Doc Watch- Tear the Roof Off- The Untold Story of Parliament Funkadelic,

Parliament-Funkadelic is one of those bands that I feel like I can go back to again and again. I doubt they would have ever came to mind had it not been for the 1990s. I was too young for any knowledge of their heyday, but the 90s brought them to the top of the list again- whether it was George Clinton producing Red Hot Chilli Peppers and touring with Lollapalooza or a multitude of rappers (Public Enemy, Dr Dre, Digital Underground, Aaliyah) having hits off the backs of their samples. There wasn’t many more impressive bands. 

If you watch the first few minutes of 2016s doc Tear the Roof Off- The Untold Story of Parliament Funkadelic, you might think you are getting a hatchet job. It’s not. It is actually a mostly appreciative story of the bands and those involved. In as much as you can tell the story within an hour constraint, I doubt you could do much better. I know even as a fan, P Funk has largely remained a nameless collective led by George Clinton. Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell were too talented. I assume many people credit Clinton as doing everything when he was more of the band leader. Eddie Hazel has seen a lot more recognition in recent years, and we can only hope the same for the likes of Fuzzy Haskins, Garry Shider, Cordell Mosson, Bigfoot Braley, Junie Morrison, Stingray Davis, Grady Thomas, and Glenn Goins among other prominent members of the band. 

This documentary does a good job of trying to correct that. Famously, Clinton fought a record label over the use of the name the Parliaments and so would take two routes (Parliament and Funkadelic) and many many side projects. They would be signed to Casablanca records to much critical and commercial success. Things went south pretty quickly in the late 70s and early 80s and the doc says Clinton couldn’t pay the band and started paying them with drugs and hooked many band members on crack cocaine. Thus we get a glimpse of what made the band so great but we move into the more sensationalist aspects of the band’s story. 

Clinton isn’t interviewed or given a chance to speak in this case, but the credits roll with a number of ex-members in pretty bad conditions. I think this documentary at least highlights the relatively unknown members of the bands who deserve attention. That said, it’s not a particularly fun documentary. I watched the PBS History of Funk one when it came out last year and that is more in line with what people are looking for. I always regretted not seeing Clinton perform when he came to my town with the P Funk group. But this documentary left a bad taste in my mouth about Clinton and at this point (and at that time), his hired hands which are a shell of a great band.