Maggot Brain is the third album by Funkadelic. It was released in 1971 on the Westbound label, and I mention this because they still release it today. But 4 Men With Beards has also released a pressing of this record which I think sounds VASTLY inferior to the Westbound pressing. So if you decide to get yourself a copy, make sure you get the right one.
Produced by George Clinton, Maggot Brain was the final album released by the original Funkadelic lineup. After its release original members Tawl Ross, Billy Nelson and Tiki Fulwood left the band. The record cracked the Top 20 R&B chart and is perhaps best known for the 10-minute title track that opens side one, which is pretty much entirely performed by the group's amazing guitarist, Eddie Hazel.
Maggot Brain is on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time and has been declared by Pitchfork to be the 17th greatest album of the 1970s - and that's an era with a lot of great albums!
Starting off with a somewhat weird spoken word monologue by George Clinton that refers to "the maggots in the mind of the universe," the title track was, according to legend, recorded in just one take while Clinton was under the influence of LSD and is supposed to have told Hazel to play as if he had just been told his mother was dead. Several other musicians performed on the track, but Clinton more-or-less faded them out of the final mix so that the focus would be on the guitar. And it's a spectacular effect. If you walked into a record store and it was playing and you would buy it on the spot. I did. And I honestly can not believe it took me 49 years to hear it.
Hazel uses fuzz and wah-wah pedals to gloriously wonderful effect on the track. Other effects were added later, during the mixdown, and Clinton claims to have "Echoplexed it back on itself three or four times." The overall effect of all this tinkering on top of Hazel's actual playing lends the track a sort of creepy vibe and makes it probably one of the best tracks ever to smoke a joint to. Trust me.
The rest of the record is a hybrid of soulful psychedelic smooth vibes and funky beats, all with a great low end. Can You Get To That features Isaac Hayes' backing singers and has a gospel tinge.
Electronically distorted drums feature prominently on You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks, which I think is a commentary on interracial love. The 9-minute-plus closing track, Wars of Armageddon, has been described as a "freak-out jam" and makes use of some really cool sound effects.
The title Maggot Brain was supposedly Hazel's nickname, although he can't be reached to confirm this because he's been dead since 1992. But other sources claim it actually refers to Clinton finding his brother's decomposing body with a cracked skull and covered in maggots in a Chicago apartment.
I'm inclined to think it's the latter.
The cover depicts a screaming black woman's head coming out of the earth and was photographed by Joel Brodsky. It definitely catches your attention!
Reviewing the album for Rolling Stone in 1971, Vince Aletti described it as "a shattered, desolate landscape with few pleasures." He didn't seem to like side two at all, asking "who needs this shit?"
Well, I do! I think it's great stuff!
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau praised the title-track as "druggy, time-warped super-schlock."
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History said Maggot Brain and Funkadelic's previous two albums "created a whole new kind of psychedelic rock with a dance groove," which I think pretty much accurately describes the band's early music.
Run out and get this record while you can. It's affordable and you won't be disappointed!
Maggot Brain is the third album by Funkadelic. It was released in 1971 on the Westbound label, and I mention this because they still release it today. But 4 Men With Beards has also released a pressing of this record which I think sounds VASTLY inferior to the Westbound pressing. So if you decide to get yourself a copy, make sure you get the right one.
Produced by George Clinton, Maggot Brain was the final album released by the original Funkadelic lineup. After its release original members Tawl Ross, Billy Nelson and Tiki Fulwood left the band. The record cracked the Top 20 R&B chart and is perhaps best known for the 10-minute title track that opens side one, which is pretty much entirely performed by the group's amazing guitarist, Eddie Hazel.
Maggot Brain is on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time and has been declared by Pitchfork to be the 17th greatest album of the 1970s - and that's an era with a lot of great albums!
Starting off with a somewhat weird spoken word monologue by George Clinton that refers to "the maggots in the mind of the universe," the title track was, according to legend, recorded in just one take while Clinton was under the influence of LSD and is supposed to have told Hazel to play as if he had just been told his mother was dead. Several other musicians performed on the track, but Clinton more-or-less faded them out of the final mix so that the focus would be on the guitar. And it's a spectacular effect. If you walked into a record store and it was playing and you would buy it on the spot. I did. And I honestly can not believe it took me 49 years to hear it.
Hazel uses fuzz and wah-wah pedals to gloriously wonderful effect on the track. Other effects were added later, during the mixdown, and Clinton claims to have "Echoplexed it back on itself three or four times." The overall effect of all this tinkering on top of Hazel's actual playing lends the track a sort of creepy vibe and makes it probably one of the best tracks ever to smoke a joint to. Trust me.
The rest of the record is a hybrid of soulful psychedelic smooth vibes and funky beats, all with a great low end. Can You Get To That features Isaac Hayes' backing singers and has a gospel tinge.
Electronically distorted drums feature prominently on You And Your Folks, Me And My Folks, which I think is a commentary on interracial love. The 9-minute-plus closing track, Wars of Armageddon, has been described as a "freak-out jam" and makes use of some really cool sound effects.
The title Maggot Brain was supposedly Hazel's nickname, although he can't be reached to confirm this because he's been dead since 1992. But other sources claim it actually refers to Clinton finding his brother's decomposing body with a cracked skull and covered in maggots in a Chicago apartment.
I'm inclined to think it's the latter.
The cover depicts a screaming black woman's head coming out of the earth and was photographed by Joel Brodsky. It definitely catches your attention!
Reviewing the album for Rolling Stone in 1971, Vince Aletti described it as "a shattered, desolate landscape with few pleasures." He didn't seem to like side two at all, asking "who needs this shit?"
Well, I do! I think it's great stuff!
Village Voice critic Robert Christgau praised the title-track as "druggy, time-warped super-schlock."
The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History said Maggot Brain and Funkadelic's previous two albums "created a whole new kind of psychedelic rock with a dance groove," which I think pretty much accurately describes the band's early music.
Run out and get this record while you can. It's affordable and you won't be disappointed!
BONUS TRACK
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
That's how Maggot Brain - the song and the album - opens, and the first time I heard it I didn't know what to think. Then someone told me that band leader and producer George Clinton had been on acid during the recording of the song. I didn't know if that's true, but … um … sure … why not? And if opening spoken word and drug fuelled poetry about drowning in shit doesn’t cause you pause, Eddie Hazel's guitar playing will. The way it unfolds and slowly progresses to a climax is unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It's remarkable, even if it mostly employs loops.
I like listening to Grateful Dead jams and Allman Brother jams and anything that's sort of drawn out and trippy - and Hazel's searing yet tender soloing here fits right in.
The members of Funkadelic were huge fans of psychedelic exploration. Clinton confirms in his 2014 memoir that the track Maggot Brain was indeed the product of an LSD trip combined with a request he made of Hazel during its recording. “Eddie and I were in the studio, tripping like crazy but also trying to focus on our emotions. I told him to play like his mother had died, to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar. I knew immediately that he understood what I meant. I could see the guitar notes stretching out like a silver web."
Then he told Hazel to imagine as if his mother not died.
“When he played the solo back, I knew it was good beyond good, not only a virtuoso display of musicianship but also an almost unprecedented moment of emotion in pop music,” Clinton wrote, and he's right. The song is a trip. Close your eyes and it will transport you. Smoke a joint before you close your eyes and it will transport you somewhere magical.
The notes of Hazel's solo leap off his fretboard and literally fly around the room. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of his career, this solo sits at #71 on Guitar World’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos. His many admirers include Lenny Kravitz, and Buckethead.
And - incredibly - the song was recorded in just one day and just one take.
Seriously. Smoke a joint. Drop this on your turntable and turn out the lights.
Do it.
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
That's how Maggot Brain - the song and the album - opens, and the first time I heard it I didn't know what to think. Then someone told me that band leader and producer George Clinton had been on acid during the recording of the song. I didn't know if that's true, but … um … sure … why not? And if opening spoken word and drug fuelled poetry about drowning in shit doesn’t cause you pause, Eddie Hazel's guitar playing will. The way it unfolds and slowly progresses to a climax is unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It's remarkable, even if it mostly employs loops.
I like listening to Grateful Dead jams and Allman Brother jams and anything that's sort of drawn out and trippy - and Hazel's searing yet tender soloing here fits right in.
The members of Funkadelic were huge fans of psychedelic exploration. Clinton confirms in his 2014 memoir that the track Maggot Brain was indeed the product of an LSD trip combined with a request he made of Hazel during its recording. “Eddie and I were in the studio, tripping like crazy but also trying to focus on our emotions. I told him to play like his mother had died, to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out through his guitar. I knew immediately that he understood what I meant. I could see the guitar notes stretching out like a silver web."
Then he told Hazel to imagine as if his mother not died.
“When he played the solo back, I knew it was good beyond good, not only a virtuoso display of musicianship but also an almost unprecedented moment of emotion in pop music,” Clinton wrote, and he's right. The song is a trip. Close your eyes and it will transport you. Smoke a joint before you close your eyes and it will transport you somewhere magical.
The notes of Hazel's solo leap off his fretboard and literally fly around the room. Considered by many to be the pinnacle of his career, this solo sits at #71 on Guitar World’s 100 Greatest Guitar Solos. His many admirers include Lenny Kravitz, and Buckethead.
And - incredibly - the song was recorded in just one day and just one take.
Seriously. Smoke a joint. Drop this on your turntable and turn out the lights.
Do it.
