New Funk Times

27/10/2024

>> As he gets set to celebrate sixty years in music, bass god Bootsy Collins is opening the doors to the private studio and warehouse he calls The Ark, and sharing his secret stash of funky artifacts. > The tapestry of Bootsy’s rich and colorful career comes into deep focus inside the barn-turned-rehearsal-studio, soundstage, and personal museum which he calls Noah’s Ark, or the Ark for short. Located opposite his home—the “Boot Cave”—on a rural, twenty-acre spread east of Cincinnati that he calls the Bootzilla Rehab Center, the cavernous space overflows with the accouterments of a life spent funkin’. As you enter the Ark, a life-sized promotional cutout from the 1979 Bootsy’s Rubber Band album, This Boot Was Made For Fonk-N, greets you from overhead. Mannequin recreations of Bootsy’s friends and collaborators Buckethead and Snoop share wall space with a menagerie of guitars and basses, and an expansive series of rock-star portraits (James Brown, Bob Dylan, Michael Jackson, Alice Cooper) purchased from Ohio artist Neal Hamilton.

13/10/2024

>> Walking into “Cloaked in a Cloud, Disguised in the Sky,” the first public exhibition of art created by George Clinton, feels similar to stepping into Parliament-Funkadelic’s mothership.

One only has to imagine being inside a spacecraft adorned with interstellar Black art, drawings created on hotel stationary, photography and otherworldly costumes worn by the iconic funk music singer, producer and pioneer over the years.

SCAD Museum of Art in Savannah will host the iconic Parliament-Funkadelic bandleader’s exhibition through Jan. 27

09/10/2024

Nice touch! Louis Cato and the Late Show band introduced Kamala Harris' appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert with George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic's "One Nation Under a Groove".

Vanity Fair: >> Colbert eventually moved on to Harris’s presidential run, remarking that her campaign is one of the shortest in modern American history. “My opponent, the former president, has been running since 2020,” Harris said, getting a big laugh from the audience. She used the relative newness of her campaign to underscore the difference between her fresh perspective and Donald Trump’s “old, tired playbook.” Harris scored more points with the audience when Colbert asked her what was going through her head during the presidential debate. “It’s family TV, right?” she said. “It starts with a w, there’s a letter in between, and then the last letter’s f.”

While appearing on ‘The Late Show,’ Harris touched on the issues while taking shots at Trump: “My opponent, the former president, has been running since 2020.”

05/10/2024

Blackbyrd McKnight: >> “On one occasion, Brem took me to his friend’s house for a jam. His name was Archie Ivy, who also played bass, and we jammed for a good while. I later found out that he was the president of Parliament Funkadelic, which was my favorite group. He told me that in about a year, Mr. Clinton would be forming a new band, and he would set up an audition for me. I never forgot what he told me.

“A year and some change later, I did get this call from someone I didn’t know, and the conversation went something like this, ‘What are you still doing at home? You’re supposed to be on a flight going to Detroit to audition with the Brides. You missed your flight. How soon can you get to the airport?’ Needless to say, there was no flight booked for me. No wonder I was still at home. That was my introduction to P-Funk.”

“That was September 1978. Enter the organized chaos. I caught the red-eye to Michigan and went to the Balmar Hotel in Detroit, a very funky joint, but hey, we’re talking about P-Funk, right? When I got to the hotel, I was taken around to meet some band members I’d be working with.

“The next day, I auditioned for the Brides of Funkenstein and was hired. In late September ’78, the Brides set off to open for the P-Funk Anti-Tour. After the Brides dissolved, I became a member of P-Funk in late ’79.”

Jazz/funk/fusion veteran DeWayne “Blackbyrd” McKnight recalls his smooth segue from Herbie Hancock sideman to full-on Funkadelic member – plus his ’70s gear and what he learned from Shuggie Otis

03/10/2024

From August 20, 2024:

>> Clinton told Rolling Stone in a 1990 interview that he learned one of songwriting’s most important lessons at Motown. He held a staff writing job at the label for a brief period in the ’60s.

“I learned how to write with clichés, puns and hooks,” he says. “So when I got Parliament-Funkadelic, I just went stupid with it. Instead of one or two hooks, we’d have 10 hooks in the same song. And puns that were so stupid that you could take ’em three or four different ways.”

George Clinton, one of the foremost innovators of funk, has had a lot to say about Detroit. Motor City was home to his beloved Motown...

02/10/2024

And you thought P.Funk live jams were lengthy ... 😉

Here's a 15 min+ version of Brides of Funkenstein's "Never Buy Texas from a Cowboy" by Don Was Detroit All-Star R***e 2021, feat. Dames Brown.

Don Was Detroit All-Star R***e 2021"Never Buy Texas From a Cowboy" by Dames BrownThe 2021 R***e theme was the songs of George Clinton.Lisa Cunningham - voca...

02/10/2024

>> ‘Mothership Connection’ — Parliament (1975)

Imagine the jam band spirit of the Grateful Dead mixed with party-hearty funk from The Ohio Players spiced by a bit of James Brown’s propulsive, horn-laced grooves, and you’re close to understanding the impact of this 1975 album. Few groups moved more nimbly between the worlds of rock, funk, jazz, and R&B than George Clinton’s Parliament, and Mothership Connection was the apex of their boundary-breaking spirit – an instant classic fueled by Clinton’s trippy, sci-fi-inspired lyrics and jam band style.

JB alumns Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley bought muscular horn lines that powered irresistible grooves like P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up) and Mothership Connection (Star Child), while bassist Bootsy Collins and keyboardist Bernie Worrell unleashed delightfully weird licks that felt like funk filtered through the craziest acid trip. The monster hit Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Of the Sucker) pulled it all together – hypnotic patter paired with a chorus that was the perfect soundtrack for the most raucous house party. This album would presage everything from Afrofuturism to Hip-Hop and rap, proving that funk could contain multitudes of pop culture influences while daring you to stay off the dance floor. — Eric Deggans

VIBE highlights 50 groundbreaking albums released between 1974 and 2024 that encapsulate the beauty of Black American music.

07/08/2024

>> Those selections show Harris to be a jazz aficionado, but a video from a Grand Rapids, Mich. shopping trip to Della Soul Records in February demonstrates that she’s also down with the funk. And up with the down stroke. Harris came out of the store with a Funko Pop! doll depicting Parliament-Funkadelic founder George Clinton, while also scoring an unnamed Miles Davis album.

“Do you know P-Funk?,” she asked assembled media members.

“No? OK, well there are lessons to be taught,” she says, perhaps readying herself for a role as musical educator in chief.

“Does everybody know who "Bootsy" Collins is? Ok, there’s some education to be done, I can see that.”

The Vice President and presumptive Democratic nominee is a jazz aficionado and Bootsy Collins enthusiast. Vice-presidential candidate JD Vance might also be busy making wide-ranging playlists.

22/07/2024

Happy 83rd Funkday, Dr. Funkenstein!

I took this photo in 1986, during the first of many visits to GC's Funky Farm in Brooklyn/Michigan (near Detroit).

The home story I wrote back then: https://sozialgeschnatter.wordpress.com/2009/05/27/the-funky-farmer-george-clinton-home-story-1986/

18/07/2024

>> When it comes to funky, futuristic fashion, George Clinton — the music legend who brought “One Nation Under a Groove” — says that you have to think out of your comfort zone to be out of this world.

“We always was trying to make sure we was down with whatever was happening,” Clinton, 82, told The Post about his seven decades of culture-shifting garbing and grooving. “And the only way to do that is to pick up on the stuff that sounds the most ridiculous to you, that looks the most ridiculous to you.

“That usually is the stuff that’s getting ready to knock you out of the box. So when I see kids getting on my nerves [with their style statements], I know that’s the new s – – t.”

Legendary funkateer George Clinton is keeping in slamming style with his third collaboration with John Fluevog Shoes, with includes not only some space-surfing sneakers but a beach-ready bucket hat…

17/03/2024

Rolling Stone: >> "Bootsy" Collins assembles a crew of influential artists like Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, and Eurythmics’ Dave Stewart for the P-Funk legend’s latest single, “The Influencers.”

Fantaazma and Westcoast Stone, a pair of artists on Collins’ Bootzilla Records, also appear on the track, which offers a preview of what the bassist has been cooking up at his Cincinnati studio over the past year.

“The Influencers” out now 🤩
https://ffm.to/the-influencers

14/02/2024

From February 3, 2024: That's how I'll remember Amp whom I first met in Detroit when he recorded the Mr. Fiddler album (released in 1990).

>> While he dealt with many hardships in his life — Fiddler's son, Dorian, died at age 18 in 2009 — friends, collaborators and fellow members of his community said he was always an upbeat presence and positive force, always encouraging, always pushing forward and always funky.

After the ceremony, Detroit techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson called Fiddler a leader and an innovator, and said he'd remember him for the way he carried himself. "He was always calm, and he seemed like he was always at peace," he said. "He was always a creative presence, and he mixed with all different genres, and he always found a way to make everything fit together, musically. That's what he loved, was music."

Questlove, George Clinton, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and more paid their respects to the funk musician, who died in December at age 65.

12/01/2024

10 motherfunkin' years old!