Intergalactic Funk #72 from the album Something in the Air by Trent Boswell
It’s a 70s funk theme, set in outer space. So put on your best pair of corduroy bell bottoms and platform shoes, dip your head in a bucket of glitter and step out onto the launch pad. We’re about to take the funk to a whole new level.
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Funkalyze.
I don’t do drugs anymore… than, say, the average touring funk band.
—Bill Hicks
Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look… and that’s how it sounds.
—Erykah Badu
I come equipped with stereophonic funk producin‘ disco inducin´ twin magnetic rock receptors.
—Bootsy Collins
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Special thanks to the following people for providing the video footage and photos. If you enjoyed the visual aspects of the video, the credit is all theirs:
This is the video for Unchanged. The .mp3 song download is available for patrons, over at Patreon.
It’s an original, definitely in the vein of my signature brand, a type of madness so strange that I had to give it a new name. I call it Purple Mind Licorice Music®️.
It combines alternative rock, funk, jazz, folk, blues, heavy metal and psychedelia. It’s a long name but Parliament already has Funkadelic and well, let’s face it, Alterna-Funk-N-Roll isn’t nearly as sexy as Purple Mind Licorice Music. Why yes, I do tend to talk about my music like James Brown talked about his. Thank you for noticing.
Side note, if you haven’t seen the filmGet On Up, it’s surprisingly good. I’m a big fan of The Godfather of Soul, The Minister Of New New Super Heavy Funk (even if he was a total wacko, in real life). But for whatever reason, I didn’t think the movie would be all that great. I was delightfully wrong.
Besides, alternative is a lousy category. Any genre that contains Nirvana, REM, Alice In Chains, Weezer, Coldplay and Bush isn’t particularly helpful in guiding listeners’ decisions. They seriously need to scrap that garbage and revisit the drawing board.Back to the business at hand. I’ve played this song live in my band but we just never managed to get a decent recording of it.
I’m doing the vocal and all the bass and guitar parts. Here, I abandoned my memories of how we played it in the band and just started from scratch, all by myself, just me and my computer drummer, Stinky the Robot.
Fake It ‘Til You Break It
I’ve got a habit of improvising my lead guitar parts, as opposed to writing out a solo in advance. There are songs that I write solos for but those are special cases. Usually, I just improvise and keep the bits that I like.
If anyone takes issue with that, many years ago I read an interview with David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) in a guitar magazine. He said that’s the same process he uses in the studio.
He would take several, improv passes at a song, then cut and paste the bits he liked. Later, he’d go back and learn those parts for the live shows.
Comfortably Numb was done that way and I think that song did alright. It sold like over a thousand copies or something. Trust me… in my head, that joke was hysterical.
Of course, I also have a habit of keeping what I regard as being some of “the more charming mistakes“, for better or for worse. There’s one or two of those in the jam section at the end of this tune. I was tempted to re-record those bits but if they make me giggle, then they stay. Giggles are a precious commodity, not to be wasted.
Unchanged
These wounds, open and tender Reveal your face to me Into the chalice of my arms The blood of your suffering flows free
It’s a mild mannered possession, This waiting for the rain Encumbered by the spell and Groggy in the slumbering delay
A scrap of ribbon, fallen From a lover’s hair Found by the boots of boredom Lament for things not yet dead
A piece of my soul floats there Down in the puddle below Somewhere in a watch pocket An insane notion explodes
Special thanks to the following people for providing the video footage and photos. If you enjoyed the visual aspects of the video, the credit is all theirs.
This is my cover of the song “The Weight” by that excellent group known simply as The Band.
“It consisted of four Canadians and one American: Rick Danko (bass guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (keyboards, drums, vocals), Robbie Robertson (guitar, vocals), and Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar).”
I’ve had a deep love of this song for as long as I can remember. It’s got a fun, upbeat vibe to the music but the lyrics (as the title suggests) are very heavy.
It’s a song about loneliness, disappointment and suffering. It’s about asking where you turn when all your best laid plans have fallen apart.
When I do a cover song, I usually try to reinvent it to some degree. I try to put something of my own mark on it. In this case, it didn’t feel right to completely reshape the song. There are really only two ways that I’ve wandered away from the original.
One is that I had to somehow fill up the empty space left by Garth’s piano playing. I chose to do that with harmony guitar parts, because guitar is my instrument and I gave them a simple and slightly somber quality, to accent the lyrics.
The other is that I shortened the chorus and used heavy effects on the vocal harmonies. I’m doing all the vocal, guitar and bass parts on this. The drums are by Stinky the Robot, my computer-based drummer, who is even more difficult to work with than a real drummer, if that’s even possible.
Gratitude
Special thanks to the following people for providing the evocative video footage that helps bring to light our social problem of the lost and disenfranchised. Homelessness and mental illness are entirely too prevalent and much more needs to be done.
We can’t be a healthy society unless we take care of our own and that means everyone, however unpleasant it might be to look into that chasm and think “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” We must do more… much more.
If you have the means to do so, please donate your money and your volunteer time to one or more of the many quality organizations that offer help to the homeless, the mentally challenged and to stray animals. Most of the people and animals on the street got there by bad luck and they deserve a second chance.
Here is my cover of The Velvet Underground’s excellent song, Sweet Jane.
The images in the video are “famous Janes”, with the exception of course of the two photos of the old Stutz brand motorcar, which is referenced in the lyrics.
All bass, guitar and vocals are me.
The drums are by Stinky the Robot… because that’s a good name for the drummer who lives inside my computer. He plays only what I program him to play, he’s drunk only half as often as a human drummer and he smells better.
The .mp3 song file is available for patrons, over at:
Nothing like a crime of passion to spice up your Saturday night. Here’s a little bit of murderous rage, tucked into a nice, folk song for ya. This is “Hey Joe”, a live cover song video by my band, Magus & The Plastic Infinity.
Words and music to the original are by Billy Roberts. Obviously, Jimi Hendrix is who made the song famous.
Guitar and vocals – Trent Boswell
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Many thanks to the following, for the images in the video. You may or may not like the music but if you like the video, the credit for that is all theirs.
Sometimes Nine was one of my old bands. This music video is for the song “A Thang”.
The song was mainly John’s idea but overall, still a collaboration. The lyrics were written by me. It’s called “A Thang” because it’s in the key of A and for a while, it had no name. We’d end up saying “Let’s play that A thing”. Goofy but true.
Lyrics
A Thang
Memory soothe my mind With with endearments of a time A terrain, cool and kind Where we walked, unafraid
It’s hard to find a place To keep your memory I came to the crest of forever The edge of the wheel, far gone
In search of things that I held in my hand A palace of grandeur, it stands in a land A far off way from here, a man with Cool, candied celebrations… celebrations
Still on pause, no more Now, lambent angels, by the score No wounds beyond recall And joy adorns my eyes
Kevin Trent Boswell 