Get Off Your Ass and JAM with The Rolling ILX Funk Listening Club: New Selections Weekly! Updated Mondays and Fridays! All ILXors and Lurkers Welcome!

That's a great surprise seeing Mandre as one of this weeks picks. That's easily my favourite of his first three albums. I definitely agree about the artwork, especially compared to how great the first two albums look. His lost fourth album has recently been reissued on CD I keep meaning to order it.

I just bought a bunch of Bohannon records recently (Keep On Dancin', Bohannon and Dance Your Ass Off) Stop & Go was my next one on the list to get but it's the one I never seem to be able to find for a decent price. He's just brilliant, I've loved everything I've heard by him so far.

Haven't heard that Graham Central Station album but will be checking it out for sure.

Yow! Sorry, funksters - thought I wasn't due until later in the month. (It's been a busy summer and I haven't been following the thread's progress.) Let me think up a few albums and accompanying remarks right this minute...

(Oh wait...looks like I was bumped ahead a week, so it's not actually my memory that's at fault, after all. Anyways...)

Parliament - Osmium (1970)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b0p31jZ2ttw/RupsWCYMIbI/AAAAAAAAAdQ/rJix_dok9lU/s320/Parliament+osmium+1970.jpg

Not only is this more of a Funkadelic than Parliament album, it's also more like a 1975 Funkadelic than a 1970 one. In the words of Xgau: "What happens when a black harmony group names an album after the heaviest metal, depluralizes its name, and pluralizes its music? It may be pretentious bullshit, but it sure is interesting pretentious bullshit--bagpipes and steel guitars, Bach and rock, Satchmo as Kingfish, work chants as dozens, all in the service of a world view in which love/sex becomes frightening, even brutal, and no less credible for that."

Larry Young - Lawrence of Newark (1973)
http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drf500/f518/f51877ma6lq.jpg

This is kinda halfway between In a Silent Way and On The Corner, with LOTS of percussion (two full kit drummers plus congas and bells). Plus guest appearances by Pharoah Sanders and James Blood Ulmer! (Actually, upon reflection, maybe this is more appropriate to the jazz listeners thread (bass is acoustic) but I'm too lazy to change it now.

The Commodores - Machine Gun
http://img516.imageshack.us/i/commodoresmachinegun1lh.jpg/

I hate Lionel Richie as much as the next guy, so it's easy enough to assign most of the credit to his bandmates. No ballads!

"Lawrence of Newark" is fantastic, not sure what it's doing on a funk thread tho!

machine gun rules, all 3 albums are brilliant great picks!

xpost - Yeah, I should've second-guessed myself. So howbout we just pretend it's not there and substitute THIS:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41E4Z2QCQRL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

Let's be greedy and have both, both are awesome

has that Larry Young album been ref'd on some other thread...? I've never heard it but it looks familiar. I think Osmium's kinda a mess personally, but not without its merits. It's like a test-run for America Eats Its Young. Commodores album is ace, proof that they never should have let Lionel take over the songwriting

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_WYSTqa5QopU/R_4N6ZQ-c1I/AAAAAAAAC4o/oFjM4muYt6Q/s320/Across%2B110th%2BStreet.jpg

Across 110th Street
Bobby Womack

Spotify link

This is mostly about the godlike title track, which appears here in three different and wonderful versions, but there's some interesting other stuff too. There are a few instrumental themes, which are pleasant if not particularly memorable. The other four songs are more soulful, 'Do It Right' being the standout - it's a fairly dirty soul/rock affair with an ecstatic bridge, I love it.

The album is the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film of the same name, which I've never seen but would like to. Wikipedia says it's a violent affair: "By-the-book black police Lieutenant Pope (Kotto) has to work with crude, racist and streetwise Italian-American Captain Mattelli (Quinn). They are looking for three blacks who slaughtered five men—three blacks and two Italians—in the robbery of $300,000 from a Mafia-owned Harlem policy bank".

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http://ecoloinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/band1.jpg

High Times
Jamiroquai

Spotify link

My campaign to rehabilitate this lot continues. Fantastic singles band, so I've just gone for the greatest hits. Beautifully-structured pop songs, good voice and great playing. I like the arrangements too, the sort of crusty/eco tip they started out on annoyed me at the time but in this context it breaks things up nicely. Mostly funk-lite with a bit of disco, and a couple of dirty squelchers as a nice bonus. The run all the way to 'Feels Just Like It Should' is up there with anyone imo.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK5GZKtSdy8

Live At Ronnie Scott's
Curtis Mayfield

No spotify link, nor have I been able to find a helpful download link for ye

This is a 1988 live album recorded at Ronnie Scott's in London. It'd hardly be worth posting it, except that it was also filmed and I acquired the DVD recently. Marvellous watching. It's just great to see him, unshowy but with absolute assurance, carry the crowd with him in such an intimate setting.

There's one obvious flaw in the film, which would be horrible if it weren't overwhelmed by the performance and the wisdom of the man, but if you don't know it I'll let you discover it for yourselves!

The performance above is my favourite, but it's all great. I've found almost the whole thing on youtube, links below (replacing xxxx with http obviously).

xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL0oz8vmBw4 - “Little Child Runnin' Wild”
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HCRSkXa8U8 - “It's All Right”
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBrnzqbGMaU - “People Get Ready”
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUlzJu4BiSU - “Pusherman”/“Freddie's Dead”
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwYM2Fj9nrc - “I'm So Proud”/“Billy Jack”/“We Got to Have Peace”
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK5GZKtSdy8 - “Move on Up”
xxxx://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YE65KuhH7Co - “To Be Invisible”

(the last one isn't from Ronnie Scott's, but I can't find a version from the dvd - it may actually be just over the credits, I can't remember right now)

boooo fake crap funk alert!! no stupid essex boys in crap hats!

seriously, a truly awful band.

hush now, funk is a broad church

Er, the dog's eaten my homework... I don't suppose I can have an extension can I? [/blushes]

How about some time next month? Then I promise I will be as funky as my fat St Helens ass will let me.

I'm wondering whether it's:
(i) Bobby Womack;
(ii) Curtis Mayfield; or
(iii) Jay Kay
who's enough to kill a funk thread stone dead.

No worries doran, next person to volunteer can do it!

Anyone want to volunteer for this week or for future weeks?

Does anyone want funk club to continue? Will a hoy hoy, shakey & tuomas come back?

My campaign to rehabilitate this lot continues

you have a long, thankless task ahead of you

great 110th St loop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5vd67vTysE

shakey you want to do this week?

sure I guess so

I'm still around

If peeps are reluctant to keep this going, howbout just doing one LP a week? I was considering offering up Wild Cherry's debut, just for the polarizing factor involved.

shakey was meant to post

Sorry for killing your club - that particular polarising effect seems not to go down too well.

One LP a week is what this should always have been imo. I tried hard to keep up but got totally swamped. I'm still checking out Hell. It also makes nominating hard, in a worse way, than narrowing down to just one beloved album.

um one a week is good with me, in which case I won't have to come up with two other albums besides this underrated (shit it's practically unknown, afaict) gem, which I return to often:
Les McCann - Live at Montreaux 1973
http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS6N48Sz_S3qlkko5qsublOFGgQRFDE69Kj2AdH9MsYWTXRfHM&t=1&usg=__75RdA_O1qrPAbWnAy7GAICD1kM8=
Not nearly as famous as its predecessor with Eddie Harris, but I think this one's actually better. And a double LP to boot. McCann's voice and playing are in top shape, real greasy. Rahsaan Roland Kirk stops by for a song and plays a continuous, single note solo that lasts for like two minutes. Great versions of Get Yourself Together, Compared to What, The Price You Got to Pay to Be Free. On the jazz funk end of things, obviously but stuff like this really blurred the line between R&B and jazz.

Anyone up for reviving this? 1 album a week every Monday if so.
I'd go first so if anyone wishes a week after that please say so

26 August 2013 - Pfunkboy
2 September -

Will work better now the usa has spotify

and of course sneaky stuff for the obscure albums as before ;)

previous albums allowed yes or no?

I'd be keen on getting into this, and I would say yes to previous albums, if only as a refresher. I could stand to broaden my funk horizons.

Cool. Will i put you down for a week?

I was actually thinking of expanding it to Classic Funk/Soul/Black Acid Rock Listening club. A wee bit more choice for everyone. So if there's enough interest I'll start (new thread) on monday with the first album.

Yeah, put me down for a week. I've got a couple albums in mind already.

I'll be listening but I have no business doing a week.

ok. Any other related genre(s) we could expand it to?
(There was a separate R&B listening club so might not be best to include it with this incase they want to start it up again)

funky jazz stuff? stuff that proper jazzheads laugh at?

yes

jazz-funk is fine (think we did Donald Byrd - Blackbyrd one time)

ok

want a week then?

I guess I'll take a week then! but it probably won't be what I was just talking about I was just interested in the boundaries.

unless you're all down with the Jimmy Page soundtrack to Death Wish II lol

hah, I guess there's enough volunteers/interest to start a Funk/Soul/Black Acid Rock/Jazz-Funk Listening Club

Anyone else wanting to volunteer?

26 August 2013 - Pfunkboy
2 September - Tom Violence
9 September - Viceroy