[Landline] "Friday Night, August 14th"

^^^ This Landline logo by Will Sweeney ^^^

Hello friends,

1. IT’S FRIDAY NIGHT AND IT’S AUGUST 14TH

Which means one thing: It is our duty and pleasure to consult, today, or preferably tonight, the all-time towering Funkadelic song “Friday Night, August 14th” — originally released in 1970 as the second track on Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow — at an appropriately high volume.

If you’ve made the life mistake of not owning a copy of this frankly unbeatable album, use this:

Not many day/date combinations have a song named for them1. That the calendar only lines up with that combination every once in a while — this year is the first time August 14th has fallen on a Friday since 2020, and the next one won’t be ‘til 2037 — makes each time it occurs something of a celebratory slash poignant occasion, at least in my household.

As you listen, or maybe later, here’s a contemplation aid. Take a moment to gaze upon four members of Funkadelic who are on this recording who are no longer part of our world, in these gorgeous, effortlessly stylish photos shot by photographer Don Paulsen at the recording sessions for Free Your Mind…

Nelson played typically monumental bass and sang lead on “Friday Night, August 14th,” which he is credited as co-writing. A crucial figure in Funkadelic history, he not only gave the band its name, he also, among other crucial contributions, brought the preternaturally gifted guitarist Eddie Hazel into the band…

The first three Funkadelic albums, released in incomprehensibly quick succession in 1970-1 and featuring all these players, are highest order classics of…their own thing: album-length, group-visionary axis points encompassing blues, soul, funk, gospel, avant garde psychedelia, hard rock, spoken word, beats, grooves, jams, anthems, meditations. The mundane and the deep. The silly and the sublime.

“Friday Night, August 14th” contains pretty much all of that.

But by pinning it with a specific day/date, one that recurs irregularly but predictably, Funkadelic also gave us a song that, in a sense, is somehow always there, always has been, and always will be. And something that, very occasionally, like tonight, is only here, only now.

When you put on ‘Friday Night, August 14th’ on Friday night, August 14th, everything lines up. Time-Space — or at least the Roman calendar — winks at you and says, You’re playing my song.

Well, that’s how it seems to me, today. Perhaps I’ll think differently about it in 2037.

But I doubt it.

2. TUESDAY NIGHT, AUGUST 25TH

Big night coming up in San Francisco in eleven days…

From the various parties:

On Tuesday, August 25th, Book Passage San Francisco proudly presents authors Peter Relic and Jeff Chang together in conversation, celebrating Relic’s new book ‘Bust a Move: Matt Dike, Delicious Vinyl & the Hip-Hop Hits that First Conquered Pop’.

“Well crafted, deep with stars, and full of life, Peter Relic’s ‘Bust a Move’ perfectly captures hip-hop’s dawn-breaking energy just at the moment it came of age.” —Jeff Chang

“Twenty years after publication, Jeff Chang’s ‘Can’t Stop Won’t Stop’ is still the best book ever written about hip-hop.” —Peter Relic

The event is free and open to the public.

We’re all out of time over here — duty calls (see item #1) — so I’ll have more on Bust a Move — a fantastic, inspiring piece of cultural detective work by Pete Relic — in the next Landline, coming to you shortly. In the interim, if you’re curious or impatient or both, check out this new interview with Pete conducted by Dr. Samuel Lamontage over at Ethnomusicology Review.

3. (SPEAKING OF EDDIE HAZEL)

Oops one more thing. Given the song title and contents, I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight for you guys this new piece of lysergic aquaboogie dancefloor goner-haze from Black Bananas, the project spearheaded by Royal Trux’s Jennifer Herrema who are about to release their first album in 12 years…

Slippery and squelchy. I like it! More Black Bananas info here: bandcamp

I know that I probably should not,

Jay

Patagonia, Arizona

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