from 1972.Years Gone By is dope.

The thought of Martin having a stash made me chuckle.

Great to have you back martin and a whole load of fresh reviews to enjoy is great!

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 6 March 2006 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't understand why that is amusing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

(bah i should do some more of those lessons: the next one wz tyrannosaurus rex)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 6 March 2006 21:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Rick James - Bustin' Out Of L Seven
I've found my American friends are mystified at his almost non-existent musical profile here, but he had zero top 40 hits in the UK. I'm certainly a fan by now, and this is good, but this one rather washed over me without making too much impression - lacks a strong tune or two, I thought.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Slave - The Hardness Of The World
I got some stick for being too dismissive of the first Slave album I played, so I paid a bit more attention this time. The music is probably stronger and richer than I'd noticed, but some things are much worse. 'Can't Get Enough Of You' may be the most rubbish lyric I've ever heard. Had I not been paying attention, I'd not have noticed the vacuity of the words; overall, still not a fan.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Tal Ross - Aka Detrimental Vasoline-Giant Shirley
Is there some P-Funk link here? Most of the dreary rock in the stash proves to have some connection back to George Clinton. This is rolling, boogying stuff rather than guitar hero wanking, and his voice is likeable in an inept soul kind of way, but it's not my thing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

J.B.'s - Doing It To Death
I'm not sure if this is real-live or the old soul studio-live, but whatever, producer James Brown is all over this with chants and intros and stuff. It's absolutely magnificent playing - there aren't many bands I'd rather listen to than the great J.B.'s line-ups. The material here is short of stellar, but the punch and energy with which they play it are irresistible.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Otis Day & The Nights - Shout
You might recognise the name: this was the band at the party in Animal House. It was created for the movie, with an actor in the front role, but someone had the smart idea of making it into a real band, with the same actor singing. They toured successfully, and George Clinton produced this album. It makes gestures at his kind of funk in the early tracks, and otherwise goes for party R&B. Neither is any good, frankly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Rufus & Chaka Khan - Master Jam
I'm not sure about this one. I like Rufus's punchy funk, and I like Quincy Jones slick productions, but I'm not convinced they belong together. It seems to lose the edge without becoming as smoothly lovely as QJ's best. We still get Chaka Khan's potent singing, so it's still an enjoyable album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Stone City Band - Boys Are Back
I hadn't realised that this was Rick James' backing band, and Rick produced this and wrote some of it. He's not wasting his best material on them, and some of this is hopelessly lame. At its best, it's still only pretty good.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

War - Deliver The Word
Another that I'm equivocal about. A couple of really terrific funk numbers (especially Me And Baby Brother), but lots of faffing around elsewhere, too much of the jazz and even '70s rock/prog tendencies in places. Some great tracks, but not an album I can love.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Commodores - Movin' On
I dare say it's the backwards-influence of decades of annoying blandness since, and if Lionel Richie or the group had never had all the Easy/Hello ballad hits I would find him a decent soul singer, maybe better - but I can't. The instrumental funk numbers are pretty good - though I didn't think there's anything as kinetic as Machine Gun, for instance - but the Lionel slowies really put me off.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Tawl Ross was guitarist on the early Funkadelic albums along with Eddie Hazel!!!!
He was one of the drug casualties and didn't make anything after funkadelic until that album in the 90s.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Fabulous Counts - Jan Jan
An uneven album more in the instrumental R&B vein than funk, for the most part. It kind of takes off occasionally with a wild party vibe and plenty of hammond, and I like it a lot at those moments - but they really aren't frequent enough.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link

oh also: sorry to anyone who cares, and I will try to get back to a better schedule than weekly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Albert King - Blues At Sunset
haha, beat this for a lame first sentence (from the bio on AMG): "Albert King is truly a "King of the Blues," although he doesn't hold that title (B.B. does)." He's a pleasure to listen to, and this is a live run-through of lots of familiar material, all beautifully played. This is immediately before his funk turn, but I can't say there is too much suggestion of that on this album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - Too Hot to Stop
Plenty of line-up changes by this point of course, but they maintain the high standards of musicianship from the beginning. They've shifted a long way from Stax towards P-Funk by this point, and that's a bad move for my tastes - and the material here is less than stellar. It's still a pleasure, but I can't get that excited.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Bootsy's Rubber Band - Bootsy Player of the Year
The faster material here (Hollywood Squares and up, in tempo terms) are amongst the greatest moments, for my funkier tastes, in the entire P-Funk oeuvre. Funky and fun, wonderfully played, with tunes and songs. The ballads (are there any other P-Funk albums with as many of them?) are les thrilling, but the highs make this among the best P-Funk albums I've ever heard.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - live in japan '92
A bootleg, I guess, and I don't know who's in the band, but it's basically a crowd-pleasing set with lots of old material including ample Sly & the Family Stone content. The playing is good, Larry isn't too indulgent with the fuzzy slap bass - though he still wants it to be a lead instrument - and it's mostly good fun.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Mutiny - Black Hat Daddy & The Silver Comb Gang
This starts appallingly, with a very clumsy Led Zeppish number, except it doesn't rock much, but much of the rest is better, more straight P-Funk style. I can't say I was crazy about any of it, and there was probably as much that I disliked as that I liked.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Parlet - The Best of Parlet
The playing (is it entirely by Parliament?) is excellent, and the singing is fine (though I don't think any of these women who normally worked as P-Funk backing singers were ever likely to become solo stars). As best ofs go, this has remarkably little memorable material or strong songs, and I guess that's why this spin-off never took off.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & The Family Stone - Anthology
This is something like as good as it gets: I'm not that big a fan of West Coast/psychedelic pop and rock, but Sly's soul and R&B and funk elements are another matter, and he blends them all seamlessly into something wholly his own. Obviously anyone could throw these things together, but getting some really talented musicians isn't so easy, and Sly is a genuinely great singer, and wrote a whole load of wonderful songs. I'm not suggesting that this comp is all you need of the band (there are, say, four really great normal albums), but it's a good and sound selection, and therefore an absolutely magnificent album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Bloodstone - Natural High
A strange band who seem not to have wanted to settle on a style. This isn't a bad thing in principle, but when you decide to record Little Green Apples it may be time to think again (though I concede that it is superbly sung here). The album is all over the place, but when they find the right energy level to suit the material and style they sound absolutely fantastic.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Brides Of Funkenstein - Live at Howard Theatre
I don't know what to make of this, and AMG knows nothing of this guy James Wesley Jackson who is very prominent on it. Anyway, otherwise we have P-Funk of a loose and fairly funky stripe, and another bunch of female singers never bound for the big time.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Cameo - Feel Me
There seem to be a string of quite good Cameo albums harking back to P-Funk and some Detroit acts, and hinting at the sinuous, muscular style they found in the mid-80s. This is one of them. I kind of like it, but I struggle to think of much else to say.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Stevie Wonder - Talking Book
I'm a colossal fan of Motown, but for some reason Stevie Wonder was never one of my big favourites there. I loved Uptight, for example, but this album features what are for me the two extremes of his mature work. Superstition is a wonderful record, funky and original and irresistibly catchy. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life is another matter - inarguably classy songwriting, but it's so lightweight and anodyne, and I never liked it. It seemed to me that we got too much of this stuff from Stevie, and that's kind of true here on one of his acknowledged masterpieces. Some of it's lovely and I can see its rep, some of it doesn't suit me.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm amazed you are not a fan of Stevie Wonder. I thought he would be one of your faves.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Saturday, 18 March 2006 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

A reasonable guess, yeah, but bar Uptight and Superstition there is almost nothing I care about.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Wait til you play Innervisions. I was never a fan of his bar the early singles until i heard that album.
Theres some cracking footage of him playing The Beat Club from around the time of Innervisions. Its brilliant.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:27 (eighteen years ago) link

I reckon I'm something like a third of the way through now. I have been noting down the albums I like best, so that I can be sure to have them burnt onto all-terrific CDRs at the end of this. So, the favourites from the first third (which you can deduce from reading the reviews, I guess) are (the order is that in which they came in):

Parliament - Chocolate City
Funkadelic - Live in Dayton 1981
Mutiny - Mutiny On The Mamaship
Bootsy's Rubber Band - Bootsy Player of the Year
Bootsy Collins - live in louisville 1978
Sly & The Family Stone - Anthology
Pfunk all-stars - live at the beverly theater
Betty Davis - s/t
Blackbyrds - s/t
Bloodstone - train ride to hollywood
Curtis Mayfield - Roots
Funk, Inc - s/t
Graham Central Station - Ain’t No ‘Bout-A-Doubt It
Headhunters - Survival Of The Fittest
Isaac Hayes - At Wattstax
Isley Brothers - Givin' It Back
Isley Brothers - Brother, Brother, Brother
James Brown - Live At The Apollo Vol.2 1967
James Brown - Live In Zaire
Kool & The Gang - Wild and Peaceful
Kool & The Gang - Spirit Of The Boogie
Mandrill - composite truth
Meters - cabbage alley
Meters - Fire On The Bayou
Rick James - Come get it
Rufus & Chaka Khan - Ask Rufus
Pleasure - Joyous
Bar-Kays - Soul Finger
Chairmen Of The Board - In Session
Ohio Players - Pain
Ohio Players - Skin Tight
Tower of Power - Back To Oakland
Tower of Power - Urban Renewal
War - All Day Music
Jimmy McGriff - I've Got a Woman

That looks a bit scant for the jazz, but I've been really liking almost all of the Mingus, Jimmy Smith and Herbie Hancock (that's almost 50 albums between those three).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 March 2006 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Some of the Herbie Hancock stuff is funk. So you can review it here!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 20 March 2006 02:27 (eighteen years ago) link

Mico Wave - 1987 - From The Inside Out!!!

P-Funk of a reasonably enjoyable kind, more at the funk end than the heavy rock end, maybe even more Bootsy than Clinton. Another that didn't make a powerful impression, I'm afraid.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - 1970 - Funkadelic
An excellent early album with a bit more '60s R&B and soul still audible, not too excessive an amount of heavy rock guitar, and some strong funk.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:45 (eighteen years ago) link

James Brown - Live At The Apollo
Okay, I had this already, but um, it was labelled with the wrong year so maybe it was a different - nah, really I just wanted to include it on one of these CDs, and I particularly wanted to play it now because I just got the 33 1/3 book on it by one Douglas Wolk, so it was a good time to play it again. The book's terrific, by the way, and it makes me hear a bunch of new things in this, but it was already one of my all-time favourite albums, certainly one of my three favourite live albums ever. It's an exhilirating, fiery experience.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Mandrill - Just Outside Of Town
I really like Mandrill. They try all sorts of things. Not all of them work, but hardly any strike me as not worth hearing, and some are terrific. This for instance features some cool jazzy vibes, and some of the best super-heavy funk I've heard. There are dull spots, but I like a band that makes me check my diskman (which plays MP3 disks with a dozen or so albums on) to see if we have moved on to some other act.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Rick James - Fire It Up
This one feels a touch routine, a bit 'will this do?'. I like his style - with a dash of extra disco this time - so I'm happy to hear him even off form, but this is undistinguished work.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & The Family Stone - Live Dallas TX 09-01-69
Not a great mix on what I take to be a bootleg, but when that isn't a problem this is tremendous, even though it comes before or right at the start of their greatest period.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - Cold Blooded
Mid-'70s Memphis R&B by one of the band's line-ups. It's the kind of thing I can listen to all day - but in all honesty I could listen to it all day without getting to this rather ordinary though very skilled example of the style.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Chairmen of the Board - Bittersweet
I know it isn't one of the first couple of big hits that come to mind for most people from this band, but Bittersweet is probably my favourite of their songs. I don't know exactly what's going on in the chorus in technical terms, but I find it hugely affecting, and I think it may be General Johnson's best vocal performance. It also has a genuine 'what the fuck?' middle section. This album is mostly somewhere near this kind of elevated level, with a couple of weaker tracks but none of the MOR disasters of previous albums (the man responsible had left the band by now). A great album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - Live In London
I'm kind of getting bored with them by now, but this is thoroughly enjoyable when they do songs I like (mostly Sly numbers) and when Larry isn't too egotistical. Their own material doesn't hold up so well, I think.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link

Mutiny - Funk Plus The One
There is loads of P-Funk and related material in the megastack, and while I am loving some of it, and disliking the rock end of things, even the copyists who don't lean much that way, mostly, are sometimes pointless. Mutiny aren't bad, they sound like P-Funk, but I don't really see why we need them.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:55 (eighteen years ago) link

Fuzzy Haskins - Radioactive
He's no kind of singer, and while there's nothing terribly wrong with this - there's quite a lot of good playing, for instance - it's kind of routine, lacking any great songs to make up for the vocal inadequacies. Since he was a major member of the Clinton bands, see above for comments really.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:55 (eighteen years ago) link

oh also: sorry to anyone who cares, and I will try to get back to a better schedule than weekly.

Fortnightly?

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Sunday, 2 April 2006 14:25 (eighteen years ago) link

ha, sorry: I'll try to catch up tomorrow, possibly...

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 2 April 2006 18:57 (eighteen years ago) link

one year passes...

I wish Martin would start posting again.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy, Saturday, 14 April 2007 00:37 (seventeen years ago) link

this is an incredible thread.

― BIG HOOS aka the steendriver, Saturday, 14 April 2007 01:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Hell yeah.

― Bimble, Saturday, 14 April 2007 05:40 (seventeen years ago) link

one year passes...

Martin come back and finish the reviews!

― Pfunkboy Formerly Known As... (Herman G. Neuname), Friday, 28 November 2008 17:33 (fifteen years ago) link

two years pass...

classic

― cold gettin' dumb (m coleman), Wednesday, 27 July 2011 21:42 (twelve years ago) link

Forgot about this thread.

― Scharlach Sometimes (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 28 July 2011 01:34 (twelve years ago) link

One of the first replies is bimble

― No. I think social networks need to keep it real (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 28 July 2011 01:36 (twelve years ago) link

I'll never forget his excitement about these dvdr-s. Hope they go to a good home. It's a real shame he never got to finish reviewing them always hoped he would one day come back to ilx and restart this thread.
RIP Martin. You and Bimble are going to have some great chats on a cloud.

― Armand Schaubroeck Ratfucker, Thursday, 28 July 2011 08:53 (twelve years ago) link

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