P-Funk to Pai Joao

"P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)"  Parliament  Mothership Connection
"P.E. Squad/Doo Doo Chasers [Instrumental]"  Funkadelic  One Nation Under A Groove
"Pablo Picasso"  The Modern Lovers  Modern Lovers
"Pac-Man Fever"  Buckner & Garcia  Like Omigod! The '80s Pop Culture Box
"Pachuko Hop"  Chuck Higgins  Brown-Eyed Soul: The Sound of East L.A.
"Pack Up"  Lyrics Born  Later That Day . . .
"Packing Blankets"  Eels  Daisies Of The Galaxy
"Pagan Angel And A Borrowed Car"  Iron & Wine  The Shepherd's Dog
"Pagan Poetry"  Bjork  Vespertine
"Pai Joao"  Seu Jorge and Almaz  Seu Jorge and Almaz

  Some songs take you to a particular place and time.  "P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)" is in a car with my girlfriend at Summit Mall in the late 1980s - I think I had just gotten Mothership Connection on cassette.  I bought Mothership Connection without having heard any Parliament before.  George Clinton and P-Funk kept showing up in things I would read, and so I bought it.  This song was a watershed for me.  I am not claiming some Neo-like "take the red pill" moment.  In retrospect though, the world got different - my musical palette became more expansive.  Before buying this album, everything came through the Beatles/Elvis/Velvet Underground.  After Parliament, I could go backwards to Stax, forward into P.E., it gave license to whole new vistas.  It directly introduced me to phenomenal musicians like Bernie Worrell, Maceo Parker, Michael Hampton, and of course Bootsie Collins.  (The great Eddie Hazel is not on either of these albums - we'll have to wait for Maggotbrain).  "Chocolate-coated, freaky, and habit-forming" indeed.

  My first exposure to "Pablo Picasso" was the Repo Man soundtrack.  The songs I remember from that movie are a cover of this, and a really slowed down, lounge-y version of "When The Shit Hits The Fan" by the Circle Jerks.  I have seen Jonathan Richman a few times in my life, and I saw him play this once - I want to say it was a second (of three) encores at a club in Atlanta in probably 1985-86.  I tried to find the name of the club, but it might be gone.

  On the other end of the spectrum, even though it apparently peaked at #9 on Billboard's charts, I have absolutely no recollection of ever hearing "Pac-Man Fever" before tonight.  I think I am worse for the experience.

  In fact, back-to-back here we get the wonderful and the awful of Rhino.  Their need to preserve excrement like "Pac-Man Fever" has to be forgiven when they hand out gems like "Pachuko Hop," a squonking sax instrumental that never charted even when it came out almost 50 years ago.