Jul 06 2009
Mr Wiggles, Junie Morrison And The Motor Booty Affair
I love it when you rediscover an album you’ve owned for a long time but haven’t listened to in ages. Today I played Parliament’s ‘The Motor Booty Affair’ for the first time in years, and wondered why it’d been so long.
‘Motor Booty Affair’ was the first Parliament CD I ever bought, and having since acquired all their other albums, I’ve decided that it’s one of the best, up there with ’Mothership Connection’. It doesn’t have any hits (unlike the album that preceeded it, ‘Funkentelechy’, which contained the monster funk classic ‘Flashlight’), but there isn’t a weak track on the album, and every song contributes to the ‘plot’.
Most Parliament albums follow some sort of concept and story; this one was originally going to be the soundtrack for a P-Funk movie set underwater in the lost city of Atlantis. Everybody’s getting ready to party but the bad guy from the ‘Funkentelechy’ album, Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk shows up to spoil the fun, aided by his sidekick Rumpofsteelskin. The story is pretty well intact on the record but unfortunately the movie never got made - what a wild, acid and cocaine drenched piece of celluloid madness and wonderment that would’ve been!
‘Mr Wiggles’ introduces us to the concept of the ‘Motor Booty Affair’. This song is basically a vamp designed to give George Clinton room to deliver a series of bad puns about fish and water - AWESOME! After this you’re prepared for anything that may follow. Bernie Worrell plays keys on this song but seems to be absent from most of the rest of the album, I think Bootsy Collins may be playing drums. Bootsy plays drums on quite a lot of Parliament stuff.
Parliament-Funkadelic at this time was very heavily influenced by a new member, the very brilliant Junie Morrison (known on this album as J.S. Theracon), who is all over this album and the Funkadelic album ‘One Nation Under A Groove’. Junie started out in the Ohio Players, leaving after their first three albums, and also made three solo records on the Westbound label. Junie’s solo albums are truly solo - he sings and plays every instrument except strings and horns, and even then did the arrangements for those. Unfortunately his killer seventies albums are out of print; there is a best of which is kinda hard to get a hold of, but well worth it. On ‘Motor Booty Affair’, Junie can be heard playing bass on the title track, and possibly on ‘Rumpofsteelskin’, keyboards on virtually every track, and can be heard singing lead on ‘Motor Booty Affair’ and the album’s ballad ‘(You’re A Fish And I’m A) Water Sign’.
One should always remember with Parliament that the main idea is fun; don’t go looking for any allegorical subtext on an album like this! Just put it on, have a laugh and get funky. And when you get to the track ‘Aqua Boogie’, don’t forget to sing along with ’psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop’!
Nick
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Hah!! Mr Wiggles. First time I heard that I was in the car at 11-30 pm going to pick up my daughter after a late volleyball game–as parents do. Hard to go out that late on a chilly night but boy oh boy Mr Wiggles made the trip worth it. I switched on the radio and there it was, just started. The track lasted the whole funky way.