w/ George Clinton
Guido Koch
What is it that FZ and George Clinton have in common?
Guido, per email: funk...@gmx.de
... nothin but a friendly Boo...
Doug Boucher
Guido Koch <funk...@gmx.de> wrote
> What is it that FZ and George Clinton have in common?
Funky shit?
Doug
fer...@my-deja.com
They both sang about dogs?
MF
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Jack P. Armstrong
>
>Funky shit?
>
I was gonna say Pure, Uncut Funk. I know that Pedro Bell was very highly
influenced by the work of Calvin Schenkel. And the P-Funk Mobb has tons of
what you could call "Conceptual Continuity." Not to mention that Clinton
(George, not Bill) is a huge Zappa fan.
- - - - - - -
Jody B. (aka Jack P. Armstrong)
"The program for this evening is: we do a bit, and then we stop for a bit, and
then we do a bit more." - Robert Wyatt
Cal Schenkel
Armstrong) wrote:
>>> What is it that FZ and George Clinton have in common?
>>
>>Funky shit?
>>
>
>I was gonna say Pure, Uncut Funk. I know that Pedro Bell was very highly
>influenced by the work of Calvin Schenkel. And the P-Funk Mobb has tons of
>what you could call "Conceptual Continuity." Not to mention that Clinton
>(George, not Bill) is a huge Zappa fan.
Bill too--didn'tya know?
Bill
>
> Hello!
>
> What is it that FZ and George Clinton have in common?
>
Brecker Brothers.
steve_...@my-deja.com
> What is it that FZ and George Clinton have in
common?
One day I was flipping through one of
those "Histories of Rock & Roll" books. This
delightful summation of all thinks worthy in Rock
from the past century saw Zappa as deserving
approximately two passing references, one of
which, most interestingly for purposes of this
thread, being a quotation from George Clinton
along the lines of "Every black man in America
must listen to Frank Zappa." Wish I'd written
down the name of the book.
This got me thinking whether any hidden Zappa
influence on George Clinton might be detected in
Clinton's music. The few examples I provide
herein reflect the sparseness of my collection of
all things Parliafunkadelic, sadly. I'm sure
there is much more (if the quotation can be
trusted). I will omit *musical* parallels
because I am underequipped educationally in that
department (and frankly I don't hear many).
1. Some of the *intelligible* lyrics (there
aren't many of them) from "Alice In My Fantasies"
(G. Clinton, G. Cook):
"You can be my dog and I will be your tree and
you can pee on me. Mama said never eat the
yellow snow. So where did he go?"
This track was released in 1974 (on the
Funkadelic album "Standing on the Verge of
Getting It On") 'rounds about the time Zappa
released his "Apostrophe'" album,
featuring "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow." I can't
quite catch the other lyrics to see if there is
more of a connection. OK, big deal, we have
mothers telling their sons to not eat yellow snow
on these two albums.
2. Check out the musicians' credits
from "Standing on the Verge" in comparison to a
typical Zappa version thereof:
BERNARD (BERNIE) WORRELL: Spaced Viking;
keyboards & vocals
* CALVIN SIMON: Tenor vocals, congas & suave
personality
* CLARENCE 'FUZZY' HASKINS: an prototype
werewolf; berserker ocatve vocals
C 'BOOGIE' MOSSON: World's Only Black Leprechaun;
bass & vocals
EDDIE 'SMEDLEY SMORGANOFF' HAZEL: Maggoteer
lead/solo guitar & vocals
GARY SHIDER: Rhythm/lead guitar, doowop vocals,
sinister grin
* GEORGE CLINTON: Supreme Maggot Minister of
Funkadelia; vocals, maniac froth & spit. Behavior
illegal in several states
R 'TIKI' FULWOOD: Percussion & vocals. Equipped
with stereo armpits
RON BRYKOWSKI: Rhythm/lead guitar; polyester soul-
powered token white devil
* 'SHADY' GRADY THOMAS: Registered and licensed
genie; vocals
* RAY (STINGRAY) DAVIS: Subterranean bass vocals,
supercool & stinky fingers
OK, now from "We're Only In It For the Money":
FRANK ZAPPA: Guitar, piano, lead vocals,
weirdness & editing
BILLY MUNDI: Drums, vocal, yak & black lace
underwear
BUNK GARDNER: All woodwinds, mumbled weirdness
ROY ESTRADA: Electric bass, vocals, asthma
DON PRESTON: Retired
JIMMY CARL BLACK: Indian of the group, drums,
trumpet, vocals
IAN UNDERWOOD: Piano, woodwinds, wholesome
EUCLID JAMES MOTORHEAD [italicized] SHERWOOD:
(visible on back cover) Road [italicized]
Manager, soprano & baritone saxophone, all
purpose weirdness & TEEN APPEAL (we need it
desparately)
SUZY CREAMCHEESE: Telephone
DICK BARBER: SNORKS
Yes, I did correctly transcribe the formatting to
make the point: the Funkadelic liner notes use
nearly identical formatting (all-caps names
followed by colons, sentence-case descriptions of
instrumentation and "special features," use of
ampersands). Most striking is the parallel
between Jimmy Carl Black, described as Indian of
the group, and Ron Brykowski, called the token
white devil. And you can see other parallels,
including the humor.
3. The liner notes of "Standing on the Verge"
then tell a long parable, very much in the style
of the fantastic story in Frank Zappa's "Grand
Wazoo" album. In both stories, key nouns,
especially proper nouns, are in ALL CAPS, like in
a cheesy religious pamphlet.
Summary of the George Clinton story: The Cosmic
Strumpet of MOTHER NATURE birthed the Apostles
[Sun] Ra, [Jimi] Hendrix, [Sly] Stone & CLINTON
to preserve all funkiness of man for all
eternity. But reactionary NIXON-OUS HEATHENS
sought to subjugate the followers of FUNKADELIA,
and the Cosmic Strumpet sent Maggot Minister
CLINTON on a quest to defeat the evil forces in
order to attain the GRIP OF THE FUNKAPUS. He
hopped into the PARLIAFUNKADELICMENT THANG and
flew to Babylon to destroy hordes of supertrys,
halfshafts, rambunctious niggaphites, slackmacks
and clodfathers. Returning victorious in his
P.F.T., CLINTON is tempted by luscious negresses
but resists so as to not delay his eventual
coupling with the Cosmic Strumpet (who is his
mother, BTW, lest we forget).
Zappa's THE LEGEND OF CLETUS AWREETUS-AWRIGHTUS
& THE GRAND WAZOO, in a similar free-
associational style, loosely describes a dream by
the scientist Uncle Meat of a historically
inaccurate replica of ANCIENT ROME, where the
forces of CLETUS AWREETUS-AWRIGHTUS, the Funky
Emperor, do weekly battle against the army of
MEDIOCRATES OF PEDESTRIUM. The battles consist
of each group of musicians playing music
(something like a Battle of the Bands). The
results of each engagement are posted on THE
CHARTS every Monday. The story also tells of the
unfunky prudes (known as QUESTIONS (Christians))
whom CLETUS asks to repent their unmusical ways
or be destroyed (by being dissolved into a vat of
UnDifferentiate Tissue). Zappa's story ends more
ambiguously than the Clinton story, with the
weekly battles against the outsized M.O.P. army
looking to continue ad infinitum.
Of course, this all amounts to next to nothing in
the grand scheme of things. But, at least, I get
the impression that George Clinton was listening
to quite a bit of Zappa by the early- to mid-
70s. Although Bootsy was undoubtedly the biggest
direct lyrical influence on Clinton, I *sense* a
lot of Zappa je-ne-c'est-qua in some of the
lyrics of Parliafunkadelic. (See "Agony of
Defeet" with its topical similarities to
Zappa's "Stinkfoot," for example). Maybe someone
more knowledgeable can contribute.
Steve LaCombe
Lawyer of the NewsGroup
Rolf Maurer
Excellent post. I think you're definitely on to something here.
My own P-Funk collection is pretty sparse these days since the last
break-in at my house ten days ago. For some kooky reason, the burglar
left all my Zappa CDs behind, which is exactly what happened the last
time some junkie helped himself to my CD collection. Definitely
proving something.
Rolf
Guido Koch
f>They both sang about dogs?
No, FZ is the dog GC sings about.
Guido Koch
> Not to mention that
>Clinton (George, not Bill) is a huge Zappa fan.
But it would help to answer my question...
Guido Koch
DB>> What is it that FZ and George Clinton have in common?
DB>Funky shit?
Beep, wrong!- no point for you, Buddy.
Gary Ingalls
one similar tidbit. The whole reason why I started getting into the
whole Parlafunkadelicment Thang in the first place was due to an article
about George Clinton in Musician magazine from about 1985 or so that
stated that George was the "Black Frank Zappa" in the opening paragraph.
Well, I couldn't let that description go by without further
investigation. While I'm a pretty big George Clinton fan the only
similarities that I see between him and Frank are;
1) They have (/had) a similar work ethic when it comes to music.
George was pretty prolific, writing for, producing and playing with many
different bands at once and releasing several LP's every year.
2) They both had "fuck'em if they don't like it" attitude that
resulted in some very original and interesting music. They both did it
exactly how they wanted to with no concern towards what the average pop
music fan might think.
3) As Steve pointed out, they both have (/had) a great sense of
humor that could be found all over their music and even on the
packaging.
As far as I can tell, the comparisons stop there. While I enjoy the
music of George Clinton, he ain't no Zappa. I think George really
respected Frank for proving that you don't have to pander to the radio
in order to get your personal vision released.
They say the bigger the headache, the bigger the pill.
They call me The Big Pill
Much Love,
Dr. Funkenstein