Eugene McDaniels
HEADLESS HEROES OF THE APOCALYPSE
(LABEL M)

Eugene McDaniels was a product of his time — an iconoclast who didn’t see any distinction between the discipline of the groove and the wild-ass freedom of the nutty yet provocative idea. Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse, first released in 1971, occupies a funky fringe backwater where soul, rock, R&B, and the protest song aligned with identity politics, theology, astrology, urban affairs, hallucinogenic drugs, and black revolution — an artistic attempt to make war on, rather than love to, the great Satan of Richard Nixon’s America.

Four of the eight songs here actually succeed. The music is no nascent Funkadelic grab bag but focused, fluid jazz rock produced by Joel Dorn and recorded by players whose disciplined chops and gentility provide a potent contrast to the rage of McDaniels’s black-hippie everyman. (McDaniels later found great commercial success writing " Feel like Makin’ Love " for Roberta Flack.) " The Lord Is Back " in the opening song, but He’s more than back: He’s also " riding the rails to resurrection. " The next track, " Jagger the Dagger, " is a biting critique of Mick the Knife as a moth who danced too close to the flame at Altamont. " Lovin’ Man " spends more time rolling with the zodiac than in the hay, and the near-10-minute closer, " The Parasite (for Buffy), " is a stale PC Indian lament as a 16-year-old Billy Joel might have presented it. But another song of outrage, " Freedom Death Dance, " hits all its marks and might even sound like a standard in the hands of a Nina Simone or an Eartha Kitt.

Issue Date: July 12 - 19, 2001