Martin's funk thread

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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

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