PARLIAMENT - THE CLONES OF DR. FUNKENSTEIN @ 45

 

July 20th marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Parliament’s fifth album (their fourth with Casablanca Records), The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein, which was issued this day in 1976.

The album is the 2nd in a series of releases which built out the “Funkenstein” mythology that was begun on the previous album, Mothership Connection, and would continue through the remainder of Parliament’s output up until 1980’s Trombipulation. These albums would lay out the epic tales of space funk and the battles of Starchild to bring the groove to the groove-less, thwarting the unfunky machinations of the dastardly Sir Nose'd D'Voidoffunk! They represent the P-Funk gang at the peak of their powers during the heyday of the ’70s, when massive funk bands roamed the land like great prehistoric beasts.

The album’s creative core consisted of George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider & former James Brown horn man, Fred Wesley, handling the brass arrangements. Together, they fashioned some of the great funk albums of the era and the P-Funk axis. They were firing on all cylinders at this point and were benefiting from the financial support of their label, which sought to put the same kind of epic showmanship into them as had proved so successful with label mates KISS. You can see the influence in terms of the elaborate costuming and makeup on the cover and the massive stage show they’d been touring with, complete with an actual spaceship for George Clinton to emerge from during the intro to their sets. These were the glory days of the record industry when money seemed to be no object and the sky was literally the limit!

FUNKADELIC - MAGGOT BRAIN @ 50

 

July 12th marks the 50th anniversary of Funkadelic’s third album, and last with its original lineup, Maggot Brain, released on this day in 1971.

The P-Funk axis is fundamentally known for it’s party anthems and their upbeat attitude infused with social conscience woven into intricate narratives. Within that landscape, Maggot Brain, a title believed to reference George Clinton’s discovery of his murdered brother, stands as the darkest, dankest, deepest well of apocalyptic despair and anger ever put forth by Clinton and his cohorts. Not that it doesn’t bring the grooves when it wants to, but those moments are book-ended by two mammoth slabs of sound that anchor the album in the very earth that buries the screaming head on its cover. From its music to its graphics to its themes, the “funketeers” never got heavier than this LP. It even featured liner notes lifted from the pseudo-Satanic religious cult, The Process Church of the Final Judgement. This is psychedelic acid-funk where you’re gonna need some counseling after your trip.

The album opens with a brief narration from Clinton where he states, “…I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit”, setting the stage for a 10 minute dirge of an instrumental title track focused squarely on Eddie Hazel’s mournful guitar histrionics. For most of the song, Clinton drops out nearly all of the backing instruments so that Hazel is left in the void of his grief, encouraged by Clinton to imagine how he’d feel to learn of his mother’s death. It’s a lonely, desolate beginning to the album, but also one of the most profoundly emotive pieces of music ever put to tape.

From there, the album kick into gear with some furious funky grooves until we get to the other end of the spectrum with the closing track, Wars of Armageddon, another near 10 minute epic which layers breakneck rhythms with a collage of sounds effects and voices, creating a cacophony of chaos. From beginning to end, it’s almost as if the album is a run through the “stages of grief”, with the finale reveling in the madness, and accepting our doom with one final apocalyptic explosion. The journey from there to here is fraught with anger, revulsion and frustration and perfectly reflects the cultural state of the times while still remaining relevant to current issues.

It’s an album of outrage and desperation and it’s not surprising that it marked the end of Funkadelic’s first phase of existence. Three of the core members ended up departing after it’s completion for various reasons. Some financial, but drugs were at the root of others. In the case of guitarist Tawl Ross, he reportedly got into an "acid eating contest, then snorting some raw speed, before completely flipping out" and has not performed since! What was left behind with their first three albums: Funkadelic, Free Your Mind… and Maggot Brain, is a legacy of psychedelic funk that remains a watershed canon of music for Clinton & crew and R&B music in general.

THROBBING GRISTLE - LIVE AT THE AIR GALLERY @ 45

 

July 6th marks the 45th anniversary of the premier live performance by Throbbing Gristle, which was held at the Air Gallery in London, UK, in 1976. 

While the “Prostitution” performance at the ICA on October 18th of the same year is generally considered TG’s “official” debut, with its attendant press and resulting controversy (where an MP notoriously referred to the group as “wreckers of civilization”, an epithet they handily appropriated for their own mythos, thank you very much!), there were two shows prior to this which constituted TG’s “soft launch”. Those being the Air Gallery on July 6th and the Winchester Hat Fair show on Aug 21st. These were much less promoted affairs and were essentially a warmup for what would be put on at the ICA. 

For the Air Gallery show, the group were set up in a manner which separated the group’s performing space from the audience’s position with the PA system. The group were in a central courtyard area which was only visible from certain windows in the building while the PA was positioned away from the windows so that, in order to hear the performance, the audience would not be able to see the group and those who could see the group could not hear the PA. Musically, the set consisted of a continuous rambling instrumental dirge with little resembling anything that would manifest into any recognizable TG compositions. The various releases of the recording list no track names with "Dead ED" and "Very Friendly" on the cassette cover only being applicable to the Winchester Aug 21st recording. The monaural recording is dominated by Genesis’ base & violin and Cosey’s fuzz guitar, with Carter’s synths swelling up from time to time and virtually no audible evidence of Sleazy’s presence. 

At this point, the group had been together barely a year, having mutated out of the primordial ooze of COUM Transmissions when, first Peter Christopherson and then Chris Carter joined long time collaborators, Genesis P-Orridge and Cosey Fanni Tutti. Carter’s arrival, in particular, shifted the focus from transgressive performance art to sonic exploration. After a year of experimenting with techniques and tools at their Death Factory studio in Hackney, where the foundations of Industrial Records would take shape, bringing TG to the public became the next step and the first footing on that journey began with the Air Gallery show. 

It’s an embryonic entity that exists in the recording of this show. The mood is almost contemplative and introspective, lacking the sense of confrontation that would characterize their shows starting with the ICA performance. The beast was just waking up, testing its limbs and lurching out from the weight of its placental remnants and amniotic fluids. It was certainly imbued with the distinctive dissonance that would become its trademark, but it just needed to take a few steps before standing fully erect to reveal its true stature. This it would do soon enough and the strides it would take would leave their indelible imprints across the landscape of modern music in the last quarter of the 20th century and beyond into the 21st.