Martin's funk thread

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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

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.

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


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