The Guardian's requiem for James Brown or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Hate The Guardian

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Funk did this by John Harris
Friday January 5, 2007
The Guardian

"Farewell then, James Brown: King Dancer, Godfather of Soul and a man so important that his passing was enough to make Michael Jackson speak in a slightly deeper voice. Not that anyone will truly miss the kind of performances he put in towards the end of his life - hired hands churning out the hits while Mr Brown issued the odd encouraging shriek. But fair play: in coming up with the essential formula for funk music, he surely made a contribution to human development that could never be adequately repaid.

Article continues
Or then again, perhaps not. Before writing this, I was momentarily frozen by fear of speaking ill of the dead and blaming JB for something that might not have been his fault. The feeling, thankfully, didn't linger - so, by way of backhandedly honouring his memory, let's say it loud: funk is the worst musical genre ever invented, a big old stain on Brown's CV and the cause of at least four decades of grinding misery.

This, I will allow, is less a matter of such trailblazing proto-funk Brown pieces as Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, Sex Machine and I Got the Feelin', as the ongoing nightmare of chronic indulgence and musical slop they undoubtedly spawned. If you doubt this, listen to the supposed high points of the genre: anything by the likes of Tower of Power, pre-disco Kool and the Gang, Cameo before they discovered pop music, or the woeful Ohio Players. And before anyone mentions the peak-period work of George Clinton, I say only this: hats off for the UFO, onstage fancy dress and occasional pearling tune, but did everything have to be so long? (I have a friend who saw Funkadelic in Manchester in 1975 - a six-hour performance, he says, that amounted to an experiment involving the limits of human endurance.)

All that said, funk's acme of unbearability was only reached thanks to two developments: 1) its decisive hybridisation into jazz-funk, surely as awful an invention as, say, the thumbscrews; and 2) as with so many things, its wholesale appropriation by a certain kind of white person. On the latter count, I speak on the basis of experience: though the totemically funksome technique known as slap-bass was probably the invention of the sometime Sly & the Family Stone bass man Larry Graham, I will always associate it with a teenage acquaintance named Steve. He would occasionally drop in on my mod band and borrow our bassist's instrument, using his well-trained right hand to give it the old bink-bap-dip-dup, to nobody's great benefit.

Twenty-five years later, I saw decisive proof of funk's utter evil. On a trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi - one-time home of the blues, now home to a small blues industry - a friend and I were taken on a tour of a part of town that seemed to have been suddenly deserted in around 1975, leaving empty buildings and grass growing through the cracks in the road. Though I naively assumed this was probably down to the mechanisation of the cotton industry, our guide put us right: "Funk did this," he said (really, he did), claiming that, in killing the last traces of the blues, the nightmare genre had also done for his community. Just for a moment, my mind was filled with the image of a bass player dressed up like a BacoFoil model of a partridge, standing at the top of one of the town's taller buildings and blitzing all in front of him with every miserable thwack of his thumb.:

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:36 (eighteen years ago)

Alexis On Fire

― jimn (jimnaseum), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:40 (eighteen years ago)

All that said, music journalism's acme of unbearability was only reached thanks to two developments: 1) its decisive hybridisation into idiot thinkpieces, surely as awful an invention as, say, the thumbscrews; and 2) as with so many things, its wholesale appropriation by a certain kind of white person.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:41 (eighteen years ago)

That piece really did disgust me. Petridis might right a load of pish but nothing coming close to that level of offensiveness. I was sorely tempted to write in a vitriolic, philippic to the Graun because of it. Newspaper so full of hand-wringing, namby-pamby liberalism and they publish that piece of racist shit.

― jimn (jimnaseum), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:46 (eighteen years ago)

...as with so many things, its wholesale appropriation by a certain kind of white person. On the latter count, I speak on the basis of experience: though the totemically funksome technique known as slap-bass was probably the invention of the sometime Sly & the Family Stone bass man Larry Graham, I will always associate it with a teenage acquaintance named Steve.

by the same logic, Wh Shakespeare Chas Dickens and Rudyard Kipling ruined the English language by inspiring this douchebag to print his rancid patronizing opinions in a once-respected newspaper.

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:47 (eighteen years ago)

Jesus fucking Christ.

Let we forget, he also wrote this:

Remember, though: in the dark days of 1991-93, it looked like the guitar really was extinct, but rock bit back and eventually won. Who now listens to such rave milestones as the Prodigy's 1992 hit Charly, the entire oeuvre of Altern 8 (two blokes who essentially released the same record over and over again - what cards!) and Shaft's 1992 smash Roobarb and Custard? Only very strange people.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:50 (eighteen years ago)

jimn, I doubt from your comments that you've even picked up a hard copy of The Guardian in the last few years, because if you had, you likely wouldn't have bothered commenting so breathlessly.

The piece in question is an opinion column printed in the corner of p2 of the Film & Music supplement. Also, it's by John Harris. Both of these signify 'ignore'.

― MacDara Conroy (MacDara), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:51 (eighteen years ago)

not racist, just silly. he has an obvious point about poor appropriation of Funk and the negative aspects of it's Prog side but is only blaming this on Brown to provoke.

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:52 (eighteen years ago)

that six-hour funkadelic gig sounds mindblowing!

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

No matter how spoiled, vengeful or self-indulgent any supposedly titanic talent may be, the true geniuses - Lennon, Dylan, Tom from Kasabian - always exhibit some thread of empathetic humanity.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:53 (eighteen years ago)

"If black people are so good, how come Paul Weller's not black, huh?"

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:54 (eighteen years ago)

I actually just realized he's the same guy who wrote that Dark Side of the Moon book I liked. I had no idea this man was such a philistine.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:55 (eighteen years ago)

"I have a friend who saw Funkadelic in Manchester in 1975 - a six-hour performance, he says, that amounted to an experiment involving the limits of human endurance."

Funkadelic's were always jerks like that, never letting people leave.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Sunday, 7 January 2007 17:57 (eighteen years ago)

maybe john harris decried the influence of robt johnson during the 60s british blues boom too but I bet not.

and it's stealth-racist in the condescending tone of guilty white liberalism i.e. don't these poor misguided negroes realize the cultural importance of the blues? what's wrong w/em?

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:01 (eighteen years ago)

On a trip to Clarksdale, Mississippi - one-time home of the blues, now home to a small blues industry - a friend and I were taken on a tour of a part of town that seemed to have been suddenly deserted in around 1975, leaving empty buildings and grass growing through the cracks in the road. Though I naively assumed this was probably down to the mechanisation of the cotton industry, our guide put us right: "Funk did this," he said (really, he did), claiming that, in killing the last traces of the blues, the nightmare genre had also done for his community.

And grunge rock really killed Styx, too!

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:05 (eighteen years ago)

Also very very very telling: nowhere in the world of this article does hip-hop exist.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:07 (eighteen years ago)

On a trip to Flint, Michigan - one-time home of the Grand Funk Railroad, now home to a small bar band industry - a friend and I were taken on a tour of a part of town that seemed to have been suddenly deserted in around 1975, leaving empty buildings and grass growing through the cracks in the road. Though I naively assumed this was probably down to the decline of the automobile industry, our guide put us right: "The Ramones did this," he said (really, he did), claiming that, in killing the last traces of grunty arena rock, the nightmare genre had also done for his community.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:08 (eighteen years ago)

Klosterman is EVERYWHERE.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

On a trip to Camden, London - one-time home of Placebo, now home to a lot of Spanish exchange students - a friend and I were taken on a tour of a part of town that seemed to have been suddenly deserted in around 1999, leaving empty buildings and grass growing through the cracks in the road. Though I naively assumed this was probably down to the decline of the snakebite and black industry, our guide put us right: "The Libertines did this," he said (really, he did), claiming that, in killing the last traces of grunty arena rock, the nightmare genre had also done for his community.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

On a trip to Bridgeton, Glasgow - one-time home of Lonnie Donegan, now fro-yo capital of the world - a friend and I were taken on a tour of a part of town that seemed to have been suddenly deserted in around 1975, leaving empty buildings and grass growing through the cracks in the road. Though I naively assumed this was probably down to the decline of shipbuilding, our guide put us right: "Pink Floyd did this," he said (really, he did), claiming that, in killing the last traces of hiccupy skiffle, the nightmare genre had also done for his community.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:13 (eighteen years ago)

I guess the point of the article was to demonstrate that he's listened to Tower of Power and Ohio Players and Kool and the Gang albums? No expert on the genre, but it seems to me that even if funk was not at its peak around 1975 or so, at least disco was right around the corner.

― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:15 (eighteen years ago)

I guess the point of the article was to demonstrate that he's listened to Tower of Power and Ohio Players and Kool and the Gang albums?

"listened"

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:16 (eighteen years ago)

= "saw once somewhere and got scared by the covers"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:18 (eighteen years ago)

Well, I think any normal heterosexual dude might be a little skeeved by bald and naked women fucking and stabbing people.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:20 (eighteen years ago)

Sexist.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:22 (eighteen years ago)

haha ned I came back to post a kloster-joke after nate's parody

― m coleman (lovebug starski), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:24 (eighteen years ago)

*bows*

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

xp Daddino: Oh there's gotta be some Evey Hammond slashfic around somewhere

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:25 (eighteen years ago)

his position on reggae is that it is NO GOOD bcz only public schoolboys like it -- so i think we can work out his "line" on the blues

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:27 (eighteen years ago)

But yeah, that quote, it still... hey, uh, I don't think funk caused the massive nationwide agricultural/rural economic decline of the mid 1970s.

xp mark oh man I almost posted that too, holy crap

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:28 (eighteen years ago)

Elsewhere, Mr. Daddino discovered this good man's website.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:29 (eighteen years ago)

From the looks of it, he may be another one of those "why do you have to be on my side" guys I was complaining about on my J'P thread. Minus the gayishness.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:34 (eighteen years ago)

So, Ned...has NRO-world weighed in on the Godfather of Soul?

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:36 (eighteen years ago)

You know, that's a good question -- but if so I believe I avoided it since that was during my time home for the holidays and I pretty much was only checking e-mail and a couple of boards then.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:37 (eighteen years ago)

Apparently Goldberg gave him a one-line mention on the Corner and then they all went back to saying "Should we kill everyone in Iran and Iraq or just Iraq?"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:39 (eighteen years ago)

From the looks of it, he may be another one of those "why do you have to be on my side" guys I was complaining about on my J'P thread. Minus the gayishness.

minus also the being-on-my-sideishness

― lex pretend (lex pretend), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:41 (eighteen years ago)

Wow, this man is not a good eulogizer.

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:46 (eighteen years ago)

among the kind of people who flag up their interestingness by augmenting their Robbie Williams and Oasis singles with the odd "challenging" CD (Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, say, or the inevitable three Nick Drake albums)

Pretty good self-description there, I'd say.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:47 (eighteen years ago)

Between this and the videogame thread posted in ILE, I am no longer certain that the USA has cornered the worldwide market on idiots with a beef and a megaphone.

― Candy: tastes like chicken, if chicken was a candy. (Austin, Still), Sunday, 7 January 2007 18:52 (eighteen years ago)

Hoooooleee Shit: "Before you get all dewy-eyed and pretend you've always been a Johnny Cash fan, remember this: he got a lot of help and made a lot of crap."

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Sunday, 7 January 2007 19:17 (eighteen years ago)

Geir writes for the Guardian now???

― Tantrum The Cat (Tantrum The Cat), Sunday, 7 January 2007 19:38 (eighteen years ago)

hahahaha

― Hoosteen (Hoosteen), Sunday, 7 January 2007 21:58 (eighteen years ago)

that six-hour funkadelic gig sounds mindblowing!

and so unusual for Funkadelic. don’t worry Louis, long song times remained the domain of light-skinned people outside of this isolated 1975 incident!

can we get "(2007 rolling Petridish and Worzel thread)" added to Dom's title so this stuff stays in one place in future?

― nu-mongrel (kit brash), Monday, 8 January 2007 01:09 (eighteen years ago)

erm, didn't most Funkadelic albums feature at least one 9-minute+ track, and several over 6?

plus, one of my favourite songs of the 60's, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be) is 13:39 and by someone who definitely wasn't white.

i would keep searching for examples, but hey, semantics kinda suck... :P

― You've Got Scourage On Your Breath (Haberdager), Monday, 8 January 2007 01:17 (eighteen years ago)

yeah, but they were only ever allowed to play four songs at a show

― nu-mongrel (kit brash), Monday, 8 January 2007 04:21 (eighteen years ago)

Also very very very telling: nowhere in the world of this article does hip-hop exist.

Judging by his line on jazz fusion, it'll be at least another seven or eight years before he gets around to "this rap stuff is just shouting"

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Monday, 8 January 2007 04:32 (eighteen years ago)

The Harris article was just appalling, but The Guardian then ran a very similarly awful article in Saturday's The Guide (this time by one Andy Capper): http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/music/story/0,,1982677,00.html

― M Carty (mj_c), Monday, 8 January 2007 05:32 (eighteen years ago)

"i want to change views. maybe if i'm a lil bitch.."

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Monday, 8 January 2007 06:03 (eighteen years ago)

YES EVERYTHING IS ABOUT PUNK ROCK jesus christ these people

― rock and roll for the rock and roll soul (nate_patrin), Monday, 8 January 2007 06:08 (eighteen years ago)

Everything is about Ambrosia and Leo Sayer.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 8 January 2007 06:10 (eighteen years ago)

Skipping 90 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I have the original UK issue on HMV with sleevenotes by BENNY GREEN!!!????!?!?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 8 January 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

in the mid-late 70s, cliff white was the nme's designated "soul correspondent"

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 8 January 2007 12:58 (eighteen years ago)

Who slagged off "Anarchy In The UK" in the NME singles column.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 8 January 2007 13:00 (eighteen years ago)

Bambi

― reverto levidensis (blueski), Monday, 8 January 2007 13:01 (eighteen years ago)

Benny Green, related to James Brown (the NME/Loaded one, of course, oh.. nevermind.)?

― Live At The IPC (Jaap Schip), Monday, 8 January 2007 13:03 (eighteen years ago)

????

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Monday, 8 January 2007 13:05 (eighteen years ago)

new issue of NME has James Brown on the front cover

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 16 January 2007 17:10 (eighteen years ago)

fnk u, i mean funk, was so indulgent. then the funk crawled down to bluesville and got them all hooked on crack in the delta. instead of playing blues they chose jazz-funk. and then the white people began to slappin'.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 02:50 (eighteen years ago)

Hey guys, remember in 1975 when funk killed the blues which made Clarksdale, Mississippi explode?

― Period period period (Period period period), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 03:10 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.theonion.com/content/files/images/Cartoon-James-Brown.jpg

― the killfire konspiracy (Haberdager), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 03:45 (eighteen years ago)

http://www.chhomc.free-online.co.uk/purple/explhoofd.gif

― friday on the porch (lfam), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 04:05 (eighteen years ago)

Touchdown, Onion.

― A-ron Hubbard (Hurting), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 04:13 (eighteen years ago)

That little editor guy on the Onion cartoons is the best shit ever.

― jimn (jimnaseum), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 17:45 (eighteen years ago)

brand new heavies >>>>>>>>>>> all punk music ever
(i will not defend jamiroquai though)

-- lex pretend (lexusjee...), January 8th, 2007. (lex pretend)

that's retarded.

stupid article (the one orig. posted), but man, anyone whose ever sat thru a modern "funk" bar band knows that slap n' poppin' bass in the wrong hands is absolutely horrible. not the fault of james or larry g. but still...

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:08 (eighteen years ago)

anyone whose ever sat thru a modern "funk" bar band

Or one episode of Seinfeld.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:09 (eighteen years ago)

i think this

that's retarded.

should be a standard response to any similar posts in the future

― acid waffle house (dubplatestyle), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:10 (eighteen years ago)

the original article makes me want to hit people

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

anyone whose ever sat thru a modern "funk" bar band
Or one episode of Seinfeld.

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), January 17th, 2007. (Ned)

"night court"'s funkin lesson was so much better

― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

TWO TIMES

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:11 (eighteen years ago)

argh x-post my joke is ruined

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 18:12 (eighteen years ago)

...And the "Barney Miller" theme was better than that!

― Myonga Von BarneyFan (M. Agony Von Bontee), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 20:58 (eighteen years ago)

(x-post - Don't worry Shakey, it's still a great little joke!)

― M. Agony Von Bontee (M. Agony Von Bontee), Wednesday, 17 January 2007 21:00 (eighteen years ago)

who fucks these guys?

-- Susan Douglas (SusanisDougla...), January 8th, 2007.

I know you were drunk Susan but that was honestly the best post on this thread.

― Period period period (Period period period), Thursday, 18 January 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

I could give you an answer to that as far as Worzel is concerned, but it would have to be strictly off the record.

No doubt in tomorrow's Grauniad there will be a topical column explaining why Indian music is evil.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 18 January 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

plus, what the guard-een is talking about, funk, they're kind of wrong about that, since jb hardly invented a lot of the stuff they're talking about, outright. commercial funk of the sort that the english dude is inveighing against comes from all the funk stuff in the '60s, and while jb is the prime mover in a lot of it, i mean those early-'60s new orleans hits are "funk," and by ten years later you had sly stone, who is probably the more immediate "influence" on that later funk shit of the '70s, like prime e, w & f, cameo, the later barkays music, tower of power...for that matter, why not blame horn bands, like the fat guy in b, s & t, whose "spinning wheel" jb did a version of.

motown and all the commercial black music of the era went into the mix as well, not to mention just straight dee-troit rock and roll and guitar insanity a la hendrix (funkadelic), plus george clinton was already a version of himself when he did those great '60s parliaments hits like "testify" and so forth, he was already weird. so it's the usual reductive social-crit/rock-crit bullshit, that guardian thing. james brown certainly invented a way of playing, a super-groove, but what about the harmony vocals on george clinton records, or the whole super-slick aspect of much "funk" music. it's hard not to laugh, but at heart I fear that this kind of "thinking" about "music" is straight racist.

― edd s hurt (ddduncan), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:11 (eighteen years ago)

I fear that this kind of "thinking" about "music" is straight racist.

what makes you think that?

― mister the guanoman (mister the guanoman), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:35 (eighteen years ago)

Is thinking this kind of thinking about music is racist in itself racist?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:50 (eighteen years ago)

is thinking that this kind of thinking about music is in itself racist racist?

― M@tt He1g3s0n: oh u mad cuz im stylin on u (Matt Helgeson), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:53 (eighteen years ago)

On balance, no.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 18 January 2007 16:55 (eighteen years ago)

1) The Harris piece isn't racist. What's up with you? Oh yeah, of course, the whole UK's racist now, sorry I forgot

2) The Andy Capper piece is actually pretty good. And better than anything on 'Church of Me' - which is presumably why the man has a career as a journo. And makes money writing about music.

You really need to stop being bitter, the lot of you. Try actually reading what people write.

― Maurice Furvert (Maurice Furvert), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:46 (eighteen years ago)

Hi John.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:54 (eighteen years ago)

More likely to be the guy who's been impersonating me on the Viceland forum. Andy C got in touch with me about that; nice guy actually, which just goes to show the folly of rushing to judgements about folk.

However, is Worzel the Jade of music journalists?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 13:56 (eighteen years ago)

Maurice you'll note that I wrote the piece was racist on the 7th of January, i.e. not subsequent to Jadegate which I know little or nothing about, you bawsack. I'm quite confused as to what I'm supposed to be bitter about as well. Bitter that the only British newspaper I read semi-regularly contains such pathetic pieces of "journalism" as the above? Aye, I'll admit to that.

― jimn (jimnaseum), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:08 (eighteen years ago)

The racist part of the article for me is this: "...[funk is] the cause of at least four decades of grinding misery."

Four decades of grinding misery? I.e. from the 60s to the present day. I.e. for the latter part of this period - hip-hop. I.e. black folks topping the my chart instead of Oasis. This is "misery". Only to twunts like Hongroe and Harris.

― jimn (jimnaseum), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:11 (eighteen years ago)

I doubt very much Andy Capper makes any more than beer money writing about music

― Hell Hath No Furry (DJ Mencap), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 14:19 (eighteen years ago)

There is no way that Funkadelic played a 6 hour show in Manchester, especially in 1975. I bought "Let's Take It To The Stage" the day it came out but the first Bootsy album came out that year too and Bootsy's Rubber Band toured to support it (I was one of about 6 white people to witness it at Chicago Stadium) and AFAIK there WAS NO Funkadelic tour that year as such. (They were already trending towards doing P-Funk tours by then anyway, they did some separate Parliament shows but none as Funkadelic that I was aware of. All of this is from memory, so I guess I could be wrong...) Anyway, even if there had been, they simply did not do six hour shows (way too lazy and cynical to bother) and even if they had, I seriously doubt that they would have chosen Manchester as the place to do one (or that enough interested people would have even turned up there in 1975 to make it worth their while). And honestly, with the crap sound system that they used back then, even a three hour show would have been quite trying.

Although that is far from the most egregious thing about that article.

― Saxby D. Elder (Saxby D. Elder), Tuesday, 23 January 2007 17:47 (eighteen years ago)

There has been an article in The Guardian that is Not about Islam or Gordon Brown?

Daily Mail = For people who like to feel frightened
Guardian = For people who like to feel guilty

― Phil Knight (PhilK), Sunday, 4 February 2007 19:36 (eighteen years ago)

How has this not been linked in the worst music writing of 2007 thread?

― Candy: tastes like chicken, if chicken was a candy. (Austin, Still), Sunday, 4 February 2007 23:50 (eighteen years ago)

Fusion is in fact the only good thing to come out of funk. Funk is to blame for disco, hip-hop and today's awful R&B, but at least it spawned some good fusion music.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 5 February 2007 00:17 (eighteen years ago)

"occasional pearling tune" -- what does this mean?

― Paul Eater (eater), Monday, 5 February 2007 00:25 (eighteen years ago)

Funk is to blame for disco, hip-hop and today's awful R&B

You don't think soul, jazz, pop, gospel, electronica, latin, dance and, uh, r n b might have roles to play here

― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Monday, 5 February 2007 00:34 (eighteen years ago)

have had

― Frogm@n Henry (Frogm@n Henry), Monday, 5 February 2007 00:35 (eighteen years ago)

Paul I think "pearling" is a verb used almost exclusively in soccer writing. (I think to describe a powerful pass or strike that's spun so it curves towards its target. cf. "rasping")

― Elsa Svitborg (tracerhand), Monday, 5 February 2007 00:43 (eighteen years ago)

Interesting! Wikipedia had a very different suggestion.

― Paul Eater (eater), Monday, 5 February 2007 00:58 (eighteen years ago)

You don't think soul, jazz, pop, gospel, electronica, latin, dance and, uh, r n b might have roles to play here

Sure. At least in sounded been different without funk - more like 60s Motown. Which would have been way better.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 5 February 2007 02:11 (eighteen years ago)

Actually Paul I realize that I may have completely made that up.

― Elsa Svitborg (tracerhand), Monday, 5 February 2007 03:08 (eighteen years ago)

From : Paul Eater
To : film&music@guardian.co.uk
Subject : "pearling"
----- Message Text -----
Hello -

As a U.S. reader and appreciator of the Guardian, I occasionally have to look up an unfamiliar piece of terminology. But one is entirely eluding me -- "pearling," as used by John Harris in his January 5 article "Funk did this". He says "...hats off for the UFO, onstage fancy dress and occasional pearling tune..."
( http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1982573,00.html )

On December 15, 2006, he mentions "a pearling selection of music by Waterson Carthy"
( http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1972036,00.html ).

And on July 17, he calls the Spice Girls' hit Wannabe "a pearling
record"
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1822156,00.html ).

Can you cast any light on this usage?

Thank you!

― Paul Eater (eater), Monday, 5 February 2007 03:25 (eighteen years ago)

he should listen to the ohio players 'honey' album - its a masterpiece. i hate revisionists who talk as if all the best funk is only the lesser known obscure/curio stuff that that gets reissued on labels like stones throw, like what ohio players, the commodores, slave, confunkshun etc did was dire.

― titchyschneider (titchyschneider), Monday, 5 February 2007 17:23 (eighteen years ago)

To roll a blunt extremely well and tight, and sometimes used to denote the twist of the tobacco when rolling.

"Props on that pearled blunt."

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Monday, 5 February 2007 17:27 (eighteen years ago)

three weeks pass...

John Harris in the new MOJO: The Abyssinians couldn't possibly have made a better album than Sgt. Pepper. . . .

― If Timi Yuro would be still alive, most other singers could shut up, Tuesday, 27 February 2007 00:35 (eighteen years ago)

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