The best Meters recordings are the early instrumentals. Each one teaches new lessons, even after years of repeated listening. I’ll go through periods when I’m simply over saturated and will take a break, but I always keep a couple of these instrumentals handy.

I’m always astounded by the fact that the guitarist, Leo Nocentelli, is audibly the strict time-keeper of the group, while Zigaboo (drums) and George Porter Jr. (bass) lope around freely, laying way off the beat (I’m sure there are some outtakes of them missing it completely). When I picture them playing, I see Leo as an almost military figure, standing erect while maintaining constant eye contact with the two cadets. Art (organ), meanwhile, strikes me as the guy that floats in and out, goes out for coffee in the middle of songs, etc., without much regard for the other three young upstarts.

The experience of listening to “Sophisticated Cissy” is like watching a slow-moving train lurching along in a silent movie. About two and a half minutes in, you think it’s going to pick up speed, but it doesn’t. The train just gets funkier and vibrates more, as though it’s choking on some bad fuel or trying to spit out exhaust or something. I don’t know. I’m out of metaphors. It’s like riding in an old jalopy (there’s one more).

It’s funk minimalism. The bass hits note X in time with the bass drum, the guitar chunks on 9^th chord Y with the snare drum, the organ plays a single line melody over the top, and at the end the quartet churns it up a little to keep the interest going. The whole stew is captured on tape; it rolls out of a production line onto people’s portable listening devices, and there you have it. “Sophisticated Cissy” is a strange little product, a bunch of 1s and 0s that insinuates itself. The song is certainly not the most famous or celebrated in the Meters catalog, nor is it danciest, most melodic, or most innovative. Simply: it’s the funkiest.

This reminds me of my sister, Karen, who spent a bunch of years in New Orleans and is kind of sophisticated herself…

Album info: The Meters (1969)

Hey hey hey / Watcha got to say / Say hey hey hey / Watcha got to say / Hollywood, hollywood swingin’ / Hollywood, hollywood swingin’

I remember, not too long ago (hey, hey) / I went to a theater, and I saw the kool and the gang show / I always wanted to get into a band / To sing my songs, and become a bad piano playing man / So here I am, in this Hollywood city
The City of the stars, movies, women and cars / Well, I guess, I guess i’ll stay

I say hey, hey, hey / Watcha got to say / Say hey hey hey / Watcha got to say / Hollywood, hollywood swingin’ / Hollywood, hollywood swingin’ / Hollywood swinging (16x)

Yeah, I guess I always wanted to become a bad piano-playin’ man too. There’s always the next life.

This song is underappreciated. Everytime that rap starting with “I remember” comes on, I feel it. All other KATG songs have been on my iPod at one time, but this is the only one that’s stayed put. To tell the truth, I always assumed this song was from, like, 1979 or something, but as it happens it’s much earlier than that (1973).

While I’m listening to this, I wonder why I don’t know more early 70s KATG albums. Are they terrible, other than the hits? I don’t hear a lot of people waxing nostalgic about them. Somebody let me know if they are worth pursuing. I’m not sure they’ve been re-released… I could always check I suppose, but anyway. Thanks.

Album info: Wild and Peaceful (1973)

I’ve been on a real Funkadelic tear for a couple of weeks now.  The whole Maggot Brain album is basically flawless.

It doesn’t matter how many times this song shows up on my iPod.  Chances are, I’ll still listen to it all the way through.  Savor the time signature jolts, the female vocalists singing along with the main riff, and the drummer’s absolutely jarring use of the hi-hat.  I’m totally absorbed every time.  Soak in the Bernie Worrell organ solo with the ladies singing, “I want you to hit it and quit it,” ever-so-slightly out of tune with each other on that evocative seventh scale degree.  Dig the Eddie Hazel ray-gun guitar solo on the outro. 

It’s an amazing four minutes (nearly) of weird, funky early-70s goodness.

I have no idea how they decided to structure the intro, which begins with two wah-soaked guitars and the organ playing the riff in unison (the bass and drums are present in the background, if you listen carefully, but then pulled out of the mix).   Then, THUMP, on the accent directly after the riff ends, and “I want you to HIT IT.”  It doesn’t make much rhythmic sense, but after having listened to it now for years, it’s part of what makes the song so damn compelling every time I hear it. 

Another morsel: listen to how Hazel uses the wah pedal throughout, but especially in the intro, where he fully rolls it forward ONLY at the turnaround of the main riff (about 0:09 into the song).

Key lyrics: “You can shake it to the east, shake it to the west.”

Happy Friday.

Album: Maggot Brain (1971).