Thursday, May 26, 2011

SWING DOWN, SWEET CHARIOT, STOP, AND LET ME RIDE: The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture (opening 2015) has obtained the P-Funk Mothership for its permanent display.

9 comments:

  1. Joseph J. Finn9:27 AM

    That's kind of fantastic.  Or funkadelic, if you like.

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  2. Eric J.10:20 AM

    Note that this Mothership was built in the '90s by a Japanese fan, and imported to the US for a proposed tour in '96 that was going to reunite George Clinton, Bootsy Collins and Bernie Worrell. They played a 4th of July concert in Central Park, but, as usual, George got shady with the money, and I don't think Bernie played any other dates on that tour. I'm not sure how many shows this Mothership actually got used for.

    Just a couple of weeks ago, I was trying to find picutres of the '90s Mothership via Google, and couldn't find any (and could only find a couple of the '70s Mothership)

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  3. Eric J.10:37 AM

    Exactly. I happen to think the '90s version is very cool - much shinier, all chrome and electronic disco lights. The '70s Mothership looks a bit more home-made.

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  4. I highly reccomend the P-Funk Mothership Article on Wiki,if just for the sentence "Powered by unknown means, presumably The Funk and simple <span>stagecraft</span>, the Mothership appeared over the <span>Planet Earth</span> many times during the second half of the Twentieth century, and was even seen to physically land at a number of live music venues in the United States during the 1970s in order to disgorge its Funk to the people."

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  5. Eric J.3:04 PM

    The Motherpage is decended from a site I built/hosted back in 1994, in the days of NCSA Mosaic. (I'm listed as Funky Science Officer "DJ EJ".)

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  6. Jordan3:52 PM

    Shouldn't it be in the National Air and Space Museum?  Just saying.

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  7. Well, the real question is where to display the artifacts from the Old Negro Space Program:


    http://www.youtube.com/v/T6xJzAYYrX8" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140

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  8. Eric J.9:28 PM

    I'd like that just to hear Bootsy Collins say "Welcome to Udvar-Hazy, baby!"

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