Funk patriarch George Clinton [ tickets ] is set to launch another attack on American stages with his latest Parliament/Funkadelic (P-Funk for short) conglomeration.

Clinton and P-Funk will kick off the 10-stop tour with a Feb. 27 show in Washington, DC. The P-Funk train will roll through the rest of the tour's East Coast dates leading to a mid-March conclusion.

The tour will support Clinton's late-2005 release "How Late Do U Have 2 B B4 U R Absent?" recorded with the P-Funk All-Stars. The album broke a six-year drought without new music from Clinton, who has been tied up in legal battles over the ownership of his back catalog during the gap since the release of 1996's "The Awesome Power of a Fully Operational Mothership."

Clinton formed Parliament and its sister ensemble, Funkadelic, in the late '60s. Both bands shared the same core of musicians, with Parliament exploring hardcore funk in its concerts and recording endeavors, and Funkadelic devoted to Clinton's other love of psychedelic space-rock in the Hendrix vein.

Although Clinton officially disbanded both groups in 1981, his albums commonly came to feature a backing band known as The P-Funk All-Stars, and a new generation of Parliament and Funkadelic was born. The distinction between the two groups has mostly been lost, and Clinton now refers to his main band as simply P-Funk.