When George Clinton visited ‘Night of The Living Dead’ on LSD
Living with George Clinton in the 1960s was the equivalent of being on a 24-hour drug binge. As he was crossing the country with Parliament-Funkadelic, Clinton brought his good-time spirit to everything he did, which included a love for music and a healthy amount of “booger sugar” to get him through some of their gigs. When they pulled into a gig in Pittsburgh, though, things started to go slightly off the rails.
Since Clinton had been on the road for a few weeks at this point, it’s fair to say that he was indulging a little bit too much, oftentimes coming down from his latest high. After being blitzed out of his brain on LSD, though, the band pulled into a place they didn’t recognise. As they made their way through the Pennsylvania countryside, the tour bus accidentally went off the road and pulled into a film set, which turned out to be the George Romero set for Night of The Living Dead.
The film would go on to be a classic, but some of the screams on set that day were a bit too real. As Clinton got off the bus for what he thought was going to be a soundcheck, he was greeted by some of the extras from the film. Prior to him showing up, the film crew had mistaken their tour bus for a delivery truck and waved them in without a second thought. Once Clinton came to his senses, he thought that the extras were real zombies because of how accurately the makeup was applied to them.
As Clinton tells it, he thought that the band had driven straight into a living nightmare, telling Rolling Stone, “We ran a roadblock, went about a mile along the road and came out into a small town where we saw all these fucking creatures walking around, zombies or mummies, hands up in the air and dead looks on their faces. We were scared out of our fucking minds”.
Despite the strange visit into a nightmare, Clinton continued to the next gig, albeit a little shaken, and brought his trademark brand of funk to the Pittsburgh faithful. Although Romero’s classic brought one of the kings of funk music to his knees, that wasn’t the last time that Night of The Living Dead would feature in the world of popular music.
As Funkadelic’s schtick about a funk-filled utopia started to go out of fashion, fans started playing music that claimed to be more authentic, beginning the golden age of punk music with the Ramones and The Clash. While punk was all about scaring the common folk, acts like The Misfits became the forefathers of shock rock, pulling from Night of The Living Dead to create their terrifying personas.
Clinton’s music would also take a bit of a dark turn after his encounter with the undead. After making some of the funkiest music known to man, albums like Cosmic Slop and Maggot Brain would have a far more sinister edge to them, with ferocious guitar work and an aesthetic more influenced by rock and roll than traditional funk masters like James Brown. Clinton wasn’t willing to mess around with any kind of zombies, actors or otherwise, but this moment might have had a hand in pushing him towards something a little bit darker.
