Flyboy in the Buttermilk

to houn Ce shit off of. Jimi was the same way. But the Beatles had the right opportunity and that vibe that comes through all of us to make us write that shit. That shit just comes through your ass, and if you can take advantage of it, you're doing pretty BtllfotlJ tb !Zone o~tb good. And the Beatles were able to take advantage of it, four at one time. Each of them had a different drummer, and they was on the one. Michael right now has that chance. I hope he knows 2~o'f-unlatioif:LJ more than the politics of the music and his own energy, because he has that. But, see, his manager is somebody from the moth· A true god must be an organizer and a destroyer. erfucking record company, and that ain't no accident. -Tiwmas Pynclwn Unless you want to get on your knees, throw down. That's about charisma control, man. -George Clinton You know what I'm saying, that's all it is. And it's good, because it's given him access to 30 million records. I'm not saying that's wrong, but he should be aware that that is what it's about and c eorge Clinton's Computer Games is a work of ge­ that he ain't got to be grateful to the m~rfucker,He should._ nius and a piece of shit. A masterpiece of mind­ still be the one to direct his own image. _At a ce~.~g1Jl(?i.nt~u . · Cf less pleasure made for both mass-ass and Maggot have to change before ou reach '·~:or5atuiJ!!!on. consumption, showing once again how intelligent life can devolve • '--Tfiat'S w y en we finished the Mothership tour we said, from do-do into some terrible Afro-pop. Fusing the dance-floor funk· now let's go on the antitour immediately. Soon as we had finished intellechy of Parliament and the hardcore jollies of Funkadelic,

four years of all that glitter we said let's go to all these little Co~puterGames is Clinton's response to the deadliest dookey bitty places and play three hours for us. No limousines, get to 40 shtick of our times: information overload. Computer Games got more the gig the best way you can, and just get your ass out there signifiers than half a Thomas Pynchon novel, likewise it begs de­ • and jam. Or else you'll start believing that star shit. And when coding only to figure you an idiot for deciphering instead of just 41 a motherfucker says you ain't shit, you will die of a heart attack. getting off. The intent is obvious: to make folk ·dig themselves • Especially after you have psyched yourself up to believe you are becoming more like dysfunktional machine parts every day, the equal of 30 million albums. Right now I say fuck a limousine. whether at work, play, or meditation. (Though as always, y'all I'll take a cab in a minute. I walked to see Thomas Dolby. And suckers will dance now.) that gives you strength. Because people ask, man, ain't you The reason Computer Games is a Clinton and not a Parliament tired, and I say I don't feel like I've done shit. I rehearsed for or Funkadelic LP is probably still tied up in court, but it makes this for 17 years of my life. When I was younger I used to walk sense content-wise too. Because Computer Games programs in both down side streets in Newark on Sunday when the stores were bands' primary splanks: dance with your mind (P) and freak-out closed, screaming, "Parliament, Parliament!"-just so I could. and be free (F). Like I said upfront, however, Computer Games is hear what it was going to be like when I made it to where I also one signifying furthermucker 20 times over. What it's about wanted to be. So if I'm crazy now, I was crazy then. in part is having the brains of a dog and liking it ("Man's Best Friend," "Ato"\'ic Dog") and how much guilt-free, nasty fun you -1985 had when you were a baby ("Pot Sharing Tots") and the discipline

it takes to be rdpno~amous("One Fun at a Time") and how much Flyboy in the Buttermilk Beyond the Zone of the Zero Funkativity

better the world would be if we treated each other like we treat tune's tag end is definitely meant to give the impression of some our clothes ("Free Alterations") but mainly, about kids whose kid who done flipped out behind thinking life is more an Atari brains been damaged from playing too many computer games than a material thang. George however ain't just worried about the ("Loopzilla," "Computer Games"). kids. Dig the line where the computer game say "I can out-drummer Computer Games also got some serious reconnections going for a beat," and ask yourself if that wouldn't shake you up if the next it. Back to play are Bernie, Eddie, Junie, Bootsy, Freddie, and dance was your next dollar. But we got to hold that thought for Maceo. Gone are the liner notes a Ia weltanfunkenschauung of Sir later. Because moving right along, the next song in our tautology, Lleb and the whiz kid gee-tar of Michael Hampton. What's new is "Man's Best Friend," is musically speaking a "(not just) Knee some humility. Now way I figure it, this is George's way of saying Deep" retread sporting one snazzy Eddie Hazel jazzbreak. The gist P-Funk is dead but rising from the grave as of Computer Games. of it is that a well-stroked dog is a fool of a friend forever. Though Of course he could also be making apocalyptic allusions on the its throwaway line, "a dog is a woman's best friend," surely alludes order of the first funk is the last. Especially since the slippery body to other forms of hound. A left-handed way of saying perhaps how slam of a rhythm track sounds like some Bootsy' s Rubber Band with them kind of dogs the love you get won't be shit no matter seven years in the can-which is also of course about how long how much love you put out. But even a good dog can be loyal to it's been since the Funk Mob was anybody's opening act. Now way a fault, which is to say too good for its own good, eh brothers? I figure it, this old funk for new with a side dish of humble pie is Leading us of course to the Parliamentary notion of a dog led by George's way of begging his maker for reincarnation into mass-ass its primal urges toward behavior modification or the Nose Zone appeal; especially so as not to forfeit any more games to the likes whereupon the following maxim applies: the dog who chases [its] of Dick Dames, the Tame, Primps, Vanity Sucks, Knave, or the tail will be dizzy. This comes from "Atomic Dog," a synthfunk Slackback Band (though the LP's backcover does generously give throwdown replete with Pavlovian slobbers, woofing and bark beat thanx to "Grandmaster Five"-Clinton's sic, not me-for ''The in paw-paw meter. By which I mean this song definitely sounds Message.") like a dirty dog at bay besides being the ravefave of everybody I've 42 "Loopzilla," the current single out from Computer Game$, struck played it for (hint, hint, Capitol Records). Content-wise "Atomic 43 • me as more dysfunktional than the competition first time I heard Dog" asks the perennial male question "Why must I feel like that, • it. Basically because being as how I'm no "Planet Rock" junkie, why must I chase the cat," then suggests bloods do a dance called even given the social relevance of Mr. Bambaataa himself, I had the "Dogcatcher." Which means, cool that hound out before he no use for the way my main Maggot Overlord was pimping that gets hurt running around untrained in this here atomic society. Monochrome Drone Brainwash Syndrome beat and doing free pro­ Now how all this ranking database figures into the "Loopzilla" mos for 'KTU and 'BLS on the side, just to get some fairplay. Only ,hustle is as you might imagine pretty deep, so sit back while I try way I now figure it, in light of further listening, is that "Loopzilla" to break it all the way on down for ya'. See, George Clinton has has to be understood within the co~of Computer ahvays beeq like a radio to me. A cat who could tune in on every­ Games to be dug for the sweet scam it truly is. body else's signals and fit 'em in on his wavelength band. Namely See, there's a set-up going on. While the title track has a that of W-EFUNK or deeper still THE ONE, an orgiastic concept readymade P-Funk groove routine going against it from jump-street, of democracy modeled after the dance floor where folks can both the lyrics be signifying how computer games are fast replacing even · groove en masse and freak to their own beat. Though for this booty cartoon reality for kids as in "I can out-woody a peeker I can out­ politic to work ~ ART, you do need somebody like Clinton or porky a pig, I'm your computer game and of Bootsy (or Sun ~a,Miles, Omette) to fine-tune the many freak­ Course, if that ain't clear enough, the vocoder prJ>cessin~at the when-sees into ode mass-ter stroke. The problem however is that Flyboy in the Buttermilk

if you jam too many signals on one channel you might get not deep dub but static, distortion, entropy, and finally the Zone of Zero Funkativity. So that the more impulses the P-Funk sent out in the _/tlil~ form of offshoots and spinoffs, the less radio-active the Mob actually i3a6q anJ i3a6q became, as radio itself grew more and more formulaic, more about pimping that one beat up and down, which Clinton said just Waqne: Wqntbn wouldn't do on Uncle }am Wants You. Likewise, on the streets of New York, another contrary motion was occurring. The dances were getting more complicated as the _/tlatsalis music to them became more a simple matter of breaks, mixes, and beat instead of tunes (thanks to DJ's like Bambaataa). Hence came the street appeal of a goosestepping unit by the name of Kraftwerk (see Barry Michael Cooper for more detail on this than can be provided here), which of course begat "Planet Rock" which in tum has made the new sound of New York urban-con radio great if ecause jazz was once a music defined as much by you're a breaking member of the boogie box brigade and tired as brinksmanship-social and aesthetic-as by vir­ shit if you ain't. "Loopzilla" is a work of genius because it am­ tuosic refinement, the music's current hidebound bivalently cracks on and applauds this invasion of the system from swing toward bop and post-bop revivalism has to be seen as not the streets while warning of the madness in store for folk if they only regenerative but reactionary: not just re-evolutionary but ata­ submit to that Monochrome Drone Brainwash Syndrome beat and vistic. But necessary. Because where the music's foremost exper­ turn, like Pavlov's dog, from charismatic funkateers into routinized imentalists of the '60s- Taylor, Coleman, Coltrane, Shepp, Ayler, robotic electric boogaloos. Course "Loopzilla" is still a piece of Ra, and later the Art Ensemble-produced music exemplary of a 44 shit because it tries to cash in on that beat by being just as dance- disciplined, genre-expansive personalism, the period's significant 45 • ably unlistenable. Though on another level the snippets of old mainstream modernists-Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Andrew • Motown and P-Funk Clinton has spliced in as double-talk ("calling Hill, Herbie Hancock, Bobby Hutcherson, McCoy Tyner, and Sam out, around the world/are you ready for a brand new beat") tell us Rivers-made music which paid academic heed to bebop's har­ how that monochrome drone will either carry us forward or bury monic, rhythmic, and formal strictures while surreptitiously in­ us if we get out of step ("unless you want to get on your knees, corporating avant-garde ideas. throw down"). The trick lies in who calls the tune. Therefore the Yet while the '70s has seen the experimentalists' heirs apparent only way to keep your ass from being up for grabs is to do like the retain revolutionary status-at least in the jazz press-the latter's brothers and sisters on the streets and outmaneuver that beat by bandwagon fell by the wayside when Herbie Hancock disbanded breaking, smurfing, and murdering it to death. Or by doing what his Sextant band to turn golddigger, and Wayne Shorter, tenor Doctor Funkenstein has done on Computer Games: pimp that sucker saxophonist and composer, retired for a vacation in Weather Re­ for all it's worth to get over on the system and then make an album port. Thereby depriving the music's succeeding generation of ad­ that blows up in the system's face with the atomizing diversity of venturous formalists of their leadership. (Though the question of P-Funk, uncut funk, THE BOMB! whether or not jazz's fragile economy could have weathered the -1982 '70s without fusion is far from moot.) In this context, the arrival of the prodigal Marsalis brothers-