Skip to main content
What pops into your head when you think of the city of Boring, Oregon? I've personally never been there, but I can say with 100 percent certainty the words "funk," "funkadelica," "funkaliciousness" and "supergroovalisticprosifunkstication" are not typically associated with that sleepy little Clackamas County burgh.
Welp, that's about to change.
In perhaps the greatest disparity ever between the name of a town and a public event in the history of Earth, Bootsy Collins -- yes, that Bootsy Collins, the bass-thumping, star-glasses wearing Jimi Hendrix of the low-end -- is performing at a free holiday party at Boring Middle School this Sunday, Dec. 4, at 1 p.m., according to the Sandy Post. Though Bootzilla's participation is made slightly more explicable due to the fact that Old Navy is sponsoring the event (he's a spokesperson and, apparently, resident Bootologist for the company), this is still quite perplexing, but whatever. It's Bootsy Fucking Collins. In Boring. For free.
Do I really need to give you Bootsy's career rundown? Quick primer: He started his career backing up James Brown before meeting George Clinton in the early '70s and becoming the bassist for Parliament/Funkadelic, where he stretched the limitations of his instrument unlike any musician before him. He then fronted Bootsy's Rubber Band, serving up not only slabs of pure, whacked-out funk but some classic, whacked-out R&B slow jams as well. Over the last few decades, he's lent his skills to numerous collaborators, perhaps most famously on the greatest one-hit wonder of all time, Deee-Lite's immortal "Groove is in the Heart." He even started his bass school, naturally called Bootsy Collins' Funk University. His latest album is Tha Funk Capital of the World featuring guest appearances from pretty much the entire world, from Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg and Buckethead to Al Sharpton, Samuel L. Jackson and Cornel West to old P-Funk cohorts such as George Clinton and his late brother Catfish Collins.
Check out this great interview Bootsy did in October with Jesse Thorn on The Sound of Young America, as well as the awesome live clip below of the Rubber Band "I'd Rather Be With You" in 1976, and I'll see you Sunday in Boring, baby bubba!
WWeek 2015