Conspiracy In The Last Time Zone

Here’s an article (November 1999) mentioning Fiji as well as the album:

And here are the relevant passages:

Clinton has had some periods of dormancy over the years, but he’s now in full-tilt work mode. He’s preparing not one, but two, albums for release on his new label, Mammoth. The first, under the Parliament banner, is likely to come in February and may be called ``The C-Conspiracy: The Last Time Zone.’ The second will come later in the year. Also involved are longtime collaborators bassist Bootsy Collins and keyboardist Bernie Worrell. You can add to that mix, says Clinton, Henry Rollins, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Wyclef Jean from the Fugees, D’Angelo, DMX, and Prince.

On the upcoming album, [Prince] plays all the instruments and sings backup on the first single, ``Brother, Can You Paradigm?’

They say C-Conspiracy is supposed to be by Parliament. To add to the mystery, I’ve seen people around the internet only ever attribute it to Funkadelic or The P-Funk All Stars.

It also mentions a second album, which does jive with a stevehoffman tv forum post by Cope_Freeland about Mammoth Records asking for an album from both Parliament and Funkadelic.

George has a lot of songs in the vaults that folks just don’t know about. And He has them too they’re not sitting in a record companies vault. He has more unreleased whole albums. A second album for Sony/550 from the mid-1990s and a Parliament cd and a Funkadelic cd both for Mammoth Records from 2000 remain unreleased.

(Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about the Sony/550 mentioned. However, I’d assume by George, since they are referring to * T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M.*)

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In this MTV article promoting How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent? (March 2004) there is stuff about Mammoth:

The last George Clinton and the P-Funk Allstars album was 1996’s T.A.P.O.A.F.O.M. (The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership). Since then, the group has toured regularly with various members, but legal disputes with Mammoth, their former label, caused them to remain in recording limbo for years. This month, the band was finally granted legal permission to release new material, a representative from Clinton’s management said. Some of the songs on H.L.D.Y.H.T.B.B.Y.A. were recorded for an album Mammoth never released, and the rest were done over the last few years.

More interesting though, is this passage, given how detailed it is:

Outkast, Busta Rhymes, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Scarface, Too Short, JT Money and Jamal are some of the rappers who will lend a hand to the forthcoming P-Funk Allstars album, H.L.D.Y.H.T.B.B.Y.A. (How Late Do You Have to Be Before You’re Absent). The LP is scheduled for release on Clinton’s C-Conspiracy label in October and will include songs like “Snot and Booger” and “Yesterday Ja Vu.” Rockers slated to contribute are Tommy Lee and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis and Flea; P-Funk alums like bassist Bootsy Collins, keyboardist Bernie Worrell and guitarist Michael Hampton are on board as well.

I will admit, I don’t know if these featured artists were planned to be part of the Mammoth Records albums or not. Maybe the work was used elsewhere. However, “Gettin’ Down With It” on The Mammoth Sessions leaks appears to be “Snot 'n Booger” released on …Shake the Gate (although it is aesthetically quite different).

There’s also potential (speculative) connections to be said about Yesterdayjavu since it seems Mike P was involved with it (although not listed on Discogs) since it is in his Mike P Funk YouTube playlist, and his comments on YouTube under some unreleased P-Funk tracks about sessions from 1999/2000/2001.

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While this is intentionally vague, and may be referring to a different unreleased album, in a November 2018 Reddit AMA George answered a question by a [deleted] user, “Were there any concepts that you had planned but chose not to use for some reason?” George replied,

Yeah, I did a song “I’m blowing you up with the proper bang bang.” We was getting ready to put out the album, but at the same time something happened in current events where something got blew up and we decided to hold it back. It’s still on the shelf. When times get better, we might put it out.

Maybe I’m too young, but the only event where “something got blew up” that was such a big event, that caused media companies to “hold back” releases for being in bad taste, was 9/11. If that was the case, he could be describing C-Conspiracy, as 2001 is pretty close too the 1999 sessions. However, unless it is integral to the music, I don’t see why he would need to wait for “[w]hen times get better”.

There’s a thread on the Prince org discussing the album. They, in part, talked about the album being mentioned in a VH1’s Legends episode.

Here are two uploads of “VH1’s Legends: George Clinton” (S2 E2) (1999):
Source video clip by Moody Hyadd (4:10-4:12): https://youtu.be/5MxyaZS_dHY?t=250
Full video reupload by @Phunklord_Siege (41:19-41:22): https://youtu.be/pjJUBMD4faI?t=2479

I assume it’s the same source for the album cover @Phunklord_Siege posted. During the part where they talk about what George was doing at the time and up through showing the album, they are briefly playing “Whatchamacallit”; In the Mammoth leak it’s called “Love Is Something” (heavily based on “Love Is Something” by The Brides of Funkenstein released on “P” is the Funk Vol. 2 of The Family Series). Maybe it was planned for the album? Here’s the short blurb they gave:

In 1999 collaborated with his old friends Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins on a new Funkadelic record.

Also I found another article from Metro co uk, mentioning the album. It was uploaded in 2009, but I assume it was originally published around 1999, since George mentions “Poor Bill”.

Interviewer:

Do you follow the conspiracy theories that go round?

George:

That’s the name of my new album – The C Conspiracy. Everything that’s spelt with C or that rhymes with C – B, D, E, G, V, T, Z – every word that starts with one of those letters, plus S and K, you’ve got to watch out for. They’re called catchphrases. Like Communism, Crips and crack, you know what I’m saying?

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yep. that’s the only place I’d ever seen that album cover. The original uploader had the video split into a bunch of parts with commercials in em. I think somebody commented something like “why didn’t you edit out the commercials?” and the uploader responded with something like “do it yourself!” so I did haha. the pic of the album cover I posted was a screenshot I touched up a bit from the video

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A lot of great links! Yeah, Gettin Down With It sounds like Snot n Booger.

Yeah, it reminds me of “Oil Spill” (1993), to "Oil Spill (1999), to “In Da Kar”, or “Jolene” (2011) vs “Jolene” (2014).

Also, I have no direct evidence “Gettin’ Down With It”/“Snot 'n Booger” or “Yesterdejavu” would have been on C Conspiracy, but “Yesterdejavu” does fit the darker, late '90 rock atmosphere of some likely tracks. There is the passage

(Just-- Just a dream) Yeah, don’t get in my way stars. (Yesterdejavu) Move over moon. Yeah, I’m[a] gonna get on your dark side.

which lines up thematically to lyrics in “Because/Last Time Zone” (I’d be shocked if it was not on the album). For example, it begins with

The moon is quiet. And here I exist, in the next phase of final unrest. No one ever filled me in with a clue. But my mind has worked its way. At sunrise, as I awaken, into a deep dream.

But then again, I’m still kind of confused how easier cuts like “Love Is Something”/“Whatchamacallit”, “Dance To It”/“Roller Rink” and “Radio Friendly DJ”/“Radio Friendly”, could have been sequenced to share an album with abrasive cuts like “Socially-Engineered Anarchy-Induced Chaos”/“Viagra”, “Ass Wipe” (unreleased) and “Oil Spill” (1999). (Assuming any of these would have been on it.) I have been toying around with the hypothesis that the unnamed other Mammoth album could have been named How Late… by Parliament, so they could put the less dark and intense songs on it. Then again, near the end of “Roller Rink” there are the lyrics

Keep the suicides [flowin’/goin’]

I came across a KQEQ Jam’n 1210 radio interview with Woody Pena circa 1998, uploaded last August. This not only again confirms @OooBooBeeDoop’s memory about Fiji, but also confirms going there to play into the concept of The Last Time Zone. Although, George funks-up the explanation of the concept. (I’ve slightly edited the transcription for clarity. See the timestamps if you want to hear it straight from the Dr.)

George Clinton (GC) [3:23]: We’re gonna be doin’ that “Dope Dog”. We’re gonna be doin’ “Atomic Dog”. And some of the fresh funk. We’ve got some fresh-delic commin’ out.

Woody Pena (WP) [3:33]: Wow. That’s great. Do you still have Dennis Chambers on the drums?

GC [3:36]: Oh yeah. Well, Dennis, he’s done with us on this [tour]. He’ll probably be there by the end of the millennium. We’ve just got a field of Bootsy and Bernie. By the end of this millennium–, we’re gettin’ ready, we’re gonna be down in the Fiji Islands. Called “The Last Time Zone”. The last place it’d be 1999, when everybody else --, I mean, in 2000. We gonna be --, it, also the first place to go into 2000. You go there first, then you go there last.

[…]

GC [13:18]: I’ma sample some of this and it’s gonna be on the next record. “What is a booty and how will I know if I’m shaking it. A tail ain’t nothing but a long booty. A booty ain’t nothin’ but a butt.”

So I guess this “confirms” (playing it safe) that another track (“Butt-A-Butt”) from the Mammoth Sessions leak was going to be on the record. I know of three (or four) versions.

  1. Bonus: What Is A Booty (Del The Funky Homosapien) (1991) (I guess this is where the idea may have started, but unrelated to Last Time Zone.)
  1. Butt-A-Butt (MoodyHyadd) (1999)
  1. What Is A Booty (Mammoth Session) (1999)

[I couldn’t find an upload online; see below why I think it is different from MoodyHyadd’s version]

  1. Butt-A-Butt (HLDUH2BB4URA) (2005)

BTW, regarding MoodyHyadd, based on the discussion with PFUNKSTER JONES under Oil Spill about where they got their leaks, it sounds like SOME of them may be different than the Mammoth Session leak floating around.

For example, MoodyHyadd’s “Oil Spill” 1999 sounds clearer (which, yes, could have be cleaned up with an audio application) than the Mammoth Session version I listened to. However, you can hear a faintly “in the car”… before the song starts, which I don’t hear in the Mammoth version. Furthermore, it has a different background noise/hum.

As a counter-example, Moody Hyadd’s “Radio Friendly DJ” has the same background noise from the Mammoth Session leak that I heard. However, I didn’t do a in-depth comparison, so it may actually be different. (I haven’t done this yet, but all the tracks there need a careful listen-and-compare.)

Also, it’s worth noting the discussion under Moody Hyadd’s "Ass-Wipe" upload, with Jim Wilson from Mother Superior. I’ll just post the relevant pieces. (I added the bolding for emphasis.)

Jim Wilson: Yes, this is Jim Wilson–I played in Rollins Band from 1999-2004. That’s Ronkat Spearman on that vocal. I was there when he recorded it. It was Cherokee Studios in L.A. (gone now)

JW: Blackbyrd McKnight also showed up and played guitar. We were told it was for an upcoming FUNKADELIC record that was going to be a double album.

JW: George asked us (the band) if we wanted to hang around and record more. We stayed until 3 a.m. or so. We recorded about 5 funky instrumentals that I’ve never heard since. George would just sing and teach us his riffs. The last song we did was a version of “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and George said that was the first record he ever bought. I left the studio that night with a rough mix of “Asswipe” that sounds more natural than the version here.

The credits on Discogs for “Whole Lotta Shakin’” do have Ron Spearman listed under instruments, so maybe it is the same session as the released version. But, anyways, since “Whole Lotta Shakin’” was not part of the main session, I’d rather not think about the released being on Last Time Zone, since it’s neither heavy nor dark. (Similarly, I’d rather not believe “Goodnight Sweetheart, Goodnight” would have been on the album, although, it fits the night-time motif.)

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Yes I have been thinking about that lyric about keeping the suicides coming. What is she talking about here? At first, I thought maybe a “suicide” is some kind of move related to competitive skating perhaps? We used to do a drill called “suicides” in basketball. Could not find any info on it though.

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That is an interesting angle. I like that it would be more self contained.

I have been thinking it could have been part of a dark motif, like the kind of chaos described in the “Ball of Confusion” (unreleased).

Browsing through the section of George’s biography around the later half of the 90’s to the mid 2000’s, I saw nothing about working “with his old friends Bernie Worrell and Bootsy Collins on a new Funkadelic record”. The only thing he talks about 1999 is in relation to the deaths of the Troutman brothers. He doesn’t even mention the Parliament or Funkadelic tracks when he talks about HLDUH2BB4URA.

(As an aside, he talks about a concert in 1996 in Centennial Olympic Park and a bomb going off and foreshadowing something (9/11 maybe?) with “It didn’t sound like much of anything at the time”. Maybe that AMA answer about “something got blew up” was not about C Conspiracy but that second solo album for Sony/550?)

Found this new release from The Brooklyn Academy of Music with a reference to someone apparently involved with The Last Time Zone. Interestingly it looks like it’s from 2002.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1vyHY7VZ7psJ:levyarchive.bam.org/Detail/DownloadRepresentation/context/objects/representation_id/97270/id/94348/download/1/version/original+&cd=62&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

(bolding added for clarity)

Friday, March 1 at 9pm
My Brother’s Dream
Hosted by: Tracie Morris
BAMcafe’s BCR series concludes with the soulfol rock band, My Brother’s Dream featuring lead vocalist Elisabeth, dnnnmer Damon Mendes, and guitarist Rodman Delcastillo. As individual musicians, the members of My Brother’s Dream are all active in the jazz, rock, pop, and R&B scene . Throughout his career My Brother’s Dream founder Mendes has worked with several stellar musicians including Nona Hendrix, Chaka Kalm, B.B. King, Cameo, and Regina Bell. Lead singer and songwriter Elizabeth has gained critical praise and recognition for her work on NBC’s Late Night with Conan O’Brian. In addition she was the background singer for several artists including Jennifer Lopez, Lauryn Hill, and Celine Dion. Most recently she was a featured soloist and co-writer on George Clinton’s latest CD, The Last Time Zone. Rounding out this rock trio is Delcastillo who cites rock icons Jimi Hendrix , Jeff Beck, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen as influences.

I believe the “Elizabeth” they are referring to is Elisabeth Withers, with Damon Mendes & Rodman Del Castillo, who all appear on Elisabeth Withers’s song “Wind Beneath My Wings”, on her album ‎It Can Happen To Anyone (2007).

She’s involved with the song “You Take Me There” by Cacophonic FM or Funk Mob Cacophonique, on their second album (2006). There a quite a few familiar P-Funk names involved with their two albums. Interesting that their first album (1999) had “Puff Slow”/“Inhale Slow”, which was later released on How Late. Again, not sure if “You Take Me There” would have been on C Conspiracy, as it’s not very abrasive or guitar heavy, but dark and jazzy. Maybe on Parliament’s Radio Friendly (1999)?

https://www.discogs.com/release/1557811-Funk-Mob-Cacophonique-Fuck-Jazz-2

Update 1:

There’s some stuff about the album in this video interview with George (starts at 9:37) from (July?) 1999. Mostly the same information, although there are a few additional bits of information. (Text bolded to highlight new or relevant information.)

[10:05] GC: We’ve got a doubled album coming up with Parliament and Funkadelic: one for [the] end of the year, and one for the beginning of the year.

[10:15] GC: We’ve got loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of funk. We’ve got funk laying around and it ain’t doin’ nothing.

[10:20] Interviewer: I talked to Belita, and she said it was jazz-influenced, is [that] right?

[10:25] GC: Oh yeah.

[10:26] Interviewer: So what kind of guest artists do you have?

[10:28] GC: Oh, let’s see, we’ve got, what’s their name[s]- Flea from Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Henry Rollin[s], Humpty from Digital Underground, Eminem, Q-Tip, Busta Rhyme, D’Angelo- a whole bunch of folks. It’s a lot of songs on there. […] We’ve got all the funkers that we can grab onto.

[11:07] Interviewer: Yeah. You were talking about, in the Hendrix Magazine, about the Millennium concert-

[11:12] GC: Yeah, in the Fiji Islands.

[…]

[11:29] GC: [W]e had a hassle, like, we just decided we [were] gonna go there and play, and so far it looks like we['re] gonna go there to play.

[11:38] Interviewer: That’s for sure?

[11:39] GC: Well, we’re gonna be there. It’s all been set and everything.

[…]

[11:49] GC: It’ll be the last time zone, and the first one in the new millenium. The last one in this millenium, the first one in the new one.

[…]

[14:00] [T]hen the record label came down and they was screaming about having a single ready.

(Off Topic: “Oh, we’ve got thousands more [unreleased songs.]” […] “We’ve got loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of funk. We’ve got funk laying around and it ain’t doin’ nothing.”)

Update 2:

In the inside of the How Late… album, in the four Pedro Bell panel comic that came with the album, one sub-panel is labeled “Conspiracy C-2000”, and the rest labeled with slight variations: “P-2000”, “Z-2000”, “T-2000”. (See a low quality image on Discogs.)

On Twitter, Jake Austen (editor of Roctober magazine, among other things), posted a print test of one of the sub-panels, the one labeled “C-2000”. In the bottom margin there is the Mammoth Records label logo and their address information. This seems to confirm that the comics were intended for The Last Time Zone.

https://twitter.com/JAKEandRATSO/status/1167445986337337344

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Amazing that you found the Mammoth logo on the same paper as that image!

Here’s a higher quality image of the How Late conspiracy comic.

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Since there are numerous announcements of Humpty Hump/Shock G being on the album, I think the track “Humpty Dumpty”, released on Bill Laswell’s EXCAVATION Unauthorized Cut​-​Up Vol 2, was going to be on the album. However, there are four variations of the song I’ve encountered.

  1. Humpty Dumpty [6:03] (EXCAVATION Unauthorized Cut​-​Up Vol 2)

This is the only version of “Humpty Dumpty” with Humpty Hump, and it sounds pretty polished, so I would assume this is the album version. Based on the lyrics I’d guess this would have been on Last Time Zone since Humpty Hump says “P-Funk All Stars”, “Funkadelic” and “Bernie”. However, as I’ve mentioned before, not sure how it would mesh with some of the guitar-heavy tracks.

  1. “Hunpty Dumpty” [4:52] (unreleased)

I only found it on peer-to-peer, and it seems to have a typo in the file name. I’d prefer to name it something like “Humpty Dumpty (Shit Ain’t Over)” or “Humpty Dumpty (This Shit Ain’t Over Until the Fat Lady Sings)”. It sounds different. For example, unless I’m mistaken, it has a different opening, lacks Humpty Hump, lacks the line “bounce to this” and contains the line “fat lady sings”. Reminds me of a reprise.

  1. Eternal (LP Version) [?:??] // Eternal (Remix) [?:??] (Da Bomb City)

The lyrics are considerably more basketball-themed than the other versions, since it is part of a Nike brand-deal. It does explain where “bounce to this” came from. Also, Discogs credits Humpty Hump.

  1. Bounce 2 This [6:24] (How Late Do U Have 2BB4UR Absent?)

The most well-known version, and lacks Humpty Hump.

///

  1. Butt-A-Butt/Booty Record (EXCAVATION Unauthorized Cut​-​Up Vol 1)
    Bill Laswell released another version of “Butt-A-Butt” in 2008, but has the name “Booty Record” in the digital release (2019). Much like “Humpty Dumpty”, it feels like the final version because it has a guest rapper, JT Money.

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Now this is some fresh P to me! Didn’t know about any of this stuff. Any knowledge on any of the other P tunes on those two EXCAVATION albums?

Interesting. It indicates that Bill Laswell was part of the Mammoth project(s), since he has those tracks on his bandcamp.

There are some Bootsy tracks. (There’s also a track from George’s Get Yo Ass In The Water And Swim Like Me, but that’s not new.)

I tried deducing the tracks on the CD from the names or lengths, since some are labeled as unknown. I think they are all irrelevant except maybe track 4 (and what I have mentioned or will mention.)

///

I think “We Wanna See Bootsy” was labeled as “Ahhh…The Name Is Bootsy, Baby” on the 2008 CD. I can’t tell without the CDs (and I guess it’s quite rare). The track has the lyrics “I’m gonna reach way up and out and touch everybody”, which George used on “Way Up” on Hey Man… Smell My Finger, although it could be older. Maybe it’s from What’s Bootsy Doin’? or the Mammoth Records album(s)?

There’s also some dark lyrics, “why not take more of me?”, “let me pee next to your fire”, “colors don’t clash, people do” and “share the air”, as well as mothership reunion kind of lyrics, “the mothership connection is landing once again”, “we are family, we are making history”. This kind of stuff makes me think it could be from the Mammoth album(s).

///

There’s a track called “Shock-It To Me”, which is the same name as a track off of What’s Bootsy Doin’ (1988).

In a 1989 interview, George makes it sound like there was an earlier version of Bootsy’s What’s Bootsy Doin’ that was more Bootsy-oriented. (This should have a topic, if anyone wants to start it before I get around to it.)

https://funknstuff.net/dr-funkensteins-house-call/

[Magazine:] Clinton wasn’t too keen on Bootsy’s last comeback attempt, the 1988 Columbia LP What’s Bootsy Doin’?

GC: You should have heard the originals of that LP. They wanted to keep his persona in the background. “Tweakin’” was supposed to be on his LP. It fit the whole concept with the ghetto blaster shaders on the cover. He didn’t play enough bass on the LP. He’s one of those guys I can’t see playing that synthesized bass.

I’m not sure if it is for the Mammoth record(s), but maybe this track was for What’s Bootsy Doin’?.

///

On the 2008 CD there’s also a track called “Family Affair”. It is not on the two digital volumes, so I assume it is an Iggy Pop track that features Bootsy on bass that Bill was involved in. No idea what it was for. Too bad a recording date is not listed.

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Incredible. I have been sleeping on this thread and had no idea Laswell had come with either of these collections. That version of Humpty (or something very similar) came out on a boot of the mammoth sessions years ago but, it was of extremely poor sound quality. However, you could still tell it was on another level. I have always wondered what a nice mix of it would sound like after all these years. I never too much cared for much of How Late, including Butta Butt. But I will take this one.

Why these Bootsy tracks failed to end up on What’s Bootsy Doin’ is a travesty. He should have released We Wanna See Bootsy as the lead single. Parts of the music is the intro to Subliminal Seduction from the record. The Shock-It To mix here is outrageous, especially Mudbone! Album version is way stripped down, devoid of much of the grit and funk of this one.

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Found this in Roctober 32 from 2002. It’s almost the same as in How Late, but released three years earlier. And they end by saying that there are about a dozen more pages

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Great find!

I think there might be more “letter”-2000 comics in those “about a dozen more pages”, based on that one interview I posted earlier where George talked about rhyming letters and “catchphrases”:


Also by pure coincidence, I listened to “Catchphrases (feat. George Clinton)” by 3kStatic (released in 2006) a few days ago, and to my great surprise, George says stuff like “Communism, Crips and crack”, " COINTELPRO" and “defending part of the Conspiracy”. Does “you know what I’m saying” mean “Catchphrases” was/is on the album? (George Clinton & The P-Funk All-Stars are also on another track “Old News (Endless Static)” from the same album.)

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