My funny bone is a versatile thing, sometimes refined, at times juvenile, occasionally gross but never self-indulgent or easily tickled. It does, however, carry a significantly high quality control threshold that finds 95% of supposed comedy not funny.
This is a necessary preamble in the light of playing Roger’s ‘This Is The Shit’, a debut album of Funkadelic/Parliament/Cameo inspired P-Funk/R&B/jamming that loses much of its impact by the innate ability of all those concerned (and there do appear to be a lot of them in Roger) to rapidly disappear up their own arse-holes in a laborious attempt to be put the FUN into FUNk. Released on Julian Cope’s Head Heritage label (an appropriate home given Cope’s well-documented musical predilections) this 9 track opus covers familiar funk/rock/R&B territory pioneered by the some of the grooviest alchemists of the seventies: Hayes, Clinton , Collins etc.
Across sections of the album Roger captures to a tee the (out of) spaced musicality of these pioneers: quaking bass-lines, shimmering guitar work, rollicking drumming and just the right amount of insouciance in the vocals. Tracks like ‘Muthaf*cker’ (very Cameo), ‘Funk Hammer’ and ‘Hot Fuddge’ revel in their dirty P-funk heritage. ‘Roger Loves You’ could be the Scissor Sisters while ‘Clap Your F*ckin Hands’ comes on like AC/DC playing ‘Fight For The Right’ / ‘No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn’ era Beastie Boys. Elsewhere there’s a touch of Primal Scream, both the ‘Screamadelica’ and ‘Give Out But Don’t Give Up’ models.
The problems and distractions start with the voice-overs – a sub-Isaac Hayes sound-alike and another who seems to be impersonating either Beavis or Butthead (I forget which one) - coupled with the sub-hippy absurdist dialogue, riddled with innuendo (usually around the “Funk” word) that worked in the context of the musical bravado of Clinton et al but really should be consigned to the vaults of the decade from which it came.
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Then there are the extended workouts of ‘Ramm It Home’ and ‘Funk Wars’ that sound at times more like the 80’s nightmare that was Power Station and nearer to parody and lampoonery than to welcome evocation. On the interminable ‘Ramm It Home’ Roger informs us that this song is taken from their “lost” Royal Variety Performance (oh wit), that Roger is Prince Phillip’s favourite band (oh my sides) and, if they could, that it is the best “live” funk jamming session this side of Saturn’s Rings (oh Death, where is thy sting?).
There’s some great music on ‘This Is The Shit’ but the desire of Roger to approach their oeuvre with the same level of heavy-handed retro-knobbiness as the likes of The Darkness and Electric 6 approach theirs reduces its impact significantly and renders ‘This Is The Shit’ nearer to amateur karaoke rather than to kick(free your)ass.
Crap artwork 'n'all.
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