Bootsy Funks Up Christmas

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"Oh, we funked that mutha up!" exclaims the jovial, literally star-studded Bootsy Collins of his upcoming holiday album, WWBD [What Would Bootsy Do] on Christmas. Although the CD includes holiday standards such as "Silent Night" and "Jingle Bells," Bootsy says, "We tore them down!"

His first solo release since 2002's Play With Bootsy, the ex-Parliament/Funkadelic bassist's holiday outing features Snoop Dogg, as well as a slew of funk innovators. "I went back and got some of the cats that were on that music scene: George Clinton, Bobby Womack, the Ohio Players' Sugarfoot. We did 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' which I call 'Boodolph the Gold-Toothed Reindeer,'" says Collins, pointing to the shiny molar that inspired his rendition. "We funked that up, too."

While he is planning another solo record, Bootsy has been getting his kicks making guest appearances in the studio and onstage: He joined Snoop for two tracks on the rapper's recent R and G: The Masterpiece, and he exchanged bass riffs with Flea during the Red Hot Chili Peppers set at New York City's Amsterjam concert on August 20th. Says Bootsy, "Flea is my boy!"

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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