Parliament Funkadelic 77-78-79 Houston Summit

WHAT IS IT?

In the mid-seventies, excess and extravagance took hold of the pop music world. Fueled by the success of the Moroder/Summer disco phenomenon, Casablanca records determined that they would spare no expense when it came to promoting their music acts. In 1976, the record company gave Parliament-Funkadelic a quarter of a million dollars which was used
to put on a "...Space Age Mardi Gras...featuring absurd costumes, lavish staging and special effects " For four or five years, upwards of twenty performers took it to the stage on a series of grandiose rock tours that really have no genuine parallel. Interstellar fantasies like Star Wars and Close Encounters had taken hold of the public imagination in those years. P-funk tapped into this current and fashioned shows in which a diaper clad guitar player carrying a laser beam rifle flew over the stadium on a wire, a twenty foot tall human skull smoked an enormous joint, and, of course, an eagerly awaited Mothership touched down on stage in a flurry of smoke and flashing lights. What was most remarkable about these productions was that they were all secondary to the ability of the musicians themselves. Despite the number of people on stage, the group managed a synthesis of improvisational jam and taut cohesion that always kept the songs and the audience in motion.

Part of the problem in collecting bootlegs is that there is no definitive version of a recording. I might have a video of a show and someone else might have a different video of the same
performance- or they might have a digital rendering that is of superior quality. For a while I considered ripping the discs to my harddrive and getting a checksum of the image. I don't precisely understand this process, but know enough to figure that it's pretty time-intensive. A better solution, hopefully, is simply to screen shot the menus. If someone has gone to the trouble of authoring some distinct version of a disc, it's very likely that they will construct a unique menu.


HOW IS IT?

The Houston Summit was a very responsive venue for the glory years of the P-funk spectacular. The official video of that era: The "1976 Mothership connection" was filmed at this location. But there are, additionally, three other dates where film cameras captured the group's performances at this venue: 12/??/77, 03/21/78 and 03/18/79... The 1978 show, in fact, did see a release. It was commercially available for a short time on the Japan based P-vine label

The camera work, editing, and sound recording of all these shows resemble the officially available 76 show and it makes you wonder that the substandard quality in
the existing bootlegs is merely a fault of generation loss. Hopefully, better copies of these shows exist in the archives of the P, if not the original footage itself... And hopefully, all of this material will someday see some competent digital enhancement and can be presented in some sort of deluxe disc package...Of course, given the contentious nature of the players involved in the creation of this: Clinton, the various record companies, the various ex-bandmates and associates...anything resembling this is something that might be a long time coming, if ever.

Here's some notes on each particular disc...

1977
image is fair...needs some tweaking on the brightness and the hue...audio would be good but for an intermittent buzzing that is present about half the time. This is particularly a drag during the intro to "Red Hot Mama" which has one of the rippingest guitar solo intros that you're ever gonna hear.

"The P-Funk Earth Tour"
The Summit" Houston, TX 1977 (90mins)Ex

Prelude
Dr.Funkenstein
Red Hot Momma
Undisco Kidd
I Call My Baby Pussy
Children Of Production
Mothership Connection
Take Your Dead Ass Home
Bop Gun
Swing Down Sweet Chariot
Give Up The Funk (tear the roof off)
Night Of The Thumpasarus Peoples
_________________________________________

1978

There is a lot of audion noise in the cartoon prelude, but I believe this has the cleanest sound of the three shows. On the other hand, the image is not as good as in the others

"The Flashlight Tour"
The Summit" Houston,TX 3/21'78 PRO(100 mins.)

The Cartoon Prelude
Funkentelechy ~ We Are The Funkadelic
Cosmic Slop
Maggot Brain
Bop Gun
Mothership Connection
Flashlight
Give Up The Funk (tear the roof off)
Put Your Hands Together ~ May We Funk You

_________________________________________
1979
maybe the best image of the three
...some audio noise similar to the clipped mids in the 77 show


Some Japanese vendor has a disc with the following set list and also includes the opening set by the brides...

Cosmic Slop/
Give Up The Funk-Night Of The Thumpasorus Peoples /
Undisco Kidd /
Cholly/
Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On
Good To Your Earhole-Jam(Fade Out)/
Aqua Boogie(Cut In) /
One Nation Under A Groove
/Flash Light
/Mothership Connection/
Swing Down Sweet Chariot
Rumpofsteelskin

......no Aqua Boogie on my copy



a beautifully laid out introduction to parliament/funkadelic is this issue of wax highly recommended issue of wax poetics

here are some websites, a little abandoned of late, but the info is still here:

"the motherpage: bare bones text but some scholarly attention to the fine details"
"tour date list"
"a very dedicated effort to organize P-Funk related video materials"