Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: p-funk (Page 3 of 4)

This Is A Thing That Happened

March 13, 2019 / / 3 Comments

Well, you might think. This doesn’t seem like such a thing. Oh, but wait.

How the fuck is P-Funk allowed in NORAD? Why even have security? What’s the point in hollowing out a mountain if you’re just gonna let P-Funk stroll in? Not one of those hats is permissible in NORAD; in fact, they’re all immediate disqualifiers for entrance. Was this the only funk band that stopped in? Did Grand Funk visit?

The past was a lawless land.

An Easy Question, If You Think About It

March 12, 2019 / / 8 Comments

The band is the Sleigh Bells, and the song is called Rill Rill. Apple used it in a commercial.

It is based, and heavily so, on a sample from this…

…which is Can You Get To That from Funkadelic’s 1971 album Maggot Brain.

We now play a game. Answer this question in the Comment Section: How much money did the writers of Can You Get To That make from the success of Rill Rill?

Real-Time Thoughts On P-Funk, Live In Houston 10/31/76

March 12, 2019 / / 5 Comments

  • Funk is its own reward.
  • That means something; I’m sure of it.
  • Most of the shit George Clinton said was like that.
  • Ooh, lights.
  • And a big eyeball.
  • Is that a reference to The Great Gatsby?
  • Almost certainly not.
  • Cosmic Slop opener.
  • There’s been thousands of songs written about hookers, but none of them are as compassionate as this one.
  • Aerosmith wrote songs about hookers, but they were not empathizing with the women’s plight.
  • This is because Aerosmith was made up of semi-literate dirtballs.
  • Garry Shider with the Travis Bean!
  • This was 1976, so he and Garcia were playing the same guitar at the same time.
  • Garcia did not, to the best of my research, ever wear a diaper made from a Holiday Inn bedsheet.
  • Not on stage, at least.
  • Who knows what he got up to in the Hostility Suite.
  • Sounds more like a Billy thing, though.
  • Michael Hampton on Stratocaster and giant hat.
  • Seriously, look at this fucking hat.
  • It’s too early to dive into racial theories, but I will: a white man could not wear that hat.
  • Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey on the drums.
  • This is 10/31/76 from the Summit in Houston, TX.
  • The Dead played the same venue three times: ’78, ’81, and ’88.
  • During those three performances, there were at most seven musicians onstage.
  • Whereas P-Funk has, like, 50 people up there.
  • At least seven vocalists, three guitarists, bass, drums, two keyboardists, horn sections, and assorted randos acting the fool.
  • Plus I think there’s a Brecker brother or two.
  • When it comes to P-Funk history, precision is often out of the question.
  • Sometimes Eddie Hazel would show up in the middle of tours, or drummers would get arrested and replaced.
  • Y’know Deadbase?
  • There is not a P-Funkbase.
  • The amount of scholarly attention paid to the Dead–or The Beatles or Queen or even fucking Zeppelin–was not and is not paid to P-Funk.
  • THERE’S A FUCKING NETFLIX MINISERIES ABOUT MÖTLEY FUCKING CRÜE.
  • And P-Funk is ignored, lost to the past.
  • Gosh, I wonder why.
  • Standing on the Verge, baby!
  • Heavier than anything most so-called rock bands ever did.
  • Fuzzy Haskins on the vocals, even though Garry Shider did them on the record.
  • That is not easy information to find out.
  • P-Funk records would just have a whole list of players and singers in the credits without detailing which songs they were on.
  • Of course, it might have been that no one wrote anything down.
  • Everyone was real high all the time.
  • Acid, then coke.
  • Which you might recognize as the Grateful Dead chemical progression.
  • She scream.
  • She shout.
  • She turn that sucker out.
  • Sucker.
  • Not fucker.
  • George Clinton’s lyrics and chants were almost always more suggestive than outright obscene.
  • He started singing “I call my baby pussy” as I was writing that last sentence.
  • Stop making me a liar, George Clinton.
  • He looks like this, by the way:
  • And if it’s a wig, it’s a good one; it bounces and wiggles and wafts like real hair.
  • Children of Production!
  • The Dead never mentioned abortion in any of their songs.
  • The Stones might have, but only obliquely.
  • Like, in a poetical kinda way.
  • P-Funk just comes right out with out: We are deeper than abortion, deeper than the notion that the world was flat when it was round.
  • Which means something; I’m sure of it.
  • >Mothership Connection.
  • (The “>” is another link in the chain that connects the Dead to P-Funk. Why? Because they were both dance bands.)
  • Glen fucking Goins on vocals.
  • He was the churchiest of all of the singers, plus he played rhythm guitar.
  • He looked like this:
  • Glen called the Mothership down every night with Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.
  • But he was really singing about Jesus.
  • All the best songs are about Jesus.
  • Glen Goins died less than two years after this show, of Hodgkin’s lymphoma; he was 24.
  • I think I see the Mothership coming…
  • I can feel the presence of the Mothership…
  • P-Funk only did one tour with the Mothership, which was technically obdurate, obscenely expensive, and difficult to transport.
  • Sound like a Wall you’re familiar with?
  • October of ’76 to December of ’77, that’s it.
  • It looked like this:
  • And maybe it’s for the best that there were no HD cameras at the time.
  • I got a feeling that sucker’s not supposed to be seen up close or in daylight.
  • The very first show of the Mothership tour was in New Orleans, and the gig started with the craft descending.
  • Which was a mistake.
  • You can’t open with a showstopper.
  • Bad pacing.
  • From then on, the Mothership arrived somewhere around the middle of the evening, dislodging the cool ghoul with the hip bone transplant, Doctor Funkenstein.
  • Who looks like this:
  • I do not know where Doctor Funkenstein did his residency.
  • I do know that he is super-loose with his prescription pad.
  • Coming Round The Mountain!
  • Love this shit.
  • This is the good shit.
  • The dope shit.
  • The bomb.
  • CRTM (yes, I’m using Dead-style initialisms; deal with it) is one of those P-Funk songs where the lead singer is “everyone.”
  • They had a bunch of those tunes.
  • So did the Dead, but P-Funk could actually sing.
  • Let’s face it: a lot of the Dead’s harmonies were accidental.
  • George Clinton may have been the worst singer in the group, and he couldn’t–that I know of–play an instrument; what the man could do was hire guitar players.
  • He was a genius when it came to staffing.
  • In a perfect and non-racist Rock world, Eddie Hazel, Michael Hampton, and Garry Shider would each be recognized as better than almost anyone else that picked up the guitar.
  • All three of those men would knock Clapton’s dick in the dirt.
  • Speaking of racism, why is the only visual historical record of this tour a shitty videotape?
  • All the other big bands got film.
  • Dead, Zep, Stones.
  • P-Funk played (and sold out) the same venues and sold the same amount of records (if not more).
  • The Band?
  • The fucking Band never sold out the Los Angeles Coliseum.
  • The Band got a three-fucking-hour tribute to their cracker-ass asses and their hillbilly bullshit directed by Martin dicklicking Scorsese, and P-Funk gets videotape with too much red in it.
  • Lena Dunham’s right: America’s racist.
  • Shit, I missed like three songs.
  • They are currently tearing the roof off the sucker.
  • …
  • No, I’m still mad about racism.
  • And The Band.
  • “Ooh, look at us. We’re wearing suits and hats, and playing fiddles. We’re old-timey.”
  • Goddamned hipsters.
  • Okay, they’re into Closing Jam.
  • P-Funk could Closing Jam for longer than the Dead could play Dark Star.
  • Every bootleg I’ve ever heard has a CJ that lasts at least 20 minutes.
  • (It should, of course, be noted that an actual Closing Jam would come after three hours of Funk, not the hour that preceded it in this expurgated video.)
  • Hey, it’s Bootsy!
  • The guy on the left is Bootsy.
  • I swear.
  • He’s on the cowbell because he was playing with the Rubber Band on this tour and leaving the P-Funk bass duties to Cordell “Boogie” Mosson.
  • Who looked like this:
  • And if you can be funky on a Rickenbacker, you can be funky on anything.
  • Because funk, Enthusiasts, is its own reward.

Fifteen Minute Songs: Reason #310…

March 10, 2019 / / 4 Comments

…in my ongoing thesis, P-Funk was the black Grateful Dead. Thank you for coming to Santa Fe to hear me present my findings.

(The Brides of Funkenstein were one of two–two!–girl groups spun off from the main band. For this album, the Brides were a trio made up of Dawn Silva, Sheila Horne, and Jeanette McGruder. Michael Hampton plays the Garcialike-in-length guitar solo.)

Honey, There’s Something Wrong With The Teevee

March 6, 2019 / / 7 Comments

It will come as no shock to you to find out that P-Funk made virtually no teevee appearances during their 1970’s heyday. None of their act was suitable for Johnny and Ed, and even Dick Cavett wasn’t liberal enough for this kind of bullshit. Maybe they could have done Merv, but not if he saw this clip first. Starting in the mid-80’s, George and whoever he was calling the P-Funk All-Stars that day were allowed on the national broadcasts, but this is the sole teevee booking from the early years.

(The show–WGBH’s Basic Black–is still airing, but at the time it was called Say Brother, and I’m not making that up.)

French Kissing Your Elbow…

March 4, 2019 / / 0 Comments

…is only slightly less possible than pinning down precisely what musicians played on which P-Funk tour. This was the Motor Booty tour, which was in 1979, so Glenn Goins isn’t there (he was dead), but the rest of the usual crew looks to be onstage: Michael Hampton on guitar, and Garry Shider on guitar, vocals, and diaper; Cordell “Boogie” Mosson and Jerome “Bigfoot” Brailey on bass and drums and nicknames; the original Parliaments, one of whom was named Fuzzy, singing the boy parts; the Brides of Funkenstein and Parlet singing the girl parts; and the Horny Horns.

And a guy named George.

EDIT: Apparently, Eddie Hazel played this tour and Fuzzy Haskins did not. This is literally the only resource I could find on the web. The state of P-Funk scholarship is not quite at the “annual convention in Santa Fe” level that the Grateful Dead’s is at.

SECOND EDIT: That might be Rodney “Skeet” Curtis on bass. We need Robert Caro to research this shit, honestly.

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