Ethos:
When I hear the term “indie” or “alternative” it often seems to connote the effort to celebrate, enumerate and enunciate the “new” to attune total attention to the innovative and bold movements in the arts happening now, and that is entirely appropriate and important.
In my humble opinion, to limit the scope of our attention to singularly this “new’ is in effect a disservice to the groundbreaking and adventurous artists that came before. Those artistic achievements that did not make into the stratosphere of the commercial arena and as a result do not enjoy the status of the first 5 hits on a Google search, need not molder in some history bin with the physical and psychic dust figuratively piling on.
There is a profound value in looking at those artists/works again and effecting a reboot so that contemporary palettes may enjoy and be enriched with the experience of discovery.
In that, I endeavor to shine a light into the dark corners to illuminate the luminaries, a good faith effort to resuscitate those artists or pieces of work that deserve consideration.
Furthermore, I will not seek to deify an artist in a very strong desire to avoid the trope of “greatest of all time” conversation, with the inevitable Youtube-esque trolling, bashing commentary that Father John Misty aptly described as the “cum-stain of the internet”; I will simply focus the pause, attention and consideration that a musician’s performance garners.
Logos:
In this effort Eddie Hazel deserves to be acknowledged. Specifically, his performance on the Title Track from the 1971 album by Funkadelic, Maggot Brain.
Maggot Brain
Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time
For y’all have knocked her up
I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe
I was not offended
For I knew I had to rise above it all
Or drown in my own shit
This narration precedes the track as in many Parliament/Funkadelic songs, a sort of psychedelic rumination that offers at first a non-sensical Dadaist intent but seems to further inform the mythology and identity of the movement, George Clinton’s Mothership Connection. The Funk and nothing but the Funk, the fantastical the frantic, the mystical and pedantic.
As the story goes, George Clinton and Eddie were tripping balls when they recorded this piece, George told Eddie to play like someone told you that your mother just died, but then you found out it wasn’t true.
Of the track Clinton wrote. “I could see the guitar notes stretching out like a silver web. When he played the solo back, I knew that it was good beyond good, not only a virtuoso display of musicianship but also an almost unprecedented moment of emotion in pop music.”
Pathos:
Here is my impression:
On Icarus’s wings, soaring and roaring
Amid Fuz and Wah
I hear in awe
Sonic screaming
Soulful Scorching of whammy wailing
The anguish of the motherless child
Incendiary scales of power and magnitude
This Ebon Skinned master of licks
A Proud Son of Hendrix and Euterpe
Please give a listen and I think you won’t be able to unhear it and if I am guessing correctly you won’t have any desire to.
Just stick in your ear and dig it.
For more of Eddie’s genius, check out his album: “Game, Dames and Guitar Thangs”