Watch Living Colour’s Vernon Reid Join Members Of The Sword, Red Fang, Others For Metal Cover Of Funkadelic’s “Hit It And Quit It”
Jordan Olds’ great video series Two Minutes To Late Night is still full of surprises. In past weeks, Olds has rounded up all-star bands of punk, metal, and hardcore musicians to cover bands like Mountain, Ink & Dagger, and Metallica. (Olds also did a John Carpenter tribute all on his own.) And today, Two Minutes To Late Night has given us Vernon Reid shredding all over a Funkadelic classic.
Vernon Reid, the guitar hero behind Living Colour, is a national treasure, and he absolutely goes off in his first Two Minutes To Late Night performance. Reid essentially leads an all-star band of metal musicians through “Hit It And Quit It,” one of the many bangers on Funkadelic’s 1971 album Maggot Brain. “Hit It And Quit It” was already a playful song with a big central riff, and it works beautifully as a psychedelic metal jam with an extended intro. Funkadelic had an all-time great shredder in the late Eddie Hazel, and Vernon Reid is one of the few players on the planet who can bring Hazel-level heat. It’s awesome to hear what he does on this.
Alongside Reid, the Two Minutes To Late Night “Hit It And Quit It” feature also features two other guitarists: Jordan Olds himself, in his Gwarsenio Hall character, and Red Fang’s Bryan Giles, who we see playing while riding around in the back of a pickup truck and wearing an oversized novelty cowboy hat. We also get the Sword’s Bryan Richie on bass, Shai Hulud’s Moe Watson on drums, and the comedian and podcaster Emily Panic on backup vocals. Manuel Gagneux, leader of the Swiss metal band Zeal & Ardor, does an appropriately trippy take on the George Clinton lead vocals. Check out the Two Minutes To Late Night cover and the Funkadelic original below.
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