kind ofAre they all called Randy?
that's a fair shoutWishbone Ash deserve a mention on dual lead attack, I feel
Hazel may have made better music but as a guitarist he's really uninteresting to me. always felt his solos were too by the bookEddie hazel and Hendrix really come together at Band of Gypsys and Funkadelic but from two different directions. Hendrix trying to bring funk into rock music and Hazel vice versa. I much prefer Eddie Hazel, its unfortunate he got so overshadowed by Hendrix's legacy.
"Marine militarisation
Hendrix's "1983...(A Merman I Should Turn To Be)", Parliament's "I'm A Fish (And You're A Water Sign", Can's "Future Days", LTJ Bukem's "Atlantis (I Need You)", the late 90s Vincent Floyd*inspired Deep House of Aqua Bassino and 16B: all these are aquatopian. Aquatopias cradle and lull you into a deep end of placid angles. Like UR's X*103 Atlantis project, Drexciya paves over this underwater paradise, requisitions the Bermuda Triangle for a fifth theatre of war. Modern science knows more about the Red Planet than the abyssal plains of the deep sea. Therefore, these unknown depths are the appropriate environment for concepts secreted deep in track subtitles, impressed in the vinyl, hidden notions you have to dive for.
The Future feeds forward into the Past
The sleevenotes to The Quest CD are an origin story, a prequel that links genetic mutation to recent breakthroughs in liquid oxygen technology and retroacts both back to the Slave Trade. "During the greatest Holocaust the world has ever known, pregnant America*bound African slaves were thrown overboard by the thousands during labour for being sick and disruptive cargo. Is it possible that they could have given birth at sea to babies that never needed air? Are Drexciyans water*breathing aquatically mutated descendents of those unfortunate victims of human greed? Recent experiements have shown a premature human infant saved from certain death by breathing liquid oxyden through its underdeveloped lungs."
https://arena-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com/1504716/07bb3bc69a5c41c0ea96b1874990f4a2.pdf?1513176216
1983 A Merman is more about the mythology tho, especially in dissensus terms where most people aren't truly into guitars
idk if the Drexciya guys ever listened to it as children or teenagers, or if they did what they thought
and unlike Drexciya - tho, not unlike P-Funk - there's a healthy does of white hippiedom in there, Atlantis way down beneath the ocean where I wanna be
but Jimi flips it ofc - a black man turns on his back on a dying earth (speaking of apocalyptic fantasies) and takes The Journey Home to Neptune's Lair etc
not merely escapism but active flight from a dystopia. which Drexciya then brings all the way back around to the active creation of a different kind of utopia.
why I have always found Drexciya so fascinating, even all the faceless techno mystery (which was before my time anyway) and incredible quality of the music aside
to refashion the impossible trauma of the Middle Passage and all that followed into this equally impossibly creative counternarrative
I just, idk, I can't even articulate. the level of creative genius it takes to transcend even for a moment the insane toxicity of American racial history + race relations.
there is no Funkadelic Eddie Hazel without HendrixEddie hazel and Hendrix really come together at Band of Gypsys and Funkadelic but from two different directions. Hendrix trying to bring funk into rock music and Hazel vice versa.
he talked about it too at some point I'm pretty sureIs it Simon who has the thing about 1983… (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)?
there is no Funkadelic Eddie Hazel without Hendrix
Jimi was almost a decade older and he was revolutionizing the guitar - opening those new worlds - when Eddie Hazel was still in high school
that's nothing against Hazel, just how it is
that's what all his copycats and direct followers never got
that could be true. it depends how much recognition you think he deserves 1) outside Jimi's shadow 2) outside of George Clinton/Funkadelic as a wholeI think lost a lot of recognition he deserved due to there not being enough space for anyone remotely similar at that time