if you and your folks loved me and my folks like me and my folks love you and your folks…

Funkadelic are a force of nature it seems.

Beloved of many a culture and sub-culture. In fact they may be a culture all their own.

It is the considered opinion of your correspondent that if you manage to marry the innocent brilliance of Syd Barrett with the funk of Funkadelic and the attitude of The Doors you may have a winning combination to blow the mind of the unsuspecting pubic, solve the global climate crisis and perpetrate whirled peas on the planet as well as extinguishing the memory of Trump and his cronies. We could turn back time and right all historic wrongs and create a better more welcoming and inclusive society.

In fact it is my assertion that since 1971 every band that has been created has been an attempt to realize this utopian dream.

Until the moment when some young person manages this we have the records. It will have to be enough I suppose.

I suppose Maggot Brain is as good a place as any other to start.

So go start it’s worth the journey.

I saw you breathing, oh…

There’s a decadence to This Mortal Coil.

A sensuousness.

An inevitability.

It’ll End In Tears fulfills the promise of the cover art.

This album may single have single handedly dictated the future musical interests of an entire generation. One part Tim Buckley to two parts Big Star a dash of Roy Harper mix well and bake with a seasoning of Cocteau Twins. Clothe it all in a romantic sepia tone and let loose in the unsuspecting public.

I guarantee that every time you play this with your significant other you will fall in love again.

this land that I live in has god on it’s side…

I just finally bought the first and third Dylan albums. There is some sort of sacrilege involved in that admission. I had the second and fourth. Go figure.

I have greater more shameful admissions in Dylan purchases this week. That may be for a different day though.

On that first album Dylan looks like the fresh faced school boy new to the big city. It’s a slight album. Full of naïveté and cover versions and a couple of Dylan songs. There’s a certain arrogance in the eyes though which is a little unsettling amongst all that baby fat.

Then we get to the third album which is a much more world weary exhausted and bleak album.

Dylan sneers down from the cover and looks like he’s seen the world and is not so sure about things anymore. The baby fat is gone and the half smile is a sneer.

The songs are all here protest, love, politics, self righteous anger and tenderness.

When the ship comes in is also here. One of the greatest songs Dylan ever wrote go non prove me wrong.

went out walking through the woods the other day…

It’s been a beautiful autumnal day. Slightly chilly a bit damp with glorious sunshine.

So obviously conversation turned to what was the last great Stones album. After the flippant was there ever a great Stones album. We settled on Goats Head Soup. Not so much for its greatness as for its consistency of style and swagger.

It’s a pleasant album and maybe the last one that was not too involved in maintaining the myth.

don’t laugh don’t fart don’t sneeze…

It’s been a significantly long time since I was psychedlicized , about 38 years. It scared the bejesus out of me and acted as a cautionary experience I have never overcome, prior to that experience it was a lot of fun and I am not sure I would ever have stopped if not for that day/night/morning. Now they have legalized psilocybin treatment there is a piece of me that is thinking, hmm maybe this is something I should get into.

I’m not going to get into the circular and convoluted logic that has brought this up to me but a lot of it has to do with the world is so mixed up and weird that maybe it will all look a bit better if I was conversing with the fruit on the counter.

Maybe the scary things would become all warm and fuzzy.

Maybe the fuzzy things would become all the more welcoming and loving.

Maybe I would finally understand The Naked Lunch or Tales From Topographic Oceans.

Maybe it would be good to check out and giggle for an afternoon.

Oh I am not talking therapeutic doses here am I?

NO I am not going to drop a tab and swim in the ocean of unreality again, maybe when I get to 80 our so. I

they’re all your friends you’ll come to love them…

In the chronology of the ditch. Tuscaloosa comes before the sessions for Tonight’s the Night. It’s the start of the road to Miami Beach. Recorded at the beginning of the tour that yielded Time Fades Away eventually and the descent to the ditch.

New Mama and Lookout Joe are here the raggedy ass pedal steel and shuffling drums are all in place. It’s loose and uptight all at the same time. Young’s vocals are strained and at times barked in a strident manner especially on the almost hoedown version of Time Fades Away.

It’s the winding of the spring almost. Edgy and wild and dangerous. It’s the scary brother to the Roxy album which feels like the point everything just slumped into a groove.

I played both albums. One because 1537 told me to and the other because it made sense after the day.

I started the night off with Tuscaloosa which got me on edge especially as the insistent rhythm of Don’t Be Denied faded to the “Welcome To Miami Beach…” intro of the Roxy album.

After Tuscaloosa the Roxy show is cathartic a release. It’s almost the victory stumble at the end of the marathon.

end it with a cry…

I’ve been wondering. Can you legitimately call it s bootleg if it’s officially released. It all started with Dylan, now Neil Young is on the bandwagon with the official bootleg series.

Don’t get me wrong I love archival releases and apparently having disposable income I tend to buy them when they come out and on vinyl at that. It’s intoxicating to step back in time and hear an artist at their prime wowing an audience. It’s time for travel man.

Neil Young’s latest release of his concert at Carnegie Hall in 1970 is as to probably be expected really unsurprisingly excellent. The song selection is perfect for the time. I’m not sure he had managed to write a clunker by 1970. He was remarkably consistent and even the lighter songs like Wonderin’ and Dance Dance Dance stand up despite the quality of the surrounding songs.

Neil Young for my mind is the only songwriter who can successfully switch between electric and acoustic and not have the listener feeling like something is missing.

So all the hits and none of the clunkers but is it really a bootleg man.