Free your mind and your ass will follow.

October 20, 2005 6:38 AM

Got questions about the Funk Mob? This is the place to go. The Motherpage covers everything P. Funk, from an extensive faq, through an incredibly detailed discography, to a bibliography that can lead to years more reading.
posted by OmieWise (28 comments total)

I started listening to P. Funk right about the time Bootsy joined. He'd just split from James Brown's band and brought over Mazio and some of the horns. Great stuff. Music was so amazing back then, so inventive. Of course the rise of rap - with all it's promise (still unrealized) - signaled the end of the funk era in many aspects.

WHYY just had a great documentary on P. Funk last week. I can't remember the name of the show but it was great to sit back watch how a vocal group called Parliment, because of the typical record industry b.s., split like an ameoba to form Funkadelic. And the rest, as they say, is history. Thanks for the link. I know what I'll be reading today.
posted by j.p. Hung at 6:57 AM on October 20, 2005

Yeah, this is cool.

I got jam in my knees, and I'm ready to spread. All around the world for the funk.

Somebody said "Is there funk after death?"
I say, "Is Seven Up?"

Yeah.

/dios is a huge parliment fan
/dios is just a camel, double humpin to please
posted by dios at 7:49 AM on October 20, 2005

Luckily, I just finished a race for a deadline, otherwise the project would be a day late. I anticipate spending a few hours with P-Funk today. Thanks.
posted by adgnyc at 8:04 AM on October 20, 2005

I wants to get funked up!
posted by Yer-Ol-Pal at 8:04 AM on October 20, 2005

Mothershipper!

Not La Funk Mob, or the Funky Squad just in case you were wondering.
posted by asok at 8:05 AM on October 20, 2005

Here's a p funk quesiton that I've never found the answer to: at the end of Dr. Dre's Let Me Ride, he uses an old p funk sample for the swing down sweet chariot part. It's not from any studio version of Mothership Connection that I'm familiar with -- it might be sampled from a live performance, but I just don't know. Anyone have a clue?

The sample I'm talking about starts at 3:40 into Let Me Ride.
posted by foot at 8:09 AM on October 20, 2005

If you fake the funk, your nose will grow.
posted by kosem at 8:11 AM on October 20, 2005

woo-hoo!! ... thanks for this
posted by pyramid termite at 8:21 AM on October 20, 2005

Aww yeah! P.Funk Live: Earth Tour - Swing Down...(live) - sampled by Dr. Dre, Let Me Ride

Best link ever.
posted by foot at 8:22 AM on October 20, 2005

If I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have picked "dios" as a username.

I'd be Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk. Or Starchild. The yin and the yang.
posted by dios at 8:29 AM on October 20, 2005

Alright!
posted by safetyfork at 8:47 AM on October 20, 2005

dios writes "I'd be Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk."

It's not too late for a change. It would be one of the most unexpected and effective handles on MeFi.
posted by OmieWise at 8:56 AM on October 20, 2005

Clinton in a diaper rocking the audience for four hours straight (hard as steel and still getting harder) was one of the best experiences of my life.

Anyone else catch the Parliament retrospective on PBS earlier this week? It was rather inlightening.

We love you Dr. Funkenstein!
posted by furtive at 8:58 AM on October 20, 2005

Nice i made it in to a p'funk dvd of their concert at the VooDoo festival in 2003, I also have an old school p-funk sir nose devoid of funk comic book from an album insert..... gotta love the funk.
posted by sourbrew at 8:59 AM on October 20, 2005

It's too funky in here!! I'll never forget, right after I moved to NYC in '81, hearing "One Nation Under A Groove" blasting out of a store entrance and thinking "All right—this is my kind of town!" Too bad the P-Funkers aren't as well remembered as they deserve to be.

Why must I feel like that?
Why must I chase the cat?
Ain't nothin' but the dog in me.

Bow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah
Bow-wow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah
Bow-wow-yippie-yo-yippie-yeah

Just walkin' the dog...
posted by languagehat at 9:07 AM on October 20, 2005

I've been reading this website for the last year or so and it's an amazing resource for all things related to the Funk Mob. I really feel that whilst Parliament are underrated, Funkadelic are virtually ignored by those who should know better (i.e. mainstream rock critics.) How many people cite 'Maggot Brain' as one of the best guitar solos ever?
posted by ob at 9:38 AM on October 20, 2005

ob, it probably has something to do with people like me who love Parliment and are indifferent to Funkadelic. It may have to do with all the fun Starchild allegory and self-reverent "coolness" ("Go Groovy, that I did me"). I take Funkadelic as just another (very good) funk band. But Parliment, in the mid 70's had a five-six year run of just light-hearted, funny, funky, uplifting songs that made them special, in my approximation. With people having that much fun performing, it becomes near impossible to not be cheery as listener, too.

Blow your horn!
posted by dios at 9:57 AM on October 20, 2005

Dios, I hear ya, it's just for me, I can't choose between them. They seem to me (at the risk of sounding amazingly pretentious) to be at the two polarities of funk and that without one, there can't be the other.

Anyway, you're right, it's impossible to feel down when you put on any of those mid-late 70's Parliament albums. Indeed all I need to do is to look at the album cover of 'funkentelechy vs. the placebo syndrome' and I'm chuckling like something that chuckles rather a lot...
posted by ob at 10:05 AM on October 20, 2005

With people having that much fun performing, it becomes near impossible to not be cheery as listener

This was the secret of George Clinton's success. James Brown was such a task master, he fined people for wrong notes, etc. GC tapped the same performers but let them have more fun.

Spent some time with the guy a while back. He always has a sketchbook in which he never stops doodling with dayglo magic markers, even though he himself is color blind.

He carried around a duffel bag of cassette tapes (I said it was a while back) people had given him and if there wasn't something to play them on, then, well, he just couldn't stay in that room very long.
posted by StickyCarpet at 10:14 AM on October 20, 2005 [1 favorite]

I'd be Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk. Or Starchild

I'd go for Starchild, if only to say I had stereophonic funk-producing, disco-inducing, twin magnetic rump receptors.

They're perfect for bumpin', y'see.

And it just wouldn't be a Parliament thread if someone didn't throw in a link to this.

/funk fanatic
posted by Vervain at 10:23 AM on October 20, 2005

I'm a bit of a Funkadelic man, myself, my tastes leaning farther to the rock side of the spectrum than the dance, but when it comes to P-Funk, it's allll good. I never caught the mob live, though...I had the chance at Lollapalooza about ten thousand years ago, but right when they were set to come on, it started raining and, because I was young(er) and ignorant, I hightailed it for shelter.

"Maggot Brain" is one of the best albums I own..."Can You Get To That," "Super Stupid," "Funky Dollar Bill". That's some deep, heavy shit.

Great post, by the way!
posted by you just lost the game at 10:27 AM on October 20, 2005

Way to tear the roof off the mutha-funker, Omie. No metafilter thread has ever made me smile this wide.
posted by phearlez at 10:55 AM on October 20, 2005

I've had the good fortune to see P-Funk several times and damn if it wasn't a kick ass show every time. I vividly remember the first show of theirs I caught, early 90's in a small club in Portland. I had listened to quite a bit of their music before, but didn't know much about their live shows. The tickets said that the show was starting at 9, so I figured there would be an opening act, then an hour or so set by P-Funk, then I head home to sleep...how wrong I was.

They wandered onstage about 9:30, no opening act and just kick in with Tear the Roof Off the Sucka. The place is totally packed and everyone is in to it, the crowd singing along, getting sweaty, going off. George is up on stage directing, the band is segueing from one song to another without stopping, just taking the crowd along for the ride. Band members wander off stage periodically to get some water, light a joint, wander back in with the music never stopping. The band finally pauses between songs to talk to the audience...two hours after starting. Damn. I was exhausted and there is George up on stage, in his 50's, with his granddaughter helping out and he's just getting warmed up.

My friend and I finally had to leave about 2:30am as we had to get up at 5:30 to head up to the mountain to go snowboarding...and P-Funk was still going strong. It was the most balls-out bad ass performance I've ever seen.

If you ever get a chance to see them just do it. I wish I could have seen them when Bootsy, Bernie, Maceo and Fred Weseley were all there but they are still about the most funk satisfaction for your dollar you are likely to see.

/me turning in to WE-FUNK...we funk...doing it to you in your ear hole
posted by afflatus at 11:01 AM on October 20, 2005

metafilter: always has a sketchbook in which he never stops doodling with dayglo magic markers, even though he himself is color blind.
posted by leetsi at 11:17 AM on October 20, 2005

Band members wander off stage periodically to get some water

Yeah..., sure..., water..., that's it....
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:21 AM on October 20, 2005

(in Homer Simpson voice)

Mmmmm...fuuunk.
posted by deusdiabolus at 4:04 PM on October 20, 2005

[this is good]

"Shit! Goddamn! Get off your ass and jam!"
posted by Vidiot at 4:58 PM on October 20, 2005

It's a Metafunkafilterdelic Thang Inc.!
posted by jonp72 at 11:26 PM on October 20, 2005