Bridging the Gap

As you can see, I now have minions. Rodney and Chris are two goons who dig music that I like yet have more expertise in genres that I haven't gone into as far as they have (Rodney- Oldies and Jazz; Chris- Electronic musics of every flavor and metal). BUT! In the case of P-Funk and Electro I have a fair degree of dope tracks. 

First we address P-Funk because of Ramrod's Bootsy vid. P-Funk is short for Parliament-Funkadelic, of which Bootsy was a key member, yet one of many amazingly talented musicians that were a part of the group. George Clinton was the mastermind for developing the band and leading it as a sort of wacky drugged out troubadour. Bernie Worrell is one of the premiere keyboard rippers of all time and has played with some of the most talented of all the weirdo virtuoso musicians like Les Claypool and Buckethead. Eddie Hazel is one of the foremost psychedelic guitarists ever, because he actually played on drugs a lot of the time. As a result of constant frying his solos and leads take on a very emotional, spiritual quality, like on the title track of 1971's Maggot Brain LP and on Standing on the Verge of Getting it On's "I'll Stay," which is one of the most "gone" guitar leads ever, in my opinion. 

In the case of Electro, I'm especially fond of old school electro funk (which is the next logical progression from the P-Funk sound). Afrika Bambaataa is a god of early rap for three songs that will cement his legacy forever- "Renegades of Funk" (Covered By Rage Against The Machine on the album Renegades), "Looking For the Perfect Beat," and "Planet Rock." "Planet Rock" is the jam of all early hip hop jams, up there right next to Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" and Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks." 

Birthed from this new sound was Detroit Techno, which fused early hip hop and early electronic music. The pioneer of the sound was a DJ named Juan Atkins (also known as Cybotron, Future 500 or 3MB).  Detroit being a very industrial city, it tends to give off a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk slum world atmosphere in it's techno. The squalor of urban Detroit in the early 80's served the sub-genre well, as massive parties were arranged to blast this music in abandoned warehouses, schools and tenements. Atkins was hugely influenced by Kraftwerk and went to further lengths than Bambaataa to make a new sound that fused fast rhythms with spacey synth programming for melody. Artists like Anthony Rather and Aux 88 keep the spirit of Juan's early music alive and modern hip hop producers like Timbaland keep the sound relevant in pop radio by sampling. 

There you have it, Bootsy Collins and Anthony Rather have been musically linked, thus justifying Rodney and Chris' involvement in this here blarg (but not guaranteeing them any cut off the google adshare fortune I'm making. Muahhahaha!)