Funkadelic / Maggot Brain

 Inside the gatefold of vinyl copies of Maggot Brain is an excerpt from an article about the concept of fear, published in a magazine by the Process Church of the Final Judgment, a religious sect founded in England in the mid-’60s. Its thesis: “Fear is at the root of man’s destruction of himself.... Do we know the extent to which we are at war with one another—on every level from personal to world wide [sic]—because we are afraid?” That’s some heavy shit for a funk band to be dropping on folks, but Funkadelic mastermind George Clinton harbored an iconoclastic streak. While his fledgling ’60s band the Parliaments tried to adapt to Motown Records impresario Berry Gordy’s preference for matching suits, synchronized dances, and well-crafted vocal harmonies, they failed to make the cut. In his 2014 autobiography, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kind of Hard on You?, Clinton observed that Gordy deemed the Parliaments as too similar to Motown artists the Temptations and the Contours, and their wildly varying heights struck the label boss as too odd. Ultimately, this rejection was for the best, as Clinton’s imagination was sprouting in ways too strange for Motown, as manifested in Funkadelic’s first three albums.

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Perhaps the most distinctive thing about Maggot Brain is its incomparable bookends: The opener “Maggot Brain” and closer “Wars of Armageddon” are the most evocative expressions of birth and annihilation ever put on record. In the former, Funkadelic plunges into the dank throes of an existential quandary, as Clinton intones, “Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time/For y’all have knocked her up/I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe/I was not offended/For I knew I had to rise above it all/Or drown in my own shit.” Clinton really knew how to rivet attention and prep you for the journey of a lifetime.

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The mythos surrounding this 10-minute epic is extraordinary. Clinton claimed that he and Hazel were tripping hard, and then the bandleader told his guitarist to play like his mother had died. Realizing that Eddie had executed a world-historical solo, Clinton decided to excise most of the other players’ contributions from the track and then “Echoplexed everything back on itself four or five times,” as he noted in Brothas. “I could see the guitar notes stretch out like a silver web.”

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If “Maggot Brain,” is the album’s yin, “Wars of Armageddon” is its yang. Right from the start, Funkadelic unfurl a maelstrom of angst: explosions, crying baby, grouchy dad, protesters chanting for freedom—all of it accompanied by a surfeit of cowbell, bongos, and organ. The track’s chthonic thrust and swagger foreshadowed Miles Davis’ later fusion masterpieces On the Corner and Dark Magus. As it turned out, Miles so loved the drumming here that he temporarily stole Fulwood from Clinton.

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Between these towering extremes, Funkadelic wheeled out the sort of soulful funk-rock that could fuel world-class parties. It would be hard to name a hotter five-song streak in the Clinton canon than that which flows from “Can You Get to That” to “Back in Our Minds Again.” Another example of Funkadelic’s egalitarian microphone policy, “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks” is sung by Billy Nelson; the track exudes the air of a communal Sly & the Family Stone anthem, but imbued with the menace of the Manson Family, with the bass/drums groove ranking as one of the most lethal in the Funkadelic canon.

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Following the release of Maggot Brain, Hazel and Nelson split to work for the vastly more popular Motown act the Temptations, reportedly due to dissatisfaction with Clinton’s handling of the band’s financial situation. Fulwood also was disgruntled about pay and left Funkadelic. Although Clinton doesn’t mention this issue in Brothas, the Wax Poetics interviews feature complaints about George’s stinginess. Ross, too, departed, after alleged misadventures with either LSD or speed. These painful losses were ameliorated by the additions of Bootsy and Catfish Collins, Garry Shider, and Boogie Mosson—all world-class funkateers. Nevertheless, Funkadelic never again released an album as laden with genius as Maggot Brain. It was the culmination of their first phase’s most outrageous and ingenious sonic ideas, establishing a new precedent for how Black musicians would exist in a rock context, juxtaposing metal, gospel, prog, funk, blues, and jazz fusion with nonchalant virtuosity. It’s the epitome of their extravagant virtues and vices.

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Summarizing the LP in Brothas, Clinton wrote, “Maggot Brain was going places that Black groups hadn’t gone, into questions about whether America was still on the right path or whether the promise of the late ’60s had completely evaporated.” In these seven songs, you can hear Funkadelic attempting to make sense of the turmoil of the times, as they express the euphoria and anguish of being born and dying in the most extraordinary ways.

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