Martin's funk thread

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Isley Brothers - Showdown
The early '70s fuzz-guitar style is still there, but this is short of great songs, and it suffers from the 'hey how come I don't get to sing lead?' syndrome of bands that have been round for a while, unless it's the new younger trio that are to blame for this, which it probably is. There is still some nice guitar and singing, but less consistently, and without the magnificent high spots. Only good, not great.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Funk, Inc - Funk Inc
I liked this a lot - loads of strong playing, enormous variety covering jazz, jazz-funk, '60s R&B, funk, Sly & the Family Stone, Marvin Gaye, most of the black US territory of the time. Terrific throughout. It's their debut.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Ohio Players - Climax
A bit of a cobbled together mess by their previous label as they were starting at the next. Mostly well below par.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - Live 03-21-1978, Houston, the Summit
Not great sound quality, and while I enjoyed bits here and there, there's far too much standing at the front of the stage, pulling a face and trying to make the guitars scream. (Yes I know this is audio only, but you know I'm right.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - Star Walk
There's some fifth-rate singing on this that really drags it down. Otherwise it's generally pretty good funk and disco, with Larry restraining his slap bass solo tendencies.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:45 (eighteen years ago) link

Albert King - Years Gone By
Very classy blues album, produced by perhaps my favourite musician ever, the great Al Jackson, but since it isn't anything to do with funk it doesn't really belong here.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:49 (eighteen years ago) link

Zapp - 1984 - The New Zapp IV U
There's supposedly a fresh style on this one, but it's hard to spot. Solid enough funk plus horrible vocoder singing. A nasty version of the doowop classic I Only Have Eyes For You is particularly bad.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link

don't know if they're in yr stash but some of Albert King's Stax LPs are soul-verging-on-funk backed by the Bar-Kays. especially sweet is I Wanna Get Funky from 1972.Years Gone By is dope.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Monday, 6 March 2006 16:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Yeah, that one is there, and the change is clearly why there are Albert King albums in the stack.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 16:06 (eighteen years ago) link

is the Beverly Theater P-Funk thing the 2-CD thing with Dennis Chambers...? that's some good shit.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, 6 March 2006 17:56 (eighteen years ago) link

Well I just got an MP3 folder, but I am fairly sure the answer is yes.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 18:11 (eighteen years ago) link

don't know if they're in yr stash but some of Albert King's Stax LPs are soul-verging-on-funk backed by the Bar-Kays. especially sweet is I Wanna Get Funky from 1972.Years Gone By is dope.

The thought of Martin having a stash made me chuckle.

Great to have you back martin and a whole load of fresh reviews to enjoy is great!

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Monday, 6 March 2006 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link

I don't understand why that is amusing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 6 March 2006 20:41 (eighteen years ago) link

(bah i should do some more of those lessons: the next one wz tyrannosaurus rex)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 6 March 2006 21:16 (eighteen years ago) link

Rick James - Bustin' Out Of L Seven
I've found my American friends are mystified at his almost non-existent musical profile here, but he had zero top 40 hits in the UK. I'm certainly a fan by now, and this is good, but this one rather washed over me without making too much impression - lacks a strong tune or two, I thought.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:28 (eighteen years ago) link

Slave - The Hardness Of The World
I got some stick for being too dismissive of the first Slave album I played, so I paid a bit more attention this time. The music is probably stronger and richer than I'd noticed, but some things are much worse. 'Can't Get Enough Of You' may be the most rubbish lyric I've ever heard. Had I not been paying attention, I'd not have noticed the vacuity of the words; overall, still not a fan.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Tal Ross - Aka Detrimental Vasoline-Giant Shirley
Is there some P-Funk link here? Most of the dreary rock in the stash proves to have some connection back to George Clinton. This is rolling, boogying stuff rather than guitar hero wanking, and his voice is likeable in an inept soul kind of way, but it's not my thing.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

J.B.'s - Doing It To Death
I'm not sure if this is real-live or the old soul studio-live, but whatever, producer James Brown is all over this with chants and intros and stuff. It's absolutely magnificent playing - there aren't many bands I'd rather listen to than the great J.B.'s line-ups. The material here is short of stellar, but the punch and energy with which they play it are irresistible.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Otis Day & The Nights - Shout
You might recognise the name: this was the band at the party in Animal House. It was created for the movie, with an actor in the front role, but someone had the smart idea of making it into a real band, with the same actor singing. They toured successfully, and George Clinton produced this album. It makes gestures at his kind of funk in the early tracks, and otherwise goes for party R&B. Neither is any good, frankly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Rufus & Chaka Khan - Master Jam
I'm not sure about this one. I like Rufus's punchy funk, and I like Quincy Jones slick productions, but I'm not convinced they belong together. It seems to lose the edge without becoming as smoothly lovely as QJ's best. We still get Chaka Khan's potent singing, so it's still an enjoyable album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link

Stone City Band - Boys Are Back
I hadn't realised that this was Rick James' backing band, and Rick produced this and wrote some of it. He's not wasting his best material on them, and some of this is hopelessly lame. At its best, it's still only pretty good.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

War - Deliver The Word
Another that I'm equivocal about. A couple of really terrific funk numbers (especially Me And Baby Brother), but lots of faffing around elsewhere, too much of the jazz and even '70s rock/prog tendencies in places. Some great tracks, but not an album I can love.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Commodores - Movin' On
I dare say it's the backwards-influence of decades of annoying blandness since, and if Lionel Richie or the group had never had all the Easy/Hello ballad hits I would find him a decent soul singer, maybe better - but I can't. The instrumental funk numbers are pretty good - though I didn't think there's anything as kinetic as Machine Gun, for instance - but the Lionel slowies really put me off.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:30 (eighteen years ago) link

Tawl Ross was guitarist on the early Funkadelic albums along with Eddie Hazel!!!!
He was one of the drug casualties and didn't make anything after funkadelic until that album in the 90s.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 11 March 2006 12:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Fabulous Counts - Jan Jan
An uneven album more in the instrumental R&B vein than funk, for the most part. It kind of takes off occasionally with a wild party vibe and plenty of hammond, and I like it a lot at those moments - but they really aren't frequent enough.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link

oh also: sorry to anyone who cares, and I will try to get back to a better schedule than weekly.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Albert King - Blues At Sunset
haha, beat this for a lame first sentence (from the bio on AMG): "Albert King is truly a "King of the Blues," although he doesn't hold that title (B.B. does)." He's a pleasure to listen to, and this is a live run-through of lots of familiar material, all beautifully played. This is immediately before his funk turn, but I can't say there is too much suggestion of that on this album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - Too Hot to Stop
Plenty of line-up changes by this point of course, but they maintain the high standards of musicianship from the beginning. They've shifted a long way from Stax towards P-Funk by this point, and that's a bad move for my tastes - and the material here is less than stellar. It's still a pleasure, but I can't get that excited.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Bootsy's Rubber Band - Bootsy Player of the Year
The faster material here (Hollywood Squares and up, in tempo terms) are amongst the greatest moments, for my funkier tastes, in the entire P-Funk oeuvre. Funky and fun, wonderfully played, with tunes and songs. The ballads (are there any other P-Funk albums with as many of them?) are les thrilling, but the highs make this among the best P-Funk albums I've ever heard.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link

Graham Central Station - live in japan '92
A bootleg, I guess, and I don't know who's in the band, but it's basically a crowd-pleasing set with lots of old material including ample Sly & the Family Stone content. The playing is good, Larry isn't too indulgent with the fuzzy slap bass - though he still wants it to be a lead instrument - and it's mostly good fun.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Mutiny - Black Hat Daddy & The Silver Comb Gang
This starts appallingly, with a very clumsy Led Zeppish number, except it doesn't rock much, but much of the rest is better, more straight P-Funk style. I can't say I was crazy about any of it, and there was probably as much that I disliked as that I liked.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:38 (eighteen years ago) link

Parlet - The Best of Parlet
The playing (is it entirely by Parliament?) is excellent, and the singing is fine (though I don't think any of these women who normally worked as P-Funk backing singers were ever likely to become solo stars). As best ofs go, this has remarkably little memorable material or strong songs, and I guess that's why this spin-off never took off.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:39 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & The Family Stone - Anthology
This is something like as good as it gets: I'm not that big a fan of West Coast/psychedelic pop and rock, but Sly's soul and R&B and funk elements are another matter, and he blends them all seamlessly into something wholly his own. Obviously anyone could throw these things together, but getting some really talented musicians isn't so easy, and Sly is a genuinely great singer, and wrote a whole load of wonderful songs. I'm not suggesting that this comp is all you need of the band (there are, say, four really great normal albums), but it's a good and sound selection, and therefore an absolutely magnificent album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:41 (eighteen years ago) link

Bloodstone - Natural High
A strange band who seem not to have wanted to settle on a style. This isn't a bad thing in principle, but when you decide to record Little Green Apples it may be time to think again (though I concede that it is superbly sung here). The album is all over the place, but when they find the right energy level to suit the material and style they sound absolutely fantastic.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:42 (eighteen years ago) link

Brides Of Funkenstein - Live at Howard Theatre
I don't know what to make of this, and AMG knows nothing of this guy James Wesley Jackson who is very prominent on it. Anyway, otherwise we have P-Funk of a loose and fairly funky stripe, and another bunch of female singers never bound for the big time.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:43 (eighteen years ago) link

Cameo - Feel Me
There seem to be a string of quite good Cameo albums harking back to P-Funk and some Detroit acts, and hinting at the sinuous, muscular style they found in the mid-80s. This is one of them. I kind of like it, but I struggle to think of much else to say.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Stevie Wonder - Talking Book
I'm a colossal fan of Motown, but for some reason Stevie Wonder was never one of my big favourites there. I loved Uptight, for example, but this album features what are for me the two extremes of his mature work. Superstition is a wonderful record, funky and original and irresistibly catchy. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life is another matter - inarguably classy songwriting, but it's so lightweight and anodyne, and I never liked it. It seemed to me that we got too much of this stuff from Stevie, and that's kind of true here on one of his acknowledged masterpieces. Some of it's lovely and I can see its rep, some of it doesn't suit me.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 16:45 (eighteen years ago) link

I'm amazed you are not a fan of Stevie Wonder. I thought he would be one of your faves.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Saturday, 18 March 2006 20:13 (eighteen years ago) link

A reasonable guess, yeah, but bar Uptight and Superstition there is almost nothing I care about.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:02 (eighteen years ago) link

Wait til you play Innervisions. I was never a fan of his bar the early singles until i heard that album.
Theres some cracking footage of him playing The Beat Club from around the time of Innervisions. Its brilliant.

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Saturday, 18 March 2006 23:27 (eighteen years ago) link

I reckon I'm something like a third of the way through now. I have been noting down the albums I like best, so that I can be sure to have them burnt onto all-terrific CDRs at the end of this. So, the favourites from the first third (which you can deduce from reading the reviews, I guess) are (the order is that in which they came in):

Parliament - Chocolate City
Funkadelic - Live in Dayton 1981
Mutiny - Mutiny On The Mamaship
Bootsy's Rubber Band - Bootsy Player of the Year
Bootsy Collins - live in louisville 1978
Sly & The Family Stone - Anthology
Pfunk all-stars - live at the beverly theater
Betty Davis - s/t
Blackbyrds - s/t
Bloodstone - train ride to hollywood
Curtis Mayfield - Roots
Funk, Inc - s/t
Graham Central Station - Ain’t No ‘Bout-A-Doubt It
Headhunters - Survival Of The Fittest
Isaac Hayes - At Wattstax
Isley Brothers - Givin' It Back
Isley Brothers - Brother, Brother, Brother
James Brown - Live At The Apollo Vol.2 1967
James Brown - Live In Zaire
Kool & The Gang - Wild and Peaceful
Kool & The Gang - Spirit Of The Boogie
Mandrill - composite truth
Meters - cabbage alley
Meters - Fire On The Bayou
Rick James - Come get it
Rufus & Chaka Khan - Ask Rufus
Pleasure - Joyous
Bar-Kays - Soul Finger
Chairmen Of The Board - In Session
Ohio Players - Pain
Ohio Players - Skin Tight
Tower of Power - Back To Oakland
Tower of Power - Urban Renewal
War - All Day Music
Jimmy McGriff - I've Got a Woman

That looks a bit scant for the jazz, but I've been really liking almost all of the Mingus, Jimmy Smith and Herbie Hancock (that's almost 50 albums between those three).

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 19 March 2006 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link

Some of the Herbie Hancock stuff is funk. So you can review it here!

― Brigadier Lethbridge-Pfunkboy (Kerr), Monday, 20 March 2006 02:27 (eighteen years ago) link

Mico Wave - 1987 - From The Inside Out!!!

P-Funk of a reasonably enjoyable kind, more at the funk end than the heavy rock end, maybe even more Bootsy than Clinton. Another that didn't make a powerful impression, I'm afraid.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:44 (eighteen years ago) link

Funkadelic - 1970 - Funkadelic
An excellent early album with a bit more '60s R&B and soul still audible, not too excessive an amount of heavy rock guitar, and some strong funk.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:45 (eighteen years ago) link

James Brown - Live At The Apollo
Okay, I had this already, but um, it was labelled with the wrong year so maybe it was a different - nah, really I just wanted to include it on one of these CDs, and I particularly wanted to play it now because I just got the 33 1/3 book on it by one Douglas Wolk, so it was a good time to play it again. The book's terrific, by the way, and it makes me hear a bunch of new things in this, but it was already one of my all-time favourite albums, certainly one of my three favourite live albums ever. It's an exhilirating, fiery experience.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Mandrill - Just Outside Of Town
I really like Mandrill. They try all sorts of things. Not all of them work, but hardly any strike me as not worth hearing, and some are terrific. This for instance features some cool jazzy vibes, and some of the best super-heavy funk I've heard. There are dull spots, but I like a band that makes me check my diskman (which plays MP3 disks with a dozen or so albums on) to see if we have moved on to some other act.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 21 March 2006 21:46 (eighteen years ago) link

Rick James - Fire It Up
This one feels a touch routine, a bit 'will this do?'. I like his style - with a dash of extra disco this time - so I'm happy to hear him even off form, but this is undistinguished work.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:52 (eighteen years ago) link

Sly & The Family Stone - Live Dallas TX 09-01-69
Not a great mix on what I take to be a bootleg, but when that isn't a problem this is tremendous, even though it comes before or right at the start of their greatest period.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Bar-Kays - Cold Blooded
Mid-'70s Memphis R&B by one of the band's line-ups. It's the kind of thing I can listen to all day - but in all honesty I could listen to it all day without getting to this rather ordinary though very skilled example of the style.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:53 (eighteen years ago) link

Chairmen of the Board - Bittersweet
I know it isn't one of the first couple of big hits that come to mind for most people from this band, but Bittersweet is probably my favourite of their songs. I don't know exactly what's going on in the chorus in technical terms, but I find it hugely affecting, and I think it may be General Johnson's best vocal performance. It also has a genuine 'what the fuck?' middle section. This album is mostly somewhere near this kind of elevated level, with a couple of weaker tracks but none of the MOR disasters of previous albums (the man responsible had left the band by now). A great album.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 26 March 2006 16:54 (eighteen years ago) link

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