P-Funk Mothership

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Dr Funkenstein emerging from the Mothership, c1975.

The P Funk Mothership, otherwise known as The Holy Mothership is the arcane space vehicle of Dr. Funkenstein aka George Clinton and his agents of Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication. An integral part of the P Funk mythology, the Mothership existed both conceptually as a fictional vehicle of funk deliverance, and as a physical prop central to P Funk concerts. Powered by unknown means, presumably The Funk and simple stagecraft, the Mothership appeared over the Planet Earth 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.

1 Landings Of The Holy Mothership
2 Where Is She Now?
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Landings Of The Holy Mothership

During their heyday in the 1970s, following the success of their platinum-selling album Mothership Connection, George Clinton's Parliament Funkadelic - the Funk Mob - engaged on a series of high profile, no-expenses-spared stadium tours around the United States, culminating in the famous P Funk Earth Tour. At these gigs, the much referenced Mothership was seen to land on stage amongst the band and before a baying and expectant crowd. The Mothership was summoned down by the vocal tones of P Funk singer and guitarist Glenn Goins, and was represented in the form of a full-scale model complete with light and sound effects as well as pyrotechnics. At this point in the show George Clinton would emerge from the Mothership in the form of Dr. Funkenstein, the "cool ghoul with the bomb transplant", in order to better administer funk to the audience.

Some of the P-Funk Mothership's most notable appearances were in Oakland in 1977 and Houston in 1978.

[edit] Where Is She Now?

In recent years the Mothership has been seen less, because of the financial constraints placed upon the most modern incarnation of P Funk, the P Funk All Stars. Its landing is now only alluded to at live concerts, and the physical prop is believed to have been discarded.

In P-Funk mythology, it has also been conjectured that an as yet unexplained source of cosmic interference blotted out a good deal of the energies of the Dog Star during the 1980s and 1990s. This key flow of interstellar Funk energy was therefore partially blocked as it radiated down toward the Earth, not only lowering the Planet's global Funkentelechy rating and increasing the instances of noxious jivations and unfunk by a factor of a hundred or more. This drop in world Funk levels could also have prevented the Mothership from visiting for a time, at least in a fully corporeal form, as it struggled to draw power from an increasingly unfunky world. Most often visitations were made in an energistic state, similar to the manifestation of ghosts and other supernatural beings.