George Clinton
I’m excited to be playing a gig in NYC on June 17th on the same bill as George Clinton. It’s been a while since I saw George. We first met on the set of Saturday Night Live in 1985 and he invited me to jam with Parliament/Funkadelic (someone recently posted a hilarious video clip from that performance here.) We instantly hit it off, and Geroge asked me to visit him in Miami where he was making an album ‘Some Of My Best Jokes Are Friends’, to which I contributed a couple of co-productions and a very white-boy rap. He is a wonderful man to work with–you just want to play for him, finetuning the groove until it drops into ‘the pocket’ so that big grin spreads across his face and his ass starts wiggling.
While we were in Miami he and his wife took me fishing. A fishing trip with George works like this: (1) Charter a large high-tech fishing vessel (2) Grab a massive boom box, some cassettes of last night’s rough mixes, and a big bag of weed (3) Trail about 22 fishing lines behind the boat on electric winches (4) Set the radar fishfinder (5) Spliff up, chill out, fall asleep with a fat groove on auto-repeat (6) Tell the skipper to wake you up when there’s a fish on (7) Spring into life, hit the buttons on all the lines and reel in a 20-lb tuna (8) Throw it in the ice chest and repeat. We were fifteen miles out but still within sight of Miami’s skyscrapers. The skipper just CB radio’d his friends on the other boats and if anyone found a school they all congregated in that location, trawling their electric lines. It all seemed a bit unfair on the fish.
George told me a story about the time he and Bootsy Collins were fishing in the Bermuda Triangle and they thought they were being abducted by aliens. This is deadly serious. They were skirting round a big storm and suddenly there was a bright gap in the clouds. Then big blobs of mercury started falling from the sky and exploding on the deck of the boat. Blinding lights were dancing around the boat’s antennae. They must have thought the Mothership was finally coming for them. You can just imagine Bootsy yelling out “I’m here my brothas! Take me!”
Now, at the the time I felt this encounter was probably of a pharmaceutical, rather than an extraterrestrial nature. However since then I’ve become quite an avid sailor myself and I’ve seen things that make me think George’s story has some validity. Phosporescence in tropical waters is often other-worldly. Tiny luminescent plancton looks a lot like mercury with a light green tinge. In a squall the tops of waves are whipped up into a foam that sometimes blows on deck. On top of that, St Elmo’s Fire is an electrical phenomenon that causes bright lights to spark in the rigging. Some or all of these factors may have contributed to their experience. Through unnaturally dilated pupils, it must have been quite a show.
We’ll be playing at the Exotic Erotic Ball in New York on June 17th. As it stands we’re playing separate sets, but if I’m able to get in touch with George maybe we can jam together a little. There’s a few options: apart from the songs I did with George, he sang on my song “May The Cube Be With You” and we kind of co-wrote “Hot Sauce” from my 3rd album (it was an outtake from ‘Jokes’ that I added some lyrics to.)
Oh, how I’d love to see you guys jammin’ out! Back in mid-May, before the fabulous Mr. Clinton signed on to the Exotic Erotic Ball, I posted to Alloy what I thought would be the perfect set for this particular occasion (oh, that you would be able to get a set like this ready in time!) Please note what I wrote for the encore:
Urges
Hyperactive
Puppet Theater
Airhead
Science (I’d be willing to bet there’ll be more than one person tied up in “tubes and wires”)
Ferrari
Hot Sauce
And for a funkadelic encore, MTCBWY (but only if you could get George Clinton *and* the guy with the diaper up on stage!)
…
This goes along with me saying before your tour started that I’d love to see a Thomas Dolby/Colin Hay double bill. Is it time for me to start a musical psychic hotline?
You may already have this planned, but if possible, please video tape your jam with George Clinton (assuming it happens) and include it on the DVD release of your concert tour.
Love the fish story!
If George Clinton and Bootsy Collins had been abducted it would have been the funkiest Space ship in the Universe!
BTW I recently watched David Attenborough’s “Can we Save planet Earth” on BBC and he was talking about fields and fields of windmills and I half expected Windpower to start playing whilst he was talking about them.
That sounds like a fishing trip and a half Thomas.
I’ve never been on a trip that high tech here in Australia, but I’d give anything to catch a 20lb tuna.
Mmmmmm…….. sushi
Awesome Fish Story!
I’ve always looked to Mon. Clinton for hair inspiration!
Can’t wait!
: D
That is an awesome story! I saw that SNL performance live, and have been following George’s career ever since.
Last month I had george sign my Aliens flat (That I had you and the whole band sign in Detroit 1988. then Had Dennis Chambers and Rodney “Skeet” Curtis sign at later dates. George thought it was cool to see that flat. He said “May The Cube Be With You.. that brings back some good memories”.
I’ll be at the Ball! Cube would be so cool, as would Hot Sauce. I hope you get in touch with him and plan something funky good!
11 days! whos going? You and darrin? No Johnny??
Johnny and his video rig will be there. Lunesse and the merch table, probably not. And you should be aware that almost everything at EEB will be overshadowed with pole dancers, porn stars posing for cameras, and inebriated revellers discussing each others’ latex bondage outfits. Which is fine if that’s your bag. But it’s not a place for prudes and pure music fans! I hope and plan to enjoy the party though in all sincerity I agreed to it because the fee offsets some of the loss-making smaller gigs on my tour; and because it gets me, my crew and my equipment on a half way hop to London at someone else’s expense.
Sounds like a wise business decision, Thomas. Have fun.
Once again, another interesting read. Thanks for the story.
(Sounds like it would make a good topic for Coast to Coast AM: Musicians and Motherships).
Man, we need a teaspoon of George Clinton injected into this government of ours!
ROFLMAO!!!!!!
That’s a fantabulous story, Thomas…
People will be looking at me funny–yeah, like that’s anything new {snort}!! Here’s hoping you and the fabulously fantastic George do get to perform together…yeah, baby!!!
great pics too! it’ll keep me snickering at odd moments throughout the rest of the day.
Aw heck, Nebules, ONLY a teaspoon?!? Two scoops at least!
Most excellent best wishes,
++the infamous miz++
Hm. I do believe this is the first time I have seen a knit sweater with leather on the same person. A leather VEST, no less.
I gotta say it:
Go vest, young man. :p
The video has been deleted, probably due to NBC/Broadway Video’s standard practice of issuing DMCA takedown notices on anything with SNL in the title. I don’t suppose even the approval of one of the participants in the video would mean much. If anyone hasn’t seen it, I can put it up on YouSendIt.com.
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