A new reissue of a classic Detroit album is promising to blow some minds.
“Maggot Brain,” Funkadelic’s influential third album, has been remastered from its original source tapes in what the project’s producer says is the purest sonic reproduction of the original 1971 record.
The reissued album — available on multiple vinyl variants along with CD, cassette and digital editions — will be celebrated at more than 130 listening parties across the U.S. this week, including several in metro Detroit starting Thursday, Sept. 10.
It’s the third Funkadelic LP to be reissued in an ongoing partnership between Southfield-based Westbound Records and L.A.’s Org Music, which has also yielded
remastered editions of albums by the Ohio Players, the Counts and Dennis Coffey.
“This is the one everybody’s really been waiting for,” reissue producer Rich Hansen says.
If any music deserves an overdue brush-up, it’s the dark, danceable funk-rock of “Maggot Brain,” recorded by George Clinton and Co. at Detroit’s United Sound Systems. For years, collectors endured reissues of varying dubious quality, including some even cut at the wrong speed.
For collectors, original versions of the LP are hard to come by, and it can be even tougher to find them in decent conditions: After all, as Hansen points out, “Funkadelic records tend to have been partied on pretty hard.”
“Now we have these iconic, seminal Detroit records being handled with the care they 1,000% deserve,” he says.
The “Maggot Brain” mission began with a visit to Detroit by Los Angeles mastering engineer and Nashville tape restoration specialist Catherine Vericolli. Sifting through old tape reels in an area storage facility, they embarked on what Hansen calls “an archeologic investigation” of the early-’70s Funkadelic recordings and other Westbound material.
A vintage reel-to-reel machine borrowed from Jack White’s Third Man Records aided the cause.
“Through our knowledge of the catalog and their knowledge of the technical side, we were able to identify the original master versions,” Hansen says.
With that first-generation material now in hand, the team cut a one-to-one copy, allowing Gardner to remaster the music in an old-school, analog-style process back in L.A. — deploying a vinyl lathe of the sort used in the 1970s.
“There was no digital manipulation,” says Hansen. “This was done as it would have been done at the time. It was about honoring the original album and how it sounds.”
Detroit fans can get their first taste of the “Maggot Brain” reissue during a Thursday evening event at Tigris, a new high-end listening lounge at 2545 Bagley. At Oak Park’s Street Corner Music, the album will be celebrated Friday with the Maggot Brain Olympics, a listening party that will include a guitar contest, trivia and karaoke.
Ripe Records in Grosse Pointe Park is also hosting a Friday evening listening party, and is inviting customers to dress up “looking like they walked straight out of a 1970s Funkadelic show.”
Meanwhile, Detroit’s Corky Coffee has jumped into the festivities, partnering with Org Music for a limited-edition “Maggot Brain” blend featuring notes of peanut butter, cocoa and berries.
A sales pitch for the coffee salutes the epic instrumental title track that opens the Funkadelic album, calling the blend “a medium roast built to be sipped slow while Eddie Hazel's ten-minute solo takes the top of your head off.”
Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.
‘Maggot Brain’ listening parties
(All events are free.)
- Thursday: Tigris – 2545 Bagley, Detroit: 7 p.m.
- Friday: Street Corner Music – 26020 Greenfield, Oak Park: 7 p.m. Fri.
- Friday: Ripe Records Detroit – 15005 Kercheval, Grosse Pointe Park: 7 p.m.
See the full list of 130-plus listening events nationwide here.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Funkadelic's iconic 'Maggot Brain' album gets a hi-fi repolishing
