[Thread] I’m celebrating @george_clinton’s bday week with more P-Funk deep dives, including this advance promo graphic for Clinton’s 1982 song, “Loopzilla.” Published in a 1982 edition of the ‘New Funk Times’ P-Funk fan club newsletter/comic. Illustration by @overtonloyd. ⁣

Why “Loopzilla?” Learn more via this excerpt from my Red Bull Music Academy piece, “The Empire Strikes Back: ‘Atomic Dog’ and the Rebirth of Parliament-Funkadelic in the Early 1980s.” (Or read the full piece: https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2019/05/atomic-dog-p-funk-rebirth)

(Excerpt begins.) “With that, the P-Funk empire was reborn – not with a stable of artists stretched out among several record labels and not with a string of recent chart hits – but with Clinton, as a solo artist for the first time.

He signed to Capitol and worked on his debut solo album, ‘Computer Games.’ Released in 1982, the album’s first single was ‘Loopzilla,’ not ‘Atomic Dog,’ which (Ted) Currier received a co-production credit for.

Currier said, ‘I wasn’t sure (‘Atomic Dog’) was gonna be a single. Capitol Records wasn’t geared for black music, more for rock & roll. Black music was like a stepchild there. But I had to convert everyone and let them know they were wrong.’ ⁣

Initially ignored and considered just an album cut, ‘Atomic Dog’ was finally released as a single in December 1982, one month after ‘Computer Games’ had come out.

Clinton wrote in his autobiography, ‘Over in England, I appeared on ‘Top of the Pops’ with Grandmaster Flash. I was technically promoting ‘Loopzilla,’ but all anyone wanted to talk about was ‘Atomic Dog.’ That’s when I realized that the song had blown up.’” ⁣(Excerpt ends.)