Bootsy's Rubber Band: Bootsy? Player of the Year
1978
Warner Bros. Records
Format I Own it on: Vinyl
Track Listing: 1.Bootsy? (What's the Name Of This Town) 2. May The Force Be With You 3. Very Yes 4. Bootzilla 5. Hollywood Squares 6. Roto-Rooter 7. As In (I Love You)
I believe I've briefly covered my fascination with Parliament-Funkadelic in an earlier post...
This obsession started in the late 90's after watching an episode of VH-1's "Behind the Music" that covered George Clinton's P-Funk empire and I was so taken in by it all...The costumes, the over-the-top live shows, the prolific recording habits...It reminded me of the funk/soul version of KISS (with whom I share a similar obsession)...
One of the central figures in P-Funk was bassist William Earl Collins, whom we all know and love as Bootsy...A man whose very name and image is synonymous with funk...
In addition to the unending stream of albums by Parliament and Funkadelic, he also had a series of solo albums, released under the name Bootsy's Rubber Band...Which is an apt title for the band...This stuff is so stretchy and flexible, it sounds like he's replaced his bass strings with rubber bands...
BOI-I-I-I-ING...
Bootsy has a very distinct and bizarre singing voice...He kind of reminds me of a cross between Jimi Hendrix and a cartoon dog being electrocuted...If that makes sense...
"
YABADABBADOOZAY, BABA!"
"Bootsy? Player of the Year" is very much in line with the other peak-period P-Funk released during this time....Maybe a few more slow jams than you would normally get on a Parliament album...And while some of the slow jams are perfectly fine, the main draw here is the gargantuan funk-rock on tracks like "Roto-Rooter," "Bootsy? (What's the Name Of This Town)" and "Bootzilla"
The vinyl version of the album comes with a punch-out pair of cardboard Bootsy Collins glasses, but I was saddened when I brought my used copy home and someone already beat me to 'em...
Too bad...I was looking forward to wearing them everywhere...They would have completmented my Sgt. Pepper cardboard mustache perfectly...
Anyone who is even remotely interested in booty-shaking should get their hands on a copy of this immediately...It makes me want to move to the year 1978 and wear some bell bottoms...
Yes! The Checkered ones! I'd make sure the crease was sharp, get into my exploding '78 Pinto...
...bump my 8-track copy of "Bootsy? Player of the Year"...
...and drive down to the local 7-11 to pick up a 6-pack of Billy Beer...
While we're there, we'll pump a couple of dollars in quarters into the Space Invaders Machine (which was also introduced in 1978)....
Come and join me! We'll crank "Roto-Rooter" on the way there! Enjoy...
Hey Jamin what ya been listening to? I've been listening to Kurt Vile and Glossary lately. Have you listened to either of these two?
ReplyDeleteNo, I haven't heard either, but I literally just came back from Revolver Records where I saw some Kurt Vile vinyl and commented how he has a bad ass punk name...I'll listen to them both right now...I've been listening to tons of stuff...It's all I do...I listen to albums for 8 hours at work and then I usually come home and then start listening again...I mostly lsitento Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, and old power pop stuff like The Records and the Shoes...A lot of old punk and hardcore too..Stuff I find at the used vinyl stores...As far as new bands I heard recently and liked, I enjoyed the band Vacation who just put out an album called "Candy Waves." It's pretty cool...It's like noisy pop-punk...Mostly I've just been working on my own music...There was a bus strike, so I didn't have a way to work,n so i took a two week vacation, which I'm in the middle of right now, and we're finishing our new album, "Black Glitter." I was also goign through the old DC tapes and found some hilarious stuff from about '95
ReplyDeleteOkay, I listened to both Kurt Vile and Glossary. The Kurt Vile was pretty cool and laid back...It was actually pretty catchy once I got into it...I ended up listening to 6 of his songs and they were all good...I also listened to Glossary...I watched the video for "Under a Barking Moon" and I didn't care for the song but the video was pretty awesome...But I listened to a bunch of their other stuff and they were great! I liked it when they rocked out!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you liked that stuff! I can't wait to hear your new stuff! You need to make some mixed cds for me when you get a chance. I always love to hear new stuff! We're probably some of the few people that make mix cds. I refuse to download music. I keep forgeting to tell you to check out Centro-Matic. I think you'd like them. My favorite songs right now by them are The Mighty Midshipmen and Tied To The Trailer. Enjoy your vacation!
ReplyDeleteI have listened to Centro-matic. They are indeed awesome. Yes, i will definitely send you some music...I'll do that this weekend! I hardly ever download music ever...The only time I do is when there's something that is hopelessly out of print that I want to hear...I do go on youtube all the time and listen to stuff though (I'm listening to "The Mighty Midshipman" on youtube right now, actually). But mostly I just haunt record stores all the time...That's the fun part to me...digging through the dollar crates, hoping to find something cool...Man, about a month ago I was at Revolver and they had about 100 or so 80's thrash metal albums on vinyl that some guy just brought in, so I scored a bunch of old Anthrax, Megadeth, and Iron Maiden vinyl...I was happy to find them because the "Killing Is My business..." record has an old heavy metal catalog in it... They also had the very first Faith No More album, which I also picked up...I was very surprised to find that one...The only time I ever saw that release in any format was the tape JJ used to have... Our new album is coming along good...We're just about done now...Lot's of straight-up pop punk...I have such a hard time finding pop-punk that I like, that we basically have to make our own...I'll send you a copy of that too, when I'm done...
ReplyDelete