Toys [VINYL]

Finding unreleased Funkadelic from the Westbound years is like discovering the holy grail to find out it's filled with your favorite beverage spiked with your favorite mind enhancer. Nine tracks (and a video clip of "Cosmic Slop" for your computer) from the vaults, five are instrumental jams and four are (somewhat) uncompleted songs, all from the early seventies.

Opener "Heart Trouble" would appear in a different version on 1973's Cosmic Slop, as "You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure", the chorus is about all they share. Here, it's a bouncy little number, propelled by Bernie Worrell's astounding organ playing (he even throws in a little "London Bridges" just for the hell of it). For the extended instrumental outro, Eddie Hazel blazes in with acidic fury. "The Goose That Laid The Golden Egg" is an instrumental version of "The Goose" that would show up in drastically different form on Parliament's "Up For The Downstroke". This version is led by Bernie & Eddie jamming off each other, as is "Vampy Funky Bernie", another instrumental. Just some great jamming by some of the best ever.

"Talk About Jesus" is almost some straight up gospel, which is followed by "Slide On In", a twelve minute long slowburning blues with a short George Clinton monologue talking about "makin' it wet". Eddie really shines for the last half of this one. "Stinkfinger" is a bouncy little ode to quaaludes (according to the lyrics) and "Magnififunk" is another instrumental. Bernie takes center stage on this latin jazz influenced workout, playing both piano and organ, bringing it to a frightening crescendo.

One thing that separates these from their album tracks of the time is that they haven't been given the psychedelic studio treatment, echoes, phasing, reverb and sound effects that usually adorn a Funkadelic recording. These are more stripped down and (slightly) sober. There's even a version of "Wars Of Armageddon" without all of the insane tripped out sound effects. But if you are a fan of the raw, acid rock and soul of early Funkadelic, you're in for a treat my friend. (According to the liner notes, there're more unreleased songs in the vaults, with titles like "Nookie Juice" and "Walrus Fart"!)

I was BLESSED to meet Funkadelic in 1968 (before Bernie). Toys has taken me down memory lane. This is PURE Funkadelic, the raw funky, acidy, gospelly music I heard 41 years ago.

I'm in heaven. This sounds very much like an original concert of the late 60's early 70's when it seemed more of a jam session than a planned concert. Few songs had titles back then, everything was a work in progress. When I listen to Toys I hear so many parts of songs that weren't recorded until sometimes years later.

What is especially important to me is listening to Eddie Hazel when he was so very young. He was amazing then and got even better. He was dubbed the "next Jimi Hendrix" when he was 19. What a burden for someone so young. Then came the release of Maggot Brain and the demise of Eddie Hazel. How very sad.

But on Toys, you get to hear him at his finest, mistakes and all. Eddie, Tiki, Tawl, and Bernie. What a band. Their sound was something we had never heard. If you're a collector, this is a MUST. If you're just curious this is a MUST. You will never hear the original Funkadelic like they really were when they played live.

After waiting anxiously for this release, which was delayed for several years after they released the cover art to online retailers, I have to say that actually hearing this was a little anticlimactic. The majority of the tracks are instrumentals and all of them sound to be unfinished. Let's just be realistic and say that there was a reason that these cuts were left on the cutting room floor in an incomplete form to begin with. The performances and especially the mixes here are definitely rough around the edges.

That's not to say that their aren't moments of genius and brilliance. We're talking about one of the best bands of all time here! Bernie Worrell and Eddie Hazel are two of my favorite musicians and they're both prominently featured here. But this material really doesn't hold a candle to the classic Funkadelic recordings from this time period (early 70's), so don't come in expecting a lost classic album that rivals "Maggot Brain". It also doesn't compare to some of the other previously unreleased material from this era that has surfaced on past collections (namely the bonus cuts on "First Thangs" the reissue of "Osmium").

The liner notes by Rob Bowman are great and the included video of the band dancing around in New York to "Cosmic Slop" is a kick, but I think even the most hardcore Funkadelic fans will find themselves moving back to the classics fairly quickly rather than keeping this disc on regular rotation. This material really would have been best included as bonus tracks on the last batch of Funkadelic reissues in my opinion, but at least this way, the collectors don't have to go back and re-purchase several albums to get a disc worth of previously unavailable material.