Parliament-Funkadelic's Mothership lands in Smithsonian

[LongTomH]

OK, relax gang. This is the humongous aluminum prop from the Parliament-Funkadelic stageshow.

The Mothership — the iconic stage prop made famous by legendary funk collective Parliament-Funkadelic — has been acquired by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture where it will help anchor a permanent music exhibition when the museum opens its doors in 2015.

“I’m about to cry!” Parliament-Funkadelic frontman George Clinton said over the phone from his home in Tallahassee on Wednesday. “They’re taking the Mothership! They’re shipping it out! . . . But I’m glad it’s going to have a nice home there.”

It isn’t the original Mothership. This 1,200-pound aluminum spacecraft was built in the mid-’90s — an indistinguishable replica, Clinton says, of the smoke-spewing stage prop he first introduced to slack-jawed funk fans in 1976.

Even the Washington Post has picked up on the significance of this icon:

When the band lowered the Mothership from the rafters of the Capital Centre in Landover in 1977, the response was rapturous. Not only was it instantly stunning — it felt like a cosmic metaphor for the sense of possibility that followed the civil rights movement.

Older DUers may remember when we all felt that 'sense of possibility.' Maybe that's one of the things that separates the Boomers from the following generations.



As stated earlier, this isn't the original Mothership. The original 'vanished' in 1982. It's current resting place is the stuff of legend.