teaching mark s a *LESSON* response three: FUNKADELIC

Best quote: "Mr. Luis Flores, aka Luis Maquina or La Maquina was interviewed by Marla Friedler. He is one of the celebrated great dancers frim the Palladium days. She asked him: 'Did you dance on the 2? His answer: 'don't talk that shit to me, the 2, the 1. I danced on the clave.'"

maybe it's how clinton translates "unusquisque nunc demum eventurus est"!!

in a bigger voice: "And isn't overhyped analysis of any and all Musical Cosmic Significance exactly what George Clinton sets out to destroy through parody (Sir Nose is, after all, too cool to dance or swim, so he must be thrown in) and downhome funky-ass grooves, so when he says he hits it 'on the One' you better just believe it?"

in a really loud voice: "Holy shit could I, one of the most pretentious P.Funk fans on the planet, have been missing a whole strain of P.-retentiousity all this time and not even KNOWN IT??"

I would like to hear more about what the actual song sounds like. Of course I have heard lots of Funkadelic but never this album or song (ahem please bear that in mind...) and I get more of an idea of the themes/aesthetic that plays into it than the actual material sound (what exactly does "the product of the face-to-face chemistry of dozens (if not hundreds) of minds in immediate or remembered contact" sound like in the song, where do you hear that, what noises represent it?)

Sort of leading on from that, what is "THE ENTIRETY OF THE BASE LEVEL OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION," really? (I first transcribed this as "BASS LEVEL," heheh.) It's a very amorphous concept. Isn't this really just another type of Lifeforce? Yes, a dirtier, more material Lifeforce, a Lifeforce for Marxists, but a less idealized one? I'm not so sure. However messy the album may be, it is still an album, and "Miss Lucifer" is still a track on the album, and the track still has a beginning and an end and a discrete running time... in other words, it has a form. And some things are included within that form and some things are excluded, presumably. You seem to be saying that the base level of social organization is somehow reproduced on a mimetic level here, and I don't see how that's possible really. You talk about being able to hear all the process of social interaction that went into the making of the track, but still, this is hardly equivalent to the entire base level of social organization; perhaps you mean this micro-version of social organization (or "process"--I assume this is what you meant by "subversion," Clinton's subversion of the Process Church) represents the macro-version (which includes, what, the economic system etc., at least reading into the Marxist undertones of "base"), in which case, again, there is a gap between micro and macro, representation and... some people are in the band, on the bridge of the starship, and some people are not (I mean, if you want to talk process art, there were lots of contemporaries in the quote-unquote "fine art"/"performance" world who took it much further than Clinton.)

Sort of leading on from that, I'm not so sure that Clinton did actually avoid hipster/masses politics, and I think he encouraged touchy-feely/metaphysical understandings of the funk more than a teeny bit. After all, he did invent a cosmology at whose heart was a character called Sir Nose D'Void of Funk, basically a white guy who can't dance, who was set in opposition to the liberating force of the funk (this all played into funk vs. disco, too, if I recall correctly... the liberating rhythm of the funk vs. the mechanized robot-control-dance of disco...) Maybe he hadn't quite gotten to that point at the time of this album, but it didn't come out of nowhere. And aren't you giving that sleeve a bit too much credit? I don't know that you really make the case that he's escaping what you call "loser politics" here--this "round and round" short-circuit effect that you see created between the sleeve art and the text is pretty subtle, because the illustration is far more powerful and I don't know that too many people would get the latin or try and think their way out of the riddle... if it's really there.

five will be next ("next")

this mean "lesson: supplementary" may yet be salsa!!

(five is not my favourite number)

(i am off up-country to look after my agein ailin parents right now tho, and not back til tue)

I think this is due for a revive.

Weird. I randomly put on AEIY only last night. First time I'd played it since, well, probably 2005.

did it sound any better?

Some bits did sound better! But some bits sounded worse. I have grown into some of it and out of other bits maybe.

totally forgot I was quoted at the top of this thread lol

I don't think I would subscribe to the sentiment expressed anymore - while it's largely true I'm to big a fan of Dylan's christian period to really think that anymore even if, in general, converts don't have as interesting musical careers as people that were just always straight-up religious.

too big argh

also think it's weird to cast Clinton as a "convert" to the Process Church, which I don't think was really ever the case.

would you say the beatles "converted" to TM?

or would you say they just "flirted" with it

the only Beatle who "converted" to anything was Harrison

I caught an art program on GC last week on Sky Arts. Apparently he's colourblind but still makes pretty cool art. Inspired by his cover artist to go into creating art for sale.

Holy shit.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Sunday, June 15, 2003 7:11 AM (9 years ago)

first response hof

Sooooo is it totally heretical to acknowledge Maggot Brain as an undisputed great and classic album and think that America Eats Its Young is an even greater and more classic album? Because get ready to excommunicate yrs truly, if so.

Also, gahdamn, mark s, when does your 33 1/3 book about the album drop?

America Eats Its Young is their worst album.

Like let's make a baggy sprawling incoherent rock album that Zappa fans might like. Where is Shakey when he's needed?

where is Shakey?

kidnapped by chaki iirc

Don't worry, he's just taking a break.

America Eats Its Young is their worst album.

― Video reach stereo bog (Tom D.), Thursday, February 22, 2018 1:56 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Okay, I thought *I* was bringing the challops itt, but (bows to the master).

What's worse? Remember this on the proviso that the worst Funkadelic is n times better than the best Zappa album, or whatever.

The album has felt especially resonant to me over the past year. I can't even count how many times I've listened to it.

The repeated refrain of 'y'all see my point' in 'Biological Speculation' might be my favorite slow-burn, super-subtle delivery of a casual threat ever.

If Zappa had recorded albums like this album I would probably like Zappa, but as it stands IDGI.

But yeah, I'll grant you that even the worst Funkadelic album (whichever it is) is better than most things.

Great tracks on it - it's Clinton/Funkadelic - but it's still my least favourite.

"If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause" is one of the greatest, aptest adages that George Clinton stumbled on. I quote it often.

That's another winner!

wowee zowee this thread is a nostalgia rush...

The worst period of Funkadelic is the period between Let's Take It To The Stage and One Nation Under a Groove, but that's only cuz Clinton was focusing more on Parliament's releases during that time. America Eats Its Young isn't in my Top 10 p-funk albums (then again, neither is Maggot Brain) but I like it just fine.

Been listening to/liking a lot that Reworked By Detroiters thing that came out last year. Embarrassed to admit I'm not familiar with at least half of the originals!

Bravo Mark, that was like crawling over the cover of the album as you described it, only it was already like that before you got to the cover (also reminded me of the cover of Uncle Meat etc). Lots of good points and info (I knew some of that, being old, but also have another unwelcome memory of a promo of Process hymns re Jesus alternating with hymns re Satan, released and I think recorded this century by hipsters).
A lot of amazingly good music has been made by people with beliefs I don't particulary give a shit about, especially jazz.
A number of ilxors would include Dylan's Trouble No More, but for me the musical (incl his vocal) powers of the sampler are too supportive of his paranoid rants, much more about what another poster called cocaine dreams or thoughts and the excitement of (after midlife crisis of Street Legal, Dylany imagery now sounding homeless on "Changing of the Guard), he's righteous Boy Dylan back bitch and better, having finally found The Point and Winning/Saved and having the biz means to rant big---
Speaking of "rock and soul speaking to each other, reminds me of the precariously hopeful cosmic poetic ballads and guitar punks defiantly celebrating "My Black Uncertainty" and non-rhetorically asking of their album mates/selves and others, "Are You Insaaane?"---on Burnt Sugar's 2017 All You Zombies Dig The Luminosity.
It's all here: https://burntsugarthearkestrachamber.bandcamp.com/album/all-you-zombies-dig-the-luminosity