Nardwuar the Human Serviette vs James Brown  

Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers!

James Brown: How are you feeling?

Nardwuar: I'm feeling great, Mr. Brown.
Well, I think Mr. Brown is real great, but I think you'd better call me James Brown.

They told me to address you, "Mr. Brown."
Well, that's a business transaction, but I'm an artist first. Just call me James. Don't worry about it.

Do you remember these guys: Bobby Taylor and the Vancouvers? Do you remember them?
I don't remember them.

Bobby Taylor and Tommy Chong. They were in this band, and Tommy Chong, Bobby Taylor was the guy who supposedly discovered Michael Jackson.
Really? That's new. I discovered him!

You discovered Michael Jackson!
(laughs) I don't believe that, but I mean, you know, I'm the only one speaking. Michael Jackson was discovered by a man called Purvis Spahn and myself. We had television shows out of Gary, Indiana. But uh I don't want to shoot this kid down 'cause he could have met him later in life and....

Was that the TV show you were beating Johnny Carson?
No, I'm not going to brag about it but we had a show called "Future Shock" in Atlanta with Ted Turner when he first started, uh, it was the Super Station, TBS, and, um, we'd be costing between 27 to 10. And they wanted me to do national television but I didn't want to do television because I wanted to be out here with all these pretty young ladies. And I can't have them on television everyday.

The JB's have a new album. Have you ever thought of getting back together with them at all?
Well, there is no JB's, there's a lot of people have said there are.

It was a reunion LP.
Well, I'm sure the reunion would do good with all the fellows that were involved many many years ago, and we'd like to probably play some gigs some time for fun you know, but my band the Soul Generals we have now is a new new young dynamic band that is unbeatable, but also Maceo Parker and Fred Wesley are unbeatable too.

You also play drums, don't you? Didn't you play drums on Night Train? I heard like the drummer went to the washroom and James Brown, ur, Mr. Brown, filled in!
(laughs) You're a funny cat! But that's true. That's true. Cat had to go the bathroom and we had to cut to the next song. (laughs) I'll start to go a little deeper. He had number 1 in mind; we had the whole thing in mind, right?! (laughs) It was real good. And I played the drums on a song called "Hold It" as well.



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James Brown: Photo by Bev Davies