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!

Same principle as Mordy's Metal Listening Club Volume #2: April 19 thru 25, 2010 - Fates Warning, Cradle of Filth and HIM... All ILXors and Lurkers welcome!

It's like a book club except for funk albums obviously.
Each wednesday 3 albums will be posted (no illegal d/l links, you will have to find albums yourself if you want to do it that way *cough*

You may be able to find albums on Spotify,lala.com,grooveshark etc or you can buy from itunes or those 2nd hand record shops or bargain bins or from your own collection,slsk, whatever suits you.

Everyone is free to post their thoughts on those albums in whatever way you want to, liveblogging is fine if you wish. Just discuss away!
Even when that week ends it doesn't mean discussion has to stop on those albums. ilx0rs can join in anytime.

Everyone can have a turn choosing their albums if they so wish, if noone wants a shot, shakey mo & I can do it.

Week one - Wednesday 21/4.
Album #1
Funkadelic - Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On
http://soulfunkjazz.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/front3.jpg
Spotify link

Album #2
Ohio Players - Pleasure
http://images.uulyrics.com/cover/t/the-ohio-players/album-pleasure.jpg
Spotify link

Album #3
Mandrill - Is
http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/04/bc/28ea228348a09cc06b948110.L.jpg
No spotify link unfortunately, but please do try finding it somewhere!

Went for a Funkadelic classic that's not quite the obvious choice. Chose a Westbound era Ohio Players album just to please shakey..
And Mandrill are awesome.

So listen away and post your thoughts!

Shakey is doing next weeks choices, any volunteers for after that?

pleasure is one of the greatest albums ever. it's kinda perfect. so is IS actually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr55GRDYpkg

i haven't played standing on the verge in years. um, it's great too. i should play it. if i can find it at home.

(the whole Mandrill album is on youtube)

yay the skot seal of approval!
(ps skot when are you choosing your albums for the metal club?)

Awesome, great work, will listen and compare to footballers.

i... i CAN'T free my ass... I CAN'T FREE MY ASS...

don't think I've ever heard that particular Mandrill album before in its entirety, will obtain shortly...

It's not hard to find .

i was just playing pleasure last week and it is like some sort of ideal for me as far as music goes. or music in album form anyway. album as art form. it is right up there with any of my fave p-funk records. it is definitely an album that lives up to its title.

thread bookmarked. :)

Turangalila says he will do a classical listening club.

jon lewis free your ass!

imho "Pleasure" is probably the best Ohio Players album. It synthesizes a lot of the then-current funk hallmarks really well: the tight, punchy horn section that you just know is composed of guys who would rather be ripping their way through complex jazz standards but instead are gettin down and dirty for the paycheck/girls/good drugs (the arrangements here are particularly reminiscent of their contemporaries Kool & the Gang); forward-thinking (for the time) adoption of new technologies (i.e., synthesizers) to of often sleazy or comical ends; Sly & The Family Stone-ish vocal tics; an amazing rhythm section. I don't think they ever topped "Funky Worm", which is definitive funk cartoon silliness wedded to some very creative synths and a super-heavy beat (the single and album versions differ significantly fwiw, not sure which I prefer, really).

Also, this album is just DIRTY. A lot of funk made sly allusions to sexuality and its rhythms were deliberately constructed to facilitate bumpin and grindin but you have to hand it to the Players' for being just a little more ballsy and up-front about it than others. the covers of these albums tell you exactly what yr getting, and the music never really takes any detours into more "serious" territory. entire discography is more or less exclusively about fucking.

the filthy bastards

Walter "Junie" Morrison is on the Westbound albums before he jumped ship to join Parliament/Funkadelic.

the ohio players album on Spotify has loads of bonus tracks btw

step one, not going to make it through tonight.

sold right off the bat on funkadelic album thx to red hot momma. sooooooo tight, wish they still recorded albums this way, dense and spacious at the same time, guitar is fucking burning it up.

feeling stupid for never digging further than the core p/funk albums (maggot brain etc.) its late, so im going to get a little loose in my reactions here, but there is legit heavyness here, and there was a point in alice in my fantasies where i KNEW that the bad brains had spent some time with this song. complete w/a little taste of proto-H.R. insano vocal psycho.

yeah this shit is incredible. dumb me for not already owning it.

not really coming up with the words to describe how thick and soupy this album is, even wrt old tech recording. can def see the crossover potential between doom and some of this kerm!

ok prob just going to sit back and listen, because my only real live blogging at this point would be OH YES YES YES.

This sounds like a cool idea, I'll definitely join in!

Shakey is doing next weeks choices, any volunteers for after that?

If we can have a special jazz-funk theme week, I'll volunteer to do that.

density less prevalent on trk 6 (jimmy etc) but this song is all zappa-ey (and yeah i get that this is the origin, and his is the interpretation). guitar on 7 is just fucking perfect. buying this as we speak, thx dudes, will be listening to this in constant loop for a while!

eMusic has the Funkadelic and Ohio Players albums...maybe I'll get them when my new downloads roll over this weekend.

I've got a few albums I'm desperate to acquire, I'll do the noms one week and we can get it down together

i'd like to join. can someone send me a spotify invite? email : 09001✧✧✧@studentm✧✧✧.u✧.i✧

Shakey is doing next weeks choices, any volunteers for after that?

― pfunkboy (Herman G. Neuname), Wednesday, 21 April 2010 22:48 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i can if you want.

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On - Went through this on Best 70s FUNK Album aka ilx helps Sam discover funk but I think this may be my fav Funkadelic. In terms of P-Funk alone, this is a Freddie Ljungberg (gives me a goofy fucking smile when its/hes ON even if you know there isn't any real substance most of the time, I am still :DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD)

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On is the Eddie Hazel pfunk album, he co-wrote or wrote all of it. It's many fans fave funkadelic album. It should not be ignored.
Tuomas sure you can do jazz funk, just make sure the funk outweighs the jazz as I believe there may be a jazz club in the future. (perhaps you want to start that instead of me?)

Great idea, I'm in. Just queued up the two Spotifiable albums...

the mandrill is on youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr55GRDYpkg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSXutf3Pm_Q&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9FI_ZoGFAQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axU7I01UDNA&feature=related
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2f3TesOQmI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tugbouTNc7g&feature=related

^ one of those is unavaiable in the UK so its posted twice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcJPjCm-GZI&feature=PlayList&p=BDC3639A36845F62&playnext_from=PL&playnext=1&index=2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4PU1cg1DV0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ike-PYmESKs

I think thats almost all of it

Sam's Funk's Great Samples Week 1-

Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fg2NRCB9Sc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cztHw1QD6_E (actually full of great funk samples)

sam just tell us what you think of the albums

i <3 the album. listening to one record a day so will check the other 2 out fri&sat.

Tuomas sure you can do jazz funk, just make sure the funk outweighs the jazz as I believe there may be a jazz club in the future. (perhaps you want to start that instead of me?)

Yeah, I have a few jazz-funk albums in mind that lean heavy on the funk side, and it looks like they're all available on Spotify. So I can do the week after Shakey, if no one else wants it?

As for the jazz club, I think it's better if someone else starts it, at the moment I don't have enough time to be responsible for a long-running thing like that.

oh ok these are going to be the kinds of threads that murder my browser with a billion youtubes? nevermind.

like 'Witch Doctor' or 'They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!', Ohio Players 'Funky Worm' is one of those songs that busted my little brain wide open as a kid. one of my friend's sisters had the 45 and we listened to it over and over and over and...

some dude, no they wont be, it's just that the Mandrill album wasn't available elsewhere and I was worried no one would check it out.

Someone's started a jazz club, hurrah
ILX0RS - JAZZ IS THE TEACHER . YEAH IT'S A JAZZ THING >> THE ILM JAZZ LISTENING CLUB!

28/4 - Shakey Mo
5/5 - Tuomas

Anyone else want to book a week?

Is "Standing on the Verge of Getting It on" really a 'funk album'?

of course

there's many facets of funk . it rocks, it kicks ass, it makes your ass move, you dance, you get down and dirty, you feel it.

Hmmmmm, I've obviously got a narrower definition of funk than you. I wouldn't call it a funk album per se.

I think a pretty good definition of funk is THAT IT IS BY FUNKADELIC. Also, it contains funk music.

Some funk music. Funkadelic did a lot of stuff that wasn't funk.

"Who Says a Funk Band Can't Play Rock?!"

Plenty of time for you to post "ok" again

BOHANNON - Stop and Go (1973)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_osaKxjJ33dE/S4q2cmz_yJI/AAAAAAAAASQ/FtW7WManJuI/s400/bohannon-1.jpg

Believe me I agonised over what Bohannon album to choose. You see, Bohannon was one of a handful of artist/producers in the 70s (Klaus Dinger, Mike Leander...) to invent a drum sound/style so awesome it almost didn't matter what he put on top of it. Straight 4/4, snare, kick, hi-hat, no cymbals, no fills, no rolls. The Bohannon Beat. BUT, this (his first) album only has it on one track ("The Pimp Walk") whereas his next five or so albums have it on most of their tracks. Dilemma. But I decided on "Stop and Go" eventually, simply because, though it's not his most characteristic album, it's his best (of the early albums at least). For a start, the slow tracks on most of his albums really drag them down whereas here they're as good (sometimes I think even better) than the uptempo numbers. His later albums are a whole other thing.

Not Spotty

MANDRÉ - M3000 (1979)

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_cLxnR3lIheA/SjR5SpsOCZI/AAAAAAAACO0/RUCFTJu4aTE/s400/Picture+2.png

Again, could have chosen any of the three albums synthesizer wizard André Lewis recorded as Mandré for Motown in the late 70s. This is the final one. Opens and closes with some mind-boggling electronic jiggery-pokery, in between are a succession of blatantly P-Funk inspired jams. Some bright spark at Motown had the idea of promoting Mandré as being "funkier than Parliament". Cheeky! (Can't believe how the shit the sleeve of this album is, almost picked the first album instead for the sleeve alone!)

Not Spotty

GRAHAM CENTRAL STATION - Ain't No 'Bout-A-Doubt It (1975)

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61UkedNZq4L.jpg

3rd album from Larry Graham's band. Post-Family Stone, Larry's trip was smiles and positivity in place of angst and paranoia - but don't go wrinklin' your nose and furrowin' your brow just yet because that still means grooves as relentless as a Panzer Division! Sleevenotes inform me that this album was produced by God, making this his first major production job since the Creation (not the London-based 60s mod band). Surely the only funk album to namecheck Montrose: that's the band, not the Scottish town (unless the Average White Band did so, Dundee's just up the road from Montrose after all). Includes the brilliant pop song, "Your Love"... and check Larry's ludicrously bombastic vocal on the closing track! Good times!

Spotty

Non Spotty Link

the GCS is my fave GCS. its a fucking jam! Awesome pick.

Sleevenotes inform me that this album was produced by God, making this his first major production job since the Creation

always lol'd at this, those liner notes are a riot. great album, altho I think it was diminishing returns for GCS from here on out. Your Love is fucking killer.

dunno the Mandre (never even heard of it) or the Bohannon (who I have def. heard of - BOHANNON BOHANNON BOHANNON BOHANNON). will check 'em out!

I love Bohannon, glad (but surprised) no-one had picked him so far, allowing me to be the first!

Shakey i love love love Graham Central Station - Now Do U Wanna Dance and My Radio Sure Sounds Good To Me

Mirror is the last one I really like - My Radio always seemed to thin and silly to me. Never heard Do U Wanna Dance. Were these also produced by God? should've got him back in the studio imho

2/8 - Von Bootee!
09/8 - Polomint City FunKlata
16/8 - Doran D'VoidOfFunk

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".

-

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.

-

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