Funkadelic “First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate”
When it comes to George, nothing is simple. Facts are hard to come by. Nothing makes any sense. Everything’s covered in Funk. Dusted with glitter. Stored on old, warped floppy discs, under piles of drugs, in the basement of a barber shop in New Jersey. And even if you could repair those discs, all you’d find was smokescreens and code names and bad trips and science fiction and shadow corporations. There are millions of witnesses and hundreds of narrators. But most of them are unreliable or dead or fried or carrying vendettas or related to the main suspects. At this point, the story of Parliament-Funkadelic is something in between a myth and a cold case. Part of me thinks that they may be the biggest tragedy in the history of popular music. But another part thinks maybe they really are the Mothership. I suspect I’ll never really know.
Looking back, I’ve been on the case for decades. It was a major mystery of my youth. As a child in the Seventies, I wondered: Who were they? Are they related to Star Wars or Star Trek? What’s the difference between Parliament and Funkadelic? Are they a professional wrestling league? How come their leader doesn’t play any instruments? Does he even sing? And, most importantly, what, exactly, is The Funk? I would catch occasional glimpses of them on TV, confused as to whether they were more like cartoons or more like the movies on Betamax tapes that my parents said were not for children. Whichever the case, I could tell, without any doubt, that there was something very silly about P-Funk. But I also wondered if there was something else going on. Something very adult. Something amazing. Something bigger than music and beyond reality.
What I did not know then -- what I could not have known and what is still hard to fathom -- is that P-Funk made the most important music of the 1970s. If you judge “important” on the basis of social or cultural impact, there’s obviously room for debate. We can talk about Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye and John Lennon and Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. And if you smudge the line between the 60s and the 70s, then we get into The Beatles and James Brown and Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix and Aretha. But if we stick to everything after 1970 and if you judge “importance” based on influence, then it’s probably not even close. Take Zeppelin and The Bee Gees and ABBA and Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd and The Eagles and add them up and I still don’t think you get close to George Clinton’s legacy. And I’m only barely talking about Parliament, Funkadelic, Parlet, Bootsy, The P-Funk All Stars, The Brides of Funkenstein, etc. I’m mostly talking mostly about Dre, Snoop, Tupac, The Beastie Boys, Rick James, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Timbaland, Missy Elliott, Outkast, D’angelo, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pharrell, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino, De La Soul and LCD Soundsystem. Quite literally none of those bands could make the music they made without Parliament-Funkadelic. The music of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries is post-George Clinton. It’s not like P-Funk is a minor flavor. They’re the main ingredient.
Between 1970 and 1979, Parliament and Funkadelic -- two bands with mostly the same members, separated as much for legal hair-splitting as for formal differences -- released twenty-one studio albums. Twenty one! In 1970, 1975 and 1976, they released three records per year. This is not to mention the various Clinton-verse offshoots, which, all told, included twenty-five entities and over two hundred musicians. The breadth of George Clinton’s reach was unimaginable. Many writers have called Dr. Funkenstein “boundless.” It’s a word I’ve also heard in reference to Prince. When describing Prince, I assume the word is meant to suggest both the range of his style as well as the depth of his expertise. Prince could play most any instrument, write in most any popular form and sing from countless perspectives. However, when people use that same word (“boundless) to describe George Clinton, it’s only partially a compliment. When employed generously, it’s an attempt to draw the through line from James Brown to Motown to Clapton to Hendrix to Miles to Sun Ra to Zappa to P-Funk. It also suggests creative freedom. And sexual freedom. And freedom from repression. But, unlike Prince, George Clinton couldn’t play any musical instruments — not a one. And while his voice had great character, it was hardly exceptional. His ideas were wild, but, eventually, they always returned to The Funk. So, when people describe Clinton as “boundless,” I presume that they really mean “boundary-less.” And that they don’t necessarily mean it as a compliment -- they mean it as a diagnosis. As a pathology.
That’s the thing with George Clinton: Inasmuch as his influence is unassailable, and his output is staggering, the rest of the story is very, very complicated. A lot of the surrounding chaos can be attributed to drugs. It seems that, at any given time, most of the P-Funk crew was either taking LSD or PCP or coke or worse. Some part of the tragedy can be chalked up as naïveté. Talented young men and women were drawn to a visionary leader who promised them fame, fortune and funk. But most of it, I suspect, lands on the shoulders of Clinton himself. For over a decade, and by almost every account, P-Funk’s founder operated as CEO, bandleader, creative director, drug dealer and (occasional) pimp. For some time, Clinton owned most of the publishing and some of the master recordings, while his bandmates were given meager salaries, net of gas, food, lodging and drugs.
There was that time when his former bandmates filed a lawsuit against him, alleging fraud and theft. There was the time when, in the depths of addiction, Clinton sold valuable master recordings to his drug dealer, Nene Montes. There was that time in the later 70s when Sly Stone quit a P-Funk tour because Clinton tailed him through The Mothership, into the stage, completely nude. That’s how boundless George Clinton was! He was sufficiently boundless to freak out Sly Stone! It’s simply hard to imagine that version of The Prime Minister of Funk -- tweeking, hallucinating, naked and sloppy -- as the loadstar for a wildly creative organization. And yet, Clinton is credited as the writer and producer of almost every P-Funk song from the beginning of their historic run in 1970, until 1981, when Funkadelic released “The Electric Spanking of War Babies.”
In the early 80s, embroiled in multiple legal battles, having lost some of his master recordings, and on the precipice of a crack addiction, Clinton put Parliament and Funkadelic on the shelf. He continued to record as a solo artist throughout the 80s. But, outside of “Atomic Dog” from 1982’s “Computer Games,” he mostly faded from the charts. While Prince was carrying The Funk into the mainstream, Clinton and his acolytes were sinking under the weight of dysfunction.
By the 1990s, there were signs of a market correction. As (white) college kids made their way through The Dead and then through Phish, many came to discover Parliament-Funkadelic. The simultaneous ascent of Jam Band culture and Alternative Rock in the mid-90s proved to be a boon for P-Funk. Trey and Mike loved P-Funk! So did Flea and Anthony! As a result, the P-Funk All-Stars enjoyed a late career renaissance. For nearly two decades, various permutations of Clinton’s roadshow decked themselves out in glitter and rainbows so that a new generation could get a whiff ofThe Funk.
In 1997, Prince inducted fifteen members of Parliament-Funkadelic into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a fitting tribute and a touching celebration. But you could also see the carnage. At least half of the guys on stage that night had not recovered from the 70s. Some had sued Clinton. Some probably wish they’d never met him. But most of them still needed him. Clinton was nearing sixty at the time and was, himself, showing signs of wear. Meanwhile, Eddie Hazel, the incendiary P-Funk guitarist who’d built the bridge between Hendrix and Sly, had died five years earlier. He wasn’t the first one. Tiki Fulwood had died in 1979. There were others along the way. But then, in the 2000s, guys started checking out. Garry Shider died in 2010. Boogie Mosson died in 2013. The All-Stars soldiered on, but there had been no new music from Parliament or Funkadelic since 1981. Why tarnish a legacy? Why return to the quagmire of copyrights and trademarks? Why mess with a good thing?
But then, in 2014, Clinton threatened all of the above. He announced the publication of his autobiography, “Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain't That Funkin' Kinda Hard On You?” and the simultaneous release of “First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate,” the first Funkadelic album of new material in thirty three years. The former was mostly a ghost-written victory lap disguised as a comprehensive history. It was, unsurprisingly, a very funny and loving document. It made perfect sense that a seventy three year old grandfather and hustler was ready to cash in. What made much less sense was the three and a half hour, three record, fifty-ish person album that coincided with the book. That, honestly, came out of nowhere.
When I initially heard about “First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate,” I wasn’t even sure if it was real or if it was a press stunt or if Nene Montes was dumping his old George Clinton tapes for a quick buck. The promise of new Funkadelic material, after such a long absence, defied credulity. It sounded like something in between “Chinese Democracy” and the apocryphal “Prince and Miles tapes.” And so, in late 2014, at the time of the album’s release, I just clicked the headlines and read the interviews, but ignored the music. I was evidently not alone. “First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate” yielded zero hits. It charted nowhere. It was barely available for sale. Most magazines chose not to review it. You couldn’t even find the lyrics online anywhere.
Its track count -- thirty three -- was equal to the number of years in between Funkadelic releases. According to the credits, most of the songs were written by George Clinton, Tracey Lewis and Tra'zae Lewis-Clinton (Clinton’s grandson). Three tracks were written or co-written by Novena Carmel, the daughter of Sly Stone. Garry Shider’s guitar was brought back from the grave and his son contributed to the album as well. Sly Stone apparently sang and played some keyboards. No funkin way! I called bullshit. Every sign pointed towards half truths and overwrought messes. “Boundless” seemed like the most generous possible assessment. I mean, I loved P-Funk. I was still curious about George Clinton, the man. But, back in 2014, I passed on “Shake the Gate.” Three and a half hours? Who has the time?
Time marched on. Bernie Worrell died. Shortly thereafter, P-Funk members participated in “Tear the Roof Off,” a documentary that told the story of the band from the other side. By the men and women who’d believed in George -- who’d probably loved George -- but who’d been paid in drugs and robbed of rights and given the simple choice: love it or leave it. Most of the participants seemed to have had a hard time doing either. There’s actually a sweetness to the doc. Time does heal some things and provides a laugh track elsewhere. But, at the same time, there’s a lot of sadness on the underside of Clinton’s mythology. PBS did a doc in 2005 that was canonizing. But, to hear the 2016 counter, P-Funk was more “Scarface” meets Caligula than Jimi Hendrix meets James Brown.
With all that dirty laundry hanging in the air, I could no longer resist. I simply had to hear “Shake the Gate.” It was morbid curiosity, perhaps. I didn’t know what I expected to learn. But I needed to know if any of it was real. And so, about a year ago, many years after its original release, I found the album on Spotify. It seemed to check out. Thirty three songs. Three and a half hours. Did Clinton expect anyone to experience the album in full? Was it shrewdly designed for the algorithms? Was it simply half a day of beats and bass lines being advertised for licensing? I had to find out. But first, of course, I had to find the time.
And so, one day, after I’d dropped off the kids at school and cleared my entire morning and some of my afternoon, I pressed play on “First Ya Gotta Shake the Gate.” As expected, it’s unwieldy to the point of being hard to describe. Broadly speaking, it features a heavy dose of Soul Jazz and Hip Hop, while staying near enough to The Funk. There’s lots of vocoder and autotune. There’s a seemingly endless supply of clapping, metallic beats that James Murphy be interested in. There are lots of singers of all shapes and sizes but it’s rarely clear whether George Clinton is among them. He pops up for random asides, the occasional off-kilter howl and, I think, for some guest spots behind the vocoder. But, mostly, it feels like a marathon party in his honor, where the grown ups leave and the kids get to take The Funk out and make it their own.
At three hours and twenty seven minutes, “Shake the Gate” is almost exactly as long as “The Irishman.” But, unlike Scorsese’s epic, Clinton’s has no real narrative tension or formal structure holding it together. It might even be more appropriate to consider the three “discs” as a collection of tracks or “digital assets,” rather than as an album. More appropriate — but I suspect no easier. I decided not to randomize their order or mix the songs into a larger playlist. Instead, I did what I’d done my whole life with albums. I took it in during one sitting, as a single entity. And then I tried it again. And, amazingly, I tried it a third time. By that last pass, though I was fully sober, I was dizzy to the point of hallucinating. At first, I labored to find some narrative arc or greater theme. But, honestly, I don’t believe that is the point. In fact, I’d wager that George Clinton himself couldn’t connect the dots between the songs. And so, I eventually began to wonder less about what “Shake the Gate” signifies and more what it feels like.
In order to submit to The Funk -- to bathe in the stank -- I had to transport myself to Plainfield, New Jersey and Tallahassee, Florida and, of course, The Mothership. Once I got there, I noticed that the studio was packed. There were kids there. There were grandparents there. There were synths and computers and horns and drums and sequencers and a row of basses and guitars. It was loud. It didn’t feel like work was happening, but it also didn’t feel like a party. It felt like a family reunion wherein there was tons of musical activity in one corner while friends and relatives told jokes, ate and drank everywhere else. It was hard to see how any songwriting occurred. Side chatter and draft beats competed with synth programs and Funk chants. Most of the time, I couldn’t figure out who was in charge. Or if there was a beginning or end to anything. Guests entered, picked up instruments or sang something, and then they’d wander off. It was hard to imagine one song getting made this way, much less thirty-three.
But somehow, through magic or science fiction or the power of The Funk, music did emerge. Some of it is woozy Soul Jazz, in the vein of D’Angelo or Erykah Badu. Actually, Miles’ “On the Corner” is not a terrible comp. "Baby Like Fonkin' It Up,” which opens the album, successfully lands in that vicinity. I“Mathematics of Love,” written by George and Sly Stone’s daughter, Novena Carmel, is the less good version. It’s a meandering twelve minute slog. Beyond the filial backstory, it bears little relation to Funkadelic.
“Shake the Gate” frequently sounds more programmed or constructed than performed. It can feel like the product of a digital studio rather than a band. But that’s not always a bad thing. And the technology rarely overwhelms The Funk because The Funk is strong. On “Get Low,” Funkadelic sounds like Missy and Timbaland, pairing off/on beats with ringing sirens, sex, drugs and -- of course -- diarrhea. The title track is similarly relentless. The bass sounds like a serial killer on the prowl and the hook sounds like a rubber band or a Jew’s harp. There’s a dark House beat that hunts for almost ten minutes. It’s catchy and unnerving and recalls a bunch of early DFA Records twelve inches.
It almost goes without saying, however, that there are plenty of wild misses here. It’s the necessary side effect of boundlessness. "I Mo B Yodog Fo Eva" is a charmless swing at a G-Thang. “Dirty Queen,” meanwhile, is misplaced Scream Metal. “Bernadette” is an unnecessary cover of the great Four Tops classic. And “Meow Meow” is one of several numbers wherein a decent hook (“guide my whiskers/pet my fur”) gets stuck on repeat for seven minutes. As a Hip Hop sample, it might kill. But, as an actual song, it presents like a Rick James comedy album with a major skip on the record.
The first two parts of “Shake the Gates” have their moments, but they also suffer from restlessness and girth. They lack something essential to the Funkadelic experience -- live performance. There’s a marked absence of electric guitar, drums and untouched vocals in the first twenty-something songs on the record. That all begins to change, however, on “The Naz.” Here, Sly Stone appears for the first time and, though he is just barely intelligible, he’s able to hold our attention because -- well -- he’s Sly Stone. But, also, because there’s some Niles Rodgers-y guitar and bass to keep the battered legend afloat. It’s simultaneously a very good song, a novelty and a cautionary tale.
The guitars stick around for “Where Would I Go” and "Yesterdejavu." The former features Garrett Shider, who helps out George on a funky Gospel number that I suspect is a tribute to Garrett’s late father, Gary -- Funkadelic’s “Diaper Man.” The latter is far less delicate. It’s built around a Heavy Blues riff, forward bass and Bernie Worrell all over the keys. It also features Rob Manzoli, who wrote and played guitar for Right Said Fred. That’s correct -- the guy who co-wrote “I’m Too Sexy” played alongside Bernie Worrell on a 2014 Funkadelic album. And it was a blast. That’s the thing about The Funk. It does not discriminate. Sometimes it causes a bad hangover or a regrettable one night stand. And other times, the party goes from weird to weirdly perfect.
Ten plus hours into the album, I finally tapped out. The Funk can be hard on your feet, knees and glutes. But it can also be hard on the ears if not done right. To be honest, I’m unsure how much of “Shake the Gate” was “done right.” By my count, there are at least ten tracks that -- if strung together -- would be an elite mixtape. That also means that there are at least twenty tracks that I’m fine never hearing again. What this all says about Funkadelic, I’ve not yet figured out. It barely sounds like anything else in the P-Funk library. It’s an oddity -- a gargantuan idea with fuzzy intent, hazy authorship and uncertain meaning. Maybe it’s the unexpected postscript of a story that is too good to be true, but also, too awful to be a lie. Somewhere in between those two possibilities -- and above and below and all around it -- lies the truth. And, though I cannot be entirely sure, I suspect that truth is called “The Funk.”