perfidy

Special Roving Correspondent GeekLethal, the lethalest geek that ever walked the mean streets, has reminded me of this piece that I wrote about a year ago before my webloggin' days. From the glass-lined tanks of old Latrobe, I tender this loving tribute to the faded genius of funk master and crackhead George Clinton (paint the white house black!) for your personal enjoyment. "33."

In response to his question, "John-0, If you had a gun to your head and had to choose only one Parliament record to have forever, with the rest facing certain and permanent destruction, which would it be and why?" I answered the following:
Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome.

Why?

Of all of Parliament's albums, from the early weird shit like "Osmium" or "Up For the Down Stroke," to the later shit like "Trombopulation," "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome" achieves the best balance of forces. Like Funkadelic, Parliament's evil twin, Parliament's career has three phases: half-baked, baked, and too baked to get up to pee.

Parliament's early music has its' undeniable high points-- "Testify," "All Your Goodies are Gone" and " Up For the Downstroke" all qualify. But overall, the early records suffer the same fate as early Funkadelic-- half-assed production, too many drugs in the studio, and more ideas than
George Clinton knows how to stuff into 40 minutes of music.

Conversely, the later albums suffer from the opposite problems-- overpolished production, WAY too many drugs, and a dearth of original ideas combined with a creeping desire to appeal to the
disco set. Under no circumstances should you ever buy "Trombopulation" or its Funkadelic
equivalent, "The Electric Spanking of War Babies" unless you are a longtime fan of the hardcore jollies.

But for a golden period in the middle of their career, Parliament made lowbrow high-concept albums in outer space, underwater, in nursery rhymes, entombed in the Pyramids, and made it all work. The best of these is "Funkentelechy vs. the Placebo Syndrome." As I'm sure you're aware, the album chronicles the battles of Starchild against Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, and
Sir Nose's attempt to stop the power of the bop gun from funkatizing the masses with the torpid vibes of the Placebo Syndrome (don't fake the funk, or your nose will grow). Starchild is of course victorious, and Sir Nose finally gets up, gets shot with the bop gun, and shakes his motorbooty under the influence of the Flashlight.

Everything on the album works-- the "straight" funk jams like "Bop Gun" and the title track, the bizarre slow love jams like "Wizard of Finance," (my personal favorite love song P-Funk ever did) the weird political songs like "Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk [Pay Attention-B3M]", and the all out motherfuckers "Flash Light," which track proves once and for all that (Julliard-trained!) Bernie Worrell and (an uncredited!) Bootsy Collins are the now and future presidents of the world. Please note that most of the bass on this recording is handled by Cordell "Boogie" Mosson, a wonderful bassist eclipsed by Bootsy's star power, but Bootsy is believed to have played both
bass and guitar on "Flash Light."

Furthermore, writing this here has made me want to hear it, really really bad.