This piece was originally published at Mass Appeal on November 3, 2017 and later expunged from their site. If you are the copyright holder and wish to have the piece removed from this page, please contact the site owner.
Steps away from the corner of DeKalb and Nostrand Avenues in the nexus linking Brooklyn neighborhoods Bushwick and Clinton Hill, the freaks were out.
They had lined up outside neighborhood mainstay Sugarhill Supper Club in creative costumes and clubgoer garb to celebrate Halloween with certified music legend George Clinton. Yet the innovator at the helm of twin monoliths Parliament and Funkadelic would not be headlining with his latest ragtag cadre of miscellaneously assembled All-Stars for another one of his hit parades, but rather performing a special set produced by Boiler Room and somehow connected with Detroit techno.
Indeed, when it comes to the legacy of this strain of dance music, it would be foolhardy not to credit Clinton as one of its godfathers. A homegrown stew born of international ideas and sounds, techno’s birth at the hands of African-American trailblazers in 1980s Detroit owes as much to the far-out P-Funk aesthetic and its corresponding mythos as it does to the 20th century philosophy and electronic machinations of groups like Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra. Early practitioners of the sound—Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Kevin Saunderson—drew overt influence from Clinton’s broad discographical preserve and sprawling space narrative in approaching their own music-making and world-building endeavors.
With that in mind, it makes sense that Clinton would seek to try his own hand at it all these years later. Shortly after midnight, with the crowd sufficiently warmed up by opening DJs including the Motor City’s own Patrice Scott, Dr. Funkenstein himself took to the stage to enlighten those gathered as to his intentions. With minimal backing beyond a DJ, keyboardist, and a few accompanying singers, a gruff-voiced Clinton ad-libbed familiar P-Funk hooks and quips over the thumps and bleeps of archetypal Detroit techno and electro. Dressed in some sort of spacesuit onesie topped off with an FBI ballcap, the bespectacled cosmic cadet bellowed delightedly at the revelers, leading call-and-response chants and full-on singalongs.
It was unusual, to be sure, which says a lot given the persistent breadth of strangeness present in Clinton’s music career. The timing of this odd genre mash-up event may have been lost on the attendees, unaware of how close it came to the anniversary of one of Clinton’s most important contributions to electronic music. Released 35 years ago this week, his 1982 solo debut Computer Games provided one of the techno era’s revolutionary opening salvos.
Besieged by financial woes and acrimonious rifts with various members of the overstuffed P-Funk collective, Clinton found himself losing control of a spiraling mothership in the late 1970s. Disgruntled players departed to form projects with names like Mutiny and Quazar. In an especially stinging rebuke, a handful of them put out an entire album under the Funkadelic name in 1980 without Clinton’s participation or consent, taking full advantage of their former leader’s economically and legally weakened position.
Even under duress, Clinton and his remaining cohorts continued making compelling music, with an increasing electronic edge. A Funkadelic effort, 1979’s Uncle Jam Wants You featured the now-iconic “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” a dancefloor dynamo as heavy on synthesizer as it is on Clinton’s sex-crazed rants. (Even the most casual De La Soul fans will recognize the sample flip.) A similar sound fills 1980’s Parliament offering Trombipulation, from the electric boogie of “Agony Of Defeet” to the unmistakably artificial bass of “Let’s Play House.”
Despite being billed topline as a solo effort by Clinton, Computer Games nonetheless features contributions from plenty of familiar figures from the P-Funk multiverse, including known quantities Eddie Hazel, Maceo Parker, and Bernie Worrell, with songwriting co-credited to Bootsy Collins, Junie Morrison, and Gary “Diaper Man” Shider. That largely has to do with its origins in the recording sessions for what would essentially be the final Funkadelic album of the period, The Electric Spanking of War Babies. Once desired by Clinton to reach double LP length, Warner Bros. curtailed that ambition dreaming and kept it a tenable 44 minutes. Among those left off was “Atomic Dog,” leaving it open for inclusion on Clinton’s Capitol debut the following year.
There’s no underselling the impact that “Atomic Dog” had on the rap music to come, appearing on dozens of tracks by way of sampling. Yet long before 2Pac’s “Holler If Ya Hear Me,” Snoop Dogg’s “What’s My Name,” and Dr. Dre’s “Fuck Wit Dre Day” became crucial entries in the hip hop canon, the song proved a modest hit in its own time. Though it strangely never reached the Hot 100, “Atomic Dog” topped Hot Black Singles, then the latest name given to the Billboard chart that would eventually evolve into today’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs.
Apart from that clear rap lineage, Computer Games pushed Clinton further into the burgeoning world of sequencers and synths. On the title track, he partners with the aforementioned Junie Morrison on a bubbling mix that embraced technological advances. Another of their team-ups, “Pot Sharing Tots” employed a slightly swinging mechanical 4/4 beat. Notably, Morrison had explored a more commercial use of such gear on his own solo album 5 the previous year. By 1984, he’d fully immersed himself in electro-funk for his still underrated Evacuate Your Seats.
Then, of course, there’s “Loopzilla,” a lengthy odyssey of R&B interpolations and sloganeering set to a primordial techno beat. Though it had a sound ready for the discotheque, “Loopzilla” hardly sounded like the conventional platters of those establishments. Nevertheless, it reached No. 48 on Billboard Dance Club Songs chart as part of a six-week run.
Computer Games ultimately spent 33 weeks on the Billboard 200 albums chart, peaking at No. 40. That lengthy stint no doubt kept the album fresh to the ears of Detroit’s young pioneers. In 1983, Juan Atkins’ Cybotron dropped Enter, an album as Afro-futurist as any in Clinton’s own catalog up until that point. “Alleys Of Your Mind” and highlight “Clear” feature robotic vocals and a deep funk rhythm. He continued in 1985 under the Model 500 moniker, with vocal singles like “No UFOs” and “Future” undeniably indebted to Clinton’s and artist Pedro Bell’s expansive narrative. Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson’s productions came a few years later, yet traces of their spacey roots can be heard by keen ears on cuts like Kreem’s “Triangle Of Love.”
Reportedly, Clinton’s amped-up Brooklyn gig served as a teaser of sorts for a forthcoming recording project inspired by Detroit techno. In recent years, he’s been tapped for collaborations by Flying Lotus and Kendrick Lamar, respectively. If those songs are any indication of what’s to come, possibly via Lotus’ own Brainfeeder imprint, the human brain behind Computer Games still has a lot to offer today’s listeners.