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Friday Funk #15 – ‘Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On’ by Funkadelic
Friday Funk #15 – ‘Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On’ by Funkadelic
Friday Funk #15 – ‘Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On’ by Funkadelic
Today’s Friday Funk celebrates Eddie Hazel, who would have turned 74 years old on 10 April.
Funkadelic, despite their name alluding to the melding of funk and psychedelic rock, often were way less funky than their sibling act Parliament. From their second album onwards, Parliament were funk and horns, while Funkadelic leaned towards Jimi Hendrix-indebted guitars and psychedelic soul, as well as more laid back, smokey atmospheres. But on 1974’s Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, Funkadelic produced perhaps the most perfect synthesis of funk and rock.
The title track is one fine example. The band hit the One hard, the guitars have a delicious distortion, and while you can imagine the “There’s a song out tonight” refrain taking a place on the Mothership, the vocals have a little more bite and urgency in this Funkadelic setting.
Standing owes a heavy debt to Eddie Hazel’s early ’70s peak. He was just 24 years old when the album was released, and co-wrote all the songs, delivering standout guitar parts and contributing vocals among a cast of others (as was P-Funk custom).
On the title track, Ron Bykowski accompanies Hazel on guitar, and the multi-layered arrangement shifts and pivots with the verse-chorus structure. The most insistent riff is a classic case of emphasising the One, its hard rock snarl shedding new light on the Brown tradition.
The song is built around a one-chord riff and while it’s sufficiently stankface to carry the whole five minutes, instead of the whole band staying with the one chord as James Brown might have directed, the high-pitched lead guitar goes off key, creating a skittish dissonance when the two are paid together. The main riff is played each bar, and seems to answer the high-pitched guitar before its phrases are finished. It’s something between an answer and an argument.
George Clinton wrote in his memoir of Hazel’s versatility as a guitar player, comparing the “out there” playing on Cosmic Slop and Standing with the “control” he had on Chocolate City. Hazel released one studio album before his early passing: Games, Dames And Guitar Thangs, which included covers of ‘California Dreamin’’ and ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and the guitar freakout ‘So Goes the Story’.
As usual with P-Funk, there’s delight to be found in the many vocal parts. One of the consistent qualities of Funkadelic’s music is it sounds like a band having fun. The pitch-shifted spoken intro features the heartwrenchingly romantic lines, “Hey, lady, won’t you be my dog? / And I’ll be your tree / And you can pee on me,” and by the fourth repetition, whoever’s speaking (probably Clinton), is still delighting in playing with the emphasis and pitch.
Garry Shider handles most of the lead vocals. As discussed in Friday Funk #13, any track where Shider had a mic was likely to be a highlight. His shout on the One of “People!” is captivating, while Clinton’s more laid back “You really shouldn’t outta fight it” provides a nice contrast.
The main guitar riff is so good that it in effect inspired two choruses, both of them brilliant singalongs. “People! Whatcha doing? / Standing on the verge of getting it on” and “There’s a song out tonight / Oh, my soul is out tonight / There’s a song out tonight / Y’all, come on” are both joyous earworms and could have been standout sections of separate tracks.
The group vocals on this album are by the singers who made up doo-woop group The Parliaments with Clinton (before they dropped the ‘s’ and the fully-fledged Parliafunkadelicment Thang began). The group’s singing on this track adds to the party feel as they answer the “People! Whatcha doing?” call.
Asides from melody and rhythm, this album is simply one of the best sounding in P-Funk’s discography. The guitar sounds have a heaviness to match their chords and riffs, and the distortion finds a balance between grit and clarity. In ‘Standing’, guitars are mixed in alternative speakers – throughout the song but most notably in the bridge section starting at 1:10.
In the verses, there’s a guitar mixed solely in the right speaker playing a variant of the main one-chord riff on the higher strings with a different, more off kilter strum pattern. It doesn’t dominate and the part isn’t as essential, but it adds another thread to the web of rhythm. If you shut your eyes and tap your foot in a steady rhythm along with the song (one-two-three-four), it becomes apparent just how much is going on rhythmically. It’s an enlivening, brilliantly energetic arrangement.
While many bands since have been called funk rock, most of them haven’t been all that funky. They’ve tended to take trademark funk elements such as slap bass, while forgetting about the One and lacking polyrhythmic bounce. The instruments in ‘Standing’ feel like snakes wriggling through your body, trying to escape from your limbs. And it feels good. As Clinton sang, “You really shouldn’t outta fight it / The music is designed to do no harm”.
Some further funky reading: The cover art for this album was designed by Pedro Bell, who lent his felt tips to many P-Funk records. For further info and an interview with Bell, as well as an excellent use of Comic Sans, check out Lodown Magazine’s feature.
Today’s Friday Funk celebrates Eddie Hazel, who would have turned 74 years old on 10 April.
Funkadelic, despite their name alluding to the melding of funk and psychedelic rock, often were way less funky than their sibling act Parliament. From their second album onwards, Parliament were funk and horns, while Funkadelic leaned towards Jimi Hendrix-indebted guitars and psychedelic soul, as well as more laid back, smokey atmospheres. But on 1974’s Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, Funkadelic produced perhaps the most perfect synthesis of funk and rock.
The title track is one fine example. The band hit the One hard, the guitars have a delicious distortion, and while you can imagine the “There’s a song out tonight” refrain taking a place on the Mothership, the vocals have a little more bite and urgency in this Funkadelic setting.
Standing owes a heavy debt to Eddie Hazel’s early ’70s peak. He was just 24 years old when the album was released, and co-wrote all the songs, delivering standout guitar parts and contributing vocals among a cast of others (as was P-Funk custom).
On the title track, Ron Bykowski accompanies Hazel on guitar, and the multi-layered arrangement shifts and pivots with the verse-chorus structure. The most insistent riff is a classic case of emphasising the One, its hard rock snarl shedding new light on the Brown tradition.
The song is built around a one-chord riff and while it’s sufficiently stankface to carry the whole five minutes, instead of the whole band staying with the one chord as James Brown might have directed, the high-pitched lead guitar goes off key, creating a skittish dissonance when the two are paid together. The main riff is played each bar, and seems to answer the high-pitched guitar before its phrases are finished. It’s something between an answer and an argument.
George Clinton wrote in his memoir of Hazel’s versatility as a guitar player, comparing the “out there” playing on Cosmic Slop and Standing with the “control” he had on Chocolate City. Hazel released one studio album before his early passing: Games, Dames And Guitar Thangs, which included covers of ‘California Dreamin’’ and ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and the guitar freakout ‘So Goes the Story’.
As usual with P-Funk, there’s delight to be found in the many vocal parts. One of the consistent qualities of Funkadelic’s music is it sounds like a band having fun. The pitch-shifted spoken intro features the heartwrenchingly romantic lines, “Hey, lady, won’t you be my dog? / And I’ll be your tree / And you can pee on me,” and by the fourth repetition, whoever’s speaking (probably Clinton), is still delighting in playing with the emphasis and pitch.
Garry Shider handles most of the lead vocals. As discussed in Friday Funk #13, any track where Shider had a mic was likely to be a highlight. His shout on the One of “People!” is captivating, while Clinton’s more laid back “You really shouldn’t outta fight it” provides a nice contrast.
The main guitar riff is so good that it in effect inspired two choruses, both of them brilliant singalongs. “People! Whatcha doing? / Standing on the verge of getting it on” and “There’s a song out tonight / Oh, my soul is out tonight / There’s a song out tonight / Y’all, come on” are both joyous earworms and could have been standout sections of separate tracks.
The group vocals on this album are by the singers who made up doo-woop group The Parliaments with Clinton (before they dropped the ‘s’ and the fully-fledged Parliafunkadelicment Thang began). The group’s singing on this track adds to the party feel as they answer the “People! Whatcha doing?” call.
Asides from melody and rhythm, this album is simply one of the best sounding in P-Funk’s discography. The guitar sounds have a heaviness to match their chords and riffs, and the distortion finds a balance between grit and clarity. In ‘Standing’, guitars are mixed in alternative speakers – throughout the song but most notably in the bridge section starting at 1:10.
In the verses, there’s a guitar mixed solely in the right speaker playing a variant of the main one-chord riff on the higher strings with a different, more off kilter strum pattern. It doesn’t dominate and the part isn’t as essential, but it adds another thread to the web of rhythm. If you shut your eyes and tap your foot in a steady rhythm along with the song (one-two-three-four), it becomes apparent just how much is going on rhythmically. It’s an enlivening, brilliantly energetic arrangement.
While many bands since have been called funk rock, most of them haven’t been all that funky. They’ve tended to take trademark funk elements such as slap bass, while forgetting about the One and lacking polyrhythmic bounce. The instruments in ‘Standing’ feel like snakes wriggling through your body, trying to escape from your limbs. And it feels good. As Clinton sang, “You really shouldn’t outta fight it / The music is designed to do no harm”.
Some further funky reading: The cover art for this album was designed by Pedro Bell, who lent his felt tips to many P-Funk records. For further info and an interview with Bell, as well as an excellent use of Comic Sans, check out Lodown Magazine’s feature.
Today’s Friday Funk celebrates Eddie Hazel, who would have turned 74 years old on 10 April.
Funkadelic, despite their name alluding to the melding of funk and psychedelic rock, often were way less funky than their sibling act Parliament. From their second album onwards, Parliament were funk and horns, while Funkadelic leaned towards Jimi Hendrix-indebted guitars and psychedelic soul, as well as more laid back, smokey atmospheres. But on 1974’s Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On, Funkadelic produced perhaps the most perfect synthesis of funk and rock.
The title track is one fine example. The band hit the One hard, the guitars have a delicious distortion, and while you can imagine the “There’s a song out tonight” refrain taking a place on the Mothership, the vocals have a little more bite and urgency in this Funkadelic setting.
Standing owes a heavy debt to Eddie Hazel’s early ’70s peak. He was just 24 years old when the album was released, and co-wrote all the songs, delivering standout guitar parts and contributing vocals among a cast of others (as was P-Funk custom).
On the title track, Ron Bykowski accompanies Hazel on guitar, and the multi-layered arrangement shifts and pivots with the verse-chorus structure. The most insistent riff is a classic case of emphasising the One, its hard rock snarl shedding new light on the Brown tradition.
The song is built around a one-chord riff and while it’s sufficiently stankface to carry the whole five minutes, instead of the whole band staying with the one chord as James Brown might have directed, the high-pitched lead guitar goes off key, creating a skittish dissonance when the two are paid together. The main riff is played each bar, and seems to answer the high-pitched guitar before its phrases are finished. It’s something between an answer and an argument.
George Clinton wrote in his memoir of Hazel’s versatility as a guitar player, comparing the “out there” playing on Cosmic Slop and Standing with the “control” he had on Chocolate City. Hazel released one studio album before his early passing: Games, Dames And Guitar Thangs, which included covers of ‘California Dreamin’’ and ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ and the guitar freakout ‘So Goes the Story’.
As usual with P-Funk, there’s delight to be found in the many vocal parts. One of the consistent qualities of Funkadelic’s music is it sounds like a band having fun. The pitch-shifted spoken intro features the heartwrenchingly romantic lines, “Hey, lady, won’t you be my dog? / And I’ll be your tree / And you can pee on me,” and by the fourth repetition, whoever’s speaking (probably Clinton), is still delighting in playing with the emphasis and pitch.
Garry Shider handles most of the lead vocals. As discussed in Friday Funk #13, any track where Shider had a mic was likely to be a highlight. His shout on the One of “People!” is captivating, while Clinton’s more laid back “You really shouldn’t outta fight it” provides a nice contrast.
The main guitar riff is so good that it in effect inspired two choruses, both of them brilliant singalongs. “People! Whatcha doing? / Standing on the verge of getting it on” and “There’s a song out tonight / Oh, my soul is out tonight / There’s a song out tonight / Y’all, come on” are both joyous earworms and could have been standout sections of separate tracks.
The group vocals on this album are by the singers who made up doo-woop group The Parliaments with Clinton (before they dropped the ‘s’ and the fully-fledged Parliafunkadelicment Thang began). The group’s singing on this track adds to the party feel as they answer the “People! Whatcha doing?” call.
Asides from melody and rhythm, this album is simply one of the best sounding in P-Funk’s discography. The guitar sounds have a heaviness to match their chords and riffs, and the distortion finds a balance between grit and clarity. In ‘Standing’, guitars are mixed in alternative speakers – throughout the song but most notably in the bridge section starting at 1:10.
In the verses, there’s a guitar mixed solely in the right speaker playing a variant of the main one-chord riff on the higher strings with a different, more off kilter strum pattern. It doesn’t dominate and the part isn’t as essential, but it adds another thread to the web of rhythm. If you shut your eyes and tap your foot in a steady rhythm along with the song (one-two-three-four), it becomes apparent just how much is going on rhythmically. It’s an enlivening, brilliantly energetic arrangement.
While many bands since have been called funk rock, most of them haven’t been all that funky. They’ve tended to take trademark funk elements such as slap bass, while forgetting about the One and lacking polyrhythmic bounce. The instruments in ‘Standing’ feel like snakes wriggling through your body, trying to escape from your limbs. And it feels good. As Clinton sang, “You really shouldn’t outta fight it / The music is designed to do no harm”.
Some further funky reading: The cover art for this album was designed by Pedro Bell, who lent his felt tips to many P-Funk records. For further info and an interview with Bell, as well as an excellent use of Comic Sans, check out Lodown Magazine’s feature.