Friday Full-Length: Parliament, Osmium
Osmium begins the other side of the journey through the 1970s that would eventually see Parliament and Funkadelic unite. The latter made their self-titled debut (discussed here) in Feb. 1970 (Black Sabbath debuted the same month) and followed it that same July with the even-more-experimental Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow (discussed here). Parliament‘s first full-length, with 10 songs and a 45-minute runtime, came out the same month as the second Funkadelic, July 1970. It was the third George Clinton-led LP in five months.
Such a burst of creativity and such a definitive arrival — it wouldn’t be the last, what with the Mothership and all — makes for nice storytelling, but the two groups had separate beginnings, and Parliament was there first, Clinton having put an early version of the group together in New Jersey before taking the show on the road. In the early records, the lineups are listed as Funkadelic, which is the backing band, and The Parliaments, which are the singers, Clinton, Fuzzy Haskins, Ray Davis, Calvin Simon, Grady Thomas, etc. Guitarists Eddie Hazel and Tawl Ross, both on the Funkadelic records as well, appear here, as does Bernie Worrell‘s organ, Billy Bass Nelson‘s bass and Tiki Fulwood‘s drumming.
Familiar players in an adjusted context. Parliament have some things in common with Funkadelic. They’re fun. They’re weird. They tap blues and gospel influences. And so on. But they’re not the same groups and at least at the outset, they each worked toward their own ends. If Funkadelic is funky psych-rock on those early records, Parliament is more psych-soul inspired. The Temptations put out Psychedelic Shack in 1970 as well, Norman Whitfield was out there producing albums for Motown; it wasn’t unheard of to blend trippy sounds and soul music. Osmium — which is sometimes sold under the titles of Rhenium or First Thangs — complements the work Funkadelic were doing, and tells another side of the story of how Parliament-Funkadelic became a thing.
It’s not that the willingness to screw around with sounds and songwriting that made Free Your Mind… And Your Ass Will Follow so abidingly odd (also groovy) is absent here, but pieces like “Put Love in Your Life,” “Oh Lord Why Lord/Prayer” and the closer “The Silent Boatman” are more directly in conversation with soul and gospel music, and where Funkadelic‘s self-titled posited the blues as the roots of funk, Osmium tells a different story of the experience. In some ways it’s more cohesive — certainly the opener “I Call My Baby Pussycat” has a mission in mind to hook its audience — and in others it comes across as less clearheaded about its path forward. Parliament make it a party, rest assured, in “Little Old Country Boy” and “
Moonshine Heather” and the later shredder “Livin’ the Life,” to say nothing of the showcase Worrell puts on alongside the oh-hell0-there operatic vocals by producer Ruth Copeland in “Oh Lord Why Lord/Prayer” — that song feels like its dwelling with a five-minute runtime and progression kinda-derived from Pachelbel’s Canon, but is memorable either way — or the boogie jam that takes hold in “Put Love in Your Life.”
But that party comes through as more structured, more purposeful in its shifts — maybe more commercial at the time? — and songs like “My Automobile” uses its off-the-cuff working-out-the-vocal harmony to give the impression of spontaneity without losing the feeling of intent behind the structure. As noted, they jam in “Put Love in Your Life,” and if the entire album was just the playfully naughty hook from “I Call My Baby Pussycat” on endless repeat for 45 minutes, living up to the suggestion for every single “Say it again!” along the way, I wouldn’t complain, but the real ripper is “There is Nothing Before Me But Thang.” Even that keeps its R&B edge in the trades between lead vocalists, but there’s no mistaking the push of the drums or driving jangle in the guitar. Repetitions of the title line become like the repetitive chug of a steam engine, and as they back it with “Funky Woman,” it’s arguably the hardest-hitting stretch of Osmium.
The caveat there, obviously, is that not all of Osmium is trying to hit hard. The swing of “Moonshine Heather” is one thing, but “Little Old Country Boy” does indeed toy with country music — “For nothing is good unless you play with it,” as per “What is Soul” from the self-titled Funkadelic — and though it feels somewhat like satire, “Oh Lord Why Lord/Prayer” and “The Silent Boatman” are both too long at more than five minutes and too dug-in to be entirely tongue-in-cheek, however much the handclaps in the finale argue otherwise. In any case, they don’t need to be in order to be subversive, and while it would be four years before Parliament put out another album and when they did, it would have something of a different persona, the swagger that defines the group’s later work is evident here, if in a somewhat nebulous form. On this first record, Parliament are by no means lacking for confidence in their approach — they were right about all of it and they knew it — but they were a less arrogant band sound-wise than Funkadelic out of the gate. You wouldn’t call either outfit humble.
Ultimately, Parliament would find its own way forward, and though Funkadelic started off stronger, the moment would change. The rise of disco in the mid-1970s and a fascination with dance music over rock-based styles, in part driven by records like Parliament‘s Mothership Connection (1975) and The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein (1976), would reshape the pop landscape, and Clinton was readier than many. He has the influence on hip-hop and the enduring legacy to show for it. Parliament‘s debut being less full-on heavy, psychedelic and rocking than Funkadelic‘s has given Osmium somewhat of a less iconographic status, but if you make it past “I Call My Baby Pussycat” without getting on board, it’s one of those situations where you probably want to call your doctor and tell them you died.
As always, I hope you enjoy.
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It was a week. Yesterday was kind of a week on its own. First of all, I’ve started another Hungarian class. I now take lessons three times a week. Monday (30 min.), Wednesday (90 min.) and Thursday (30 min.). That’s a lot of magyarul tanulok but I’m doing my best.
Yesterday was also the release day for Switch 2, which my mother wanted to buy for The Pecan. Great, right? That’s a $500 investment in screen-time I don’t need to make and couldn’t really if I wanted to, so thanks Gram Pam.
The thing was, The Patient Mrs. and I also had THE meeting at The Pecan’s school yesterday to talk about next year. They want to put her in spec-ed part-time, which I don’t think we’re going to go for. A month ago they said it wasn’t the right call and the only thing that’s changed is the BCBA went on mat-leave. I don’t trust the school therapist and I don’t think she has the best interests of my kid at heart over her own operational convenience. That is, tuck my kid in a room so she doesn’t have to deal with her. I would call that less likely than how it’s probably going to go.
So the morning was 5:45 wakeup with The Pecan banging on the wall at the top of the stairs — I hate that; she does it every day; I remind myself it won’t always be what it is now — and breakfast and get ready and all that, then school dropoff, went and grabbed a cup of coffee, had the awful meeting until about 10:15, then picked up my mom and went to Costco, which reportedly had the Switch 2 in stock.
Great. We got there around 11 and immediately there was some drama about the Costco account and was my mom on my sister’s account and whatever the fuck god Costco is a nightmare with that shit. I had to go. At noon, I needed to be at the school giving The Pecan her meds for the afternoon. I needed to go home and mash up a pill in a banana. So I did. I left my mother and wife at Costco to handle the thing and went to the school to be there at noon.
The trick was that Hungarian was at 12:30. The school’s three minutes away, so that’s no problem, but Costco is about 10, so it was tighter. I left the school and hightailed it down Rt. 10 and met them at the door, they got in the car, we dropped my mom off at her house and The Patient Mrs. — who also had a 12:30 — and I both made our appointments. By 1PM, however, I was ready for the day to be over.
Fortunately, The Pecan had a new video game system to play with. Sup, Mario Kart. They should’ve called it Super Switch. Missed opportunity since that’s basically what it is. It’s the Super Nintendo of the Switch. It does the same basic thing, but with a new generation’s hardware.
The Patient Mrs. had a schoolboard meeting, so The Pecan and I were on our own. The bundle came with Mario Kart World — fun to drive around, looks great, runs well, not enough to be a flagship launch title on first blush, but Nintendo has always blundered launches somehow — and a subscription to Nintendo Switch Online, which has a bunch of older systems’ games. Much Zelda, but no Twilight Princess. The Wind Waker is on there, but having finished the second quest on my laptop, I’m not dying to jump back into the Great Sea. I’ve got A Link to the Past going on my phone in no-rush fashion — I did the first Dark World dungeon the other night, beat Helmasaur King, etc., and then apparently was too stoned to save the game, so I need to start that over — and I’m looking forward to Donkey Kong Whathaveyou coming out next month. Bananza, it’s called. Because bananas.
Anyhow, we played Mario Kart for a while and upgraded Tears of the Kingdom — the family save, not mine from the other Switch; I’ve had that game going for a year now — to the Switch 2 edition, which runs well, looks good. I’ll still keep my other game on the regular Switch (1) for now, but might transfer to the OLED if The Patient Mrs. puts her Breath of the Wild on the Switch 2, which would at least mean more battery life and the nicer screen.
But compared to yesterday, today is bound to be mellower and that’s good, though The Patient Mrs. just came in and asked if I wanted to go buy masonry glue for the steps outside and a handle for the bathroom window, so maybe my next hour and a half of sitting on ass has been redirected. So it goes. Often.
I wish you a great and safe weekend. Have fun, watch your head, stay cool and all that. I’m back Monday with a Goya review that should’ve gone up two days ago and much more.
FRM.
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Tags: Funkadelic, Invictus Records, New Jersey, Osmium, Parliament, Parliament Osmium
