Fifty Years of Mind Melting
Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
I remember a night around 1993, at a bar called The Ritz, on Austin’s World Famous™ Sixth Street. Built in 1929 it was the first movie theater in Austin built for the “talkies”, in the 70s it was a porn theatre, in the 1980s it was a punk club where Black Flag played1. From 2007 until this past year, it served once again as a movie theater, this time under the direction of The Alamo Drafthouse. But back in the 90s, it was split into two bars: the main Ritz, and the lesser known via side door staircase, Ritz Upstairs. Downstairs was more frat, upstairs was more cocktail. Funny how climbing up a staircase led to things being more adult.
The night in question, I was waiting for my best friend to get off work at the upscale restaurant next door. I knew the bartender, and he was doing a great job of keeping me topped up: double Tanqueray and Tonic, my go to that summer. It was still early, maybe 9:00. There were few people there yet. It felt empty although it was just a matter of time until the place was packed, the eight pool tables busy, the tables in the low lit bar area full, people lined up by the bathrooms and me drunkenly running between all three, while periodically fishing change out of my pocket to stuff into the jukebox.
The bartender, Casey, must have put it on. I was maybe two doubles in. Eddie Hazel’s guitar started to sing. It was the saddest and most beautiful moment. I felt lost, like a helpless baby.
Regardless of whether or not it’s true that George Clinton told Hazel to play imagining he’d just heard the news his mother had died, there is no more emotionally encompassing piece of music ever to have been recorded than this solo. I’ll die on that hill.
Special Eddie Hazel bonus: Lampoc Boogie
Have any other Eddie Hazel standouts to bring up?
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Musik Klub: Everythang’s Workin
Black Flag also played Vancouver, BC in the 80s at a former movie theatre turned punk club, The New York Theatre (formerly The York, and then after, Raja Cinema)