If your circle of friends includes any guitar players, take this little

test. Ask them if they are familiar with Eddie Hazel’s Game, Dames and

Guitar Thangs. Chances are their eyes will widen, followed by an

exclamation something like “I thought I was the only one who knew about

that record!” Indeed, knowledge of this relatively obscure album is

something of a secret handshake among axe men, because the guitar work

on it is flat-out incredible. But then, you had to be a bad mutha to be

in a band with George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell and the

rest of the Parliament/Funkadelic mothership, and that’s where a 17

year-old Eddie Hazel found himself in 1967, as the new guitar player in

the Parliaments.

Over the next ten years, Hazel would become an instrumental mainstay in

PFunk, most notably on Fender Strat showcases like “Maggot Brain” and

“Dollar Bill,” which he co-wrote. By the time he recorded this album in

1977, however, Hazel was out of the band, beset by personal problems

that led to his premature demise in 1992 and which also explain at least

in part why this album never reached commercial lift-off. All of the

aforementioned PFunk notables are here, along with the Brides of

Funkenstein on vocals, but this is Eddie’s show, as he lets loose with

one coruscating, psychedelic funk lead after another over a mixture of

George Clinton-penned originals and covers of “California Dreamin’” and

“I Want You (She’s So Heavy).” And now you can get Game in two different

ways: on CD with liner notes by former Minister of Information for

PFunk, Tom Vickers, or on LP in an electric blue vinyl edition!