Pick Of The Week ♦♦♦ Aug. 14th

It may be difficult to follow a sometimes diapered leader who tells us, “Free your mind, and your ass will follow.” But Clinton and his P-Funk collective are now in at least their third generation, offering their hazy mix of post-psychedelic electronic riffs and endlessly reborn vamps with each new performance of “Atomic Dog,” “Flash Light” and “Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk).” Their otherworldly stage show, a cross between trippin’ kabuki and urban opera, asserts the redeeming powers of Clinton’s funky cosmology. His rallying cry, “One Nation Under a Groove,” may seem to promise utopia only during those rare funkified moments when all our cultural hang-ups are cast aside—not that anyone expects Dr. Funkenstein, Rumpofsteelskin, Sir Nose D’Voidoffunk and P-Funk’s crew of other savvy fools to deliver us all from our follies. But let’s not forget that beneath the comic-book world of orgiastic release, Clinton’s songscapes convey genuine compassion for those who’ve been labeled as part of the “problem,” whether they be inner-city mothers going at the world alone in “Cosmic Slop” or returning Vietnam vets facing a new hell in “March to the Witch’s Castle.” With Clinton now reaping more of the gains from the extensive sampling of his tracks, the P-Funk message has continued to speak across the divide, embracing both funk-rockers like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a whole generation of hip-hoppers. Jump, Little Children and Here Come the Mummies open the show. Dancin’ in the District, Nashville Coliseum Field

—B.L.

This week’s picks by Martin Brady, Chris Davis, Jonathan Flax, Paul Griffith, Bill Levine, Noel Murray, Saby Reyes-Kulkarni, Jim Ridley, Jon Weisberger, Angela Wibking and Ron Wynn.

Music

Friday, 15th

Rupert Holmes Before getting seduced by lite rock in the wake of his mega-hit singles “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” and “Him,” Holmes had a reputation as a writer and performer of offbeat, character-rich story songs that split the difference between the tastefully arranged, schmaltz-pop of Barry Manilow and the sardonic balladeering of Randy Newman. Instead of getting softer and softer and ultimately becoming a punch line, Holmes slipped behind the show business scenes in the mid-’80s. He wrote a few songs for soundtracks and then penned the multiple-Tony-winning musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood; in the ’90s, he created the well-received cable TV series Remember WENN. For his Nashville appearance this week, he’ll be singing a few old favorites, but his primary business will be signing copies of his debut novel, the giddily sordid Hollywood mystery Where the Truth Lies. Told from the perspective of a ’70s personality reporter—a sort of female Tom Wolfe—the book contrasts the drug- and sex-saturated “Me Decade” with the more covertly ribald late ’50s, as Holmes’ heroine interviews, investigates and becomes infatuated with both halves of a Martin & Lewis-like nightclub act, one of whom might’ve murdered an ex-lover. Holmes slips in some nuanced commentary about the impossibility of fame and honesty ever intersecting, while also indulging in some lively, era-specific free-association that culminates in the collision of psychedelic drugs, Disneyland and a lesbian sexual encounter. It’s an adroit capturing of the mood-altering, libido-stroking power of the popular entertainment world that Holmes knows well. Borders Books & Music, Brentwood

—N.M.

Saturday, 16th

The Dirtbombs w/The Paybacks No band represents their hometown’s musical legacy better than Detroit’s Dirtbombs. Because the band’s sound, which swirls around the hyperactivity of former Gories frontman Mick Collins, owes as much to Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye as it does Ted Nugent and the MC5, The Dirtbombs provide even better entry into the Motor City ethos than their gasoline-soaked contemporaries, The White Stripes and The Paybacks (the latter of whom share this evening’s bill). That’s not to say that the guitar/bass/double drums lineup doesn’t kick up a hell of a noise, just that the “neo-garage” tag doesn’t do justice to the band’s staying power (given that they’ve been together for more than a decade) or versatility (which encompasses both hard-edged punk and revved-up soul covers). Slow Bar

—P.G.

Bo Diddley A pair of little-known facts about Diddley, the man who became famous on the strength of a song he named after himself: He rises between 2 and 3 in the morning each day, eager to compose the next “good, clean song for rock ’n’ roll”; he’s also classically trained on the violin. Soon, he says, “I’m gonna start doin’ some of the classical stuff and really freak people out.” Before he pulls a Billy Joel on us, we still have Bo for what he’s known for—the unmistakable rhythmic stamp he put on rock ’n’ roll nearly 50 years ago, when he introduced a Caribbean sense of timing to the pop music vernacular. At the age of 80, his surly confidence intact, Bo is still asking the question, “Hey baby, do you like my stuff?” with salacious swagger. Pointed between-song commentary adds brittle charm to his shows, and his one-off inclusion on this big-name bill nicely augments the presence of the incomparably soulful Mavis Staples, not to mention Tom Petty, whose rock-music legacy stands up in its own right. AmSouth Amphitheatre