from the LP Maggot Brain, Westbound Records, 1971As imaginative and far out as the whole space-funk expedition of Parliament was, one might think that George Clinton and crew would have had their hands full---wrong. Jimi Hendrix and, to a lesser extent, guys like Sly Stone and Arthur Lee had made crunching acid rock okay for brothers to play, and the P-Funk crew needed an outlet just for that vibe; hence, the band known as Funkadelic. Some people don’t realize the distinction since they have toured as one bunch for many decades now, but originally the two bands played different sounds: Parliament had their cosmically funky shenanigans, and Funkadelic focused on mind-shattering rock-n-roll. The two squads shared a majority of members, so it’s not as if they were two completely separate bands, but more like varying streams of thought running out of the same subterranean lake, or Mothership, as it were. These cats took the ethos of the psychedelic movement seriously, gobbling down handfuls of LSD, snorting speed & PCP, not content to merely “open the door” but instead taking the door off its hinges and setting the fucking thing on fire; some members mixed it all in with harder drugs like dope as well, guitarist Eddie Hazel being one of them. The title of this song, and album, serves as an allegory to the state of one’s mind after consuming that many drugs, but it also refers to a section of Funkadelic’s mystical philosophy addressing humanity’s need for enlightenment before we destroy everything; after being accused of impregnating Mama Earth again, we learn that Mr. Clinton has, “…tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe; I was not offended, for I know I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit…” So begins the journey which is Maggot Brain; it has been widely reported that Hazel’s guitar track here was recorded in one take, high out of his mind on acid, and after being told to imagine that someone had just told him that his mother was dead---whatever the truth of the situation, this song smokes harder than Cheech & Chong! Soaring and somber, nearly weeping, his guitar flies over the listener like a pterodactyl mourning its own extinction; whoever was at the controls did an excellent job with the phasing and delay work, and this song is, without a doubt, best experienced from between two gigantic headphones. Eddie’s style of guitar playing was so rhythmic and organic, and I recommend any fans to check out the few clips they have of him playing live in the ‘70s on youtube.com, the guy had talent for fucking days man! Unfortunately, like so many addicted musicians before him, Mr. Hazel was never able to unhook himself from the claws of hard drugs, spending time in & out of jail and eventually succumbing to health problems related to his years of hard living a couple days before Xmas of 1992; may he rest in peace. Mankind still falls within the specter of Maggot Brain, perhaps more so than ever of late, and only time will tell if the powers of unity or decay will win the day.
