Legendary Parliament-Funkadelic mastermind George Clinton was asleep sitting up in a small lounge at Berklee College of Music last Thursday morning, his trademark multi-colored dreads concealed by a hooded sweatshirt. Down the hall, the seven students of the college’s P-Funk Ensemble class were setting up for a session they had been told was going to be filmed for a Berklee promotional video. What they didn’t know was that MTV’s college network, mtvU, had arranged for Clinton to be guest professor for the day and that the film crew — a bit large for a college promo vid — was shooting for Stand In , a show that’s featured celebrity instructors like Jesse Jackson, Bill Gates, and Kanye West.
As the class was warming up, there was a bang bang bang on the door. You could hear the sound of jaws hitting the floor as Clinton entered with P-Funk’s long-time second-in-command, Garry Shider, in tow. “I’m your substitute teacher, I guess,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m gonna teach you, but you might learn something.”
Shider strapped on a guitar and Clinton asked what the kids could play. They kicked into Funkadelic’s “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?!”, and at first it seemed we were in for an awkward experience, Clinton admitting he didn’t remember the words. But he quickly ditched the mike and switched into producer/ringmaster mode, directing the band with hand movements and verbal cues: “Make it real soft, but don’t slow it down. . . . Fall into the groove, like you’re tired. . . . I know you wanna throw some fills in there. Don’t do it.” The students, all of whom had bemused, I-can’t-fucking-believe-this-is-happening expressions on their faces, sounded funkier by the minute. At one point, during a jam on “Standing on the Verge of Getting It On,” Clinton challenged them to funk with the groove a bit: “I bet y’all can’t do it in harmony.” They nailed it. “Aw shit,” he said laughing. “Y’all pass.”
Later, Clinton sat down for a Q&A, fielding questions about rehearsing (“Basically, we don’t rehearse”), producing the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Freaky Styley (“I thought they were gonna hurt themselves”), and his influence on hip-hop (“I think funk is the DNA for hip-hop”). At one point he talked about the three years in the late ’60s during which his band got their start at downtown Boston’s Sugar Shack. “I’ve got some good memories of Boston. I can’t remember what they were, though. We came to Boston as a doo-wop group with suits and ties on, and we left here looking like Funkadelic.”
Afterward, Clinton sat down with mtvU and answered questions in front of a camera while members of the class, still awestruck by what had happened, milled about in front of the classroom building on Mass Ave. “It was like, ‘He’s real. George Clinton’s here and he is funky,’ ” said student guitarist Chris Duddy. “It was the pinnacle of my Berklee experience so far. Absolutely. Cuz he’s George Clinton, man. P-Funk, man.”
The George-Clinton-at-Berklee segment of Stand In will be available on-line at mtvu.com beginning March 13 at 7 am
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On the Web:
mtvU: http://www.mtvu.com/
George Clinton: http://www.georgeclinton.com/
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Will Spitz: wspitz@phx.com
