Prince RIP

the lovesexy piano medley is all time classic. not just for the playing - strange relationship esp, but for his facial expressions. greatest piano *performer* since little richard.

On musical ability, I think it would be safe to say that Prince's ideas were never limited by his ability to express them.

D'Angelo wrecked me, full tears at my desk.

universal hug to D for nailing it, goddamn

Oh man I will see the shit outta theatrical SOTT rerelease. I saw it on its first release (har mar mall y'all) and it still gives me the memory illusion of having seen Prince

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPwm6YHmlFU This is how I remember him live. Endlessly playful. Check the Sweet Thing cover.

I think his skills on everything but drums were ace. Drums, he was good but nothing special (apparently Morris Day is/was a killer drummer).

I disagree man, I like his drumming a lot and he definitely has a style. Especially when he's playing over drum machines, but you can hear the same style on 'Dirty Mind' too. Simple grooves, but with these left-hand, offbeat-heavy fills on the hi-hat and snare that have a lot of personality. 'Lady Cab Driver' is a great example of this, there's a breakdown that's almost a drum solo over the Linn beat.

Questlove had some story about sitting in with Prince, and he said that the way to make Prince happy as a drummer is to sound like him.

yeah I totally rate his synth and programming skills, especially on 1999. Anyone found good live synth clips?

Love this bit from Matt Fink re: "The Beautiful Ones" --

When I first heard "The Beautiful Ones" my first thought was, "How the hell am I going to pull that off?" Because back then Prince was running those Oberheim synthesizers in the studio. He was timing all these crazy portamento slides that are happening throughout that song, especially towards the end. On the old Oberheim keyboards there were eight voices to them. You could only play eight notes at once. And then you could have the portamento set-up and play one note and it would slide and then you could time the next one and it would do a slide as you are holding another note down. You could have different notes playing different portamento rates. So when you hear "The Beautiful Ones" you are listening to all these notes sliding up to each other at different timings.

In order to accomplish this Prince had to turn the volume down; touch those notes; and get them into place. And then within those chords you had to time them to do the slides individually. Remember, this wasn't sequenced. This was all done live, and I used to pull that off every night on stage. But it was a very tricky, technical process. "The Beautiful Ones" is my favorite song on Purple Rain because it's orchestrated in such a unique way. Prince created this other world using synthesizers, guitars, pianos, lots of digital delay, and reverb. And the vocals are just ridiculous.

love that. Which oberheim would that be?

but you can hear the same style on 'Dirty Mind' too. Simple grooves, but with these left-hand, offbeat-heavy fills on the hi-hat and snare that have a lot of personality.

OTM. His drumming on Dirty Mind is so utterly killer; more amazingly, as Al pointed out, he was so brilliant as a Linn programmer that you didn't miss his acoustic drumming.

xp given the time, I'd have to guess the OB-8?

I also remember a quote from him, maybe in an old Modern Drummer, where he talks about programming drums and then layering enough live drums and percussion on top until it sounded like a human groove.

did prince play drums on the recording of "another lonely christmas"? those drums are incredible

Yeah, it's like, in the Syracuse '85 video the drummer (arg, can't remember his name) is often playing around the programming, filling in here and there, maybe adding a hi-hat where no programmed hi-hat exists...and it all sounds completely of a piece. It does not sound like two separate entities.

xp

anyway i finally found a compilation of all his 12" extended mixes from 1980-1990 basically and imo this is the richest music

Yup the 12" are just a treasure world made for all day shuffling

Re Prince as guitarist, I'd love a full album of stuff like "Alexa De Paris"

Prince's guitar: I'm not sure how virtuosic his guitar playing was in terms of solo technique, I'm sure it was excellent, but what made Prince an amazing guitar player was his ability to coax that pure emotion out of the instrument, and knowing exactly what notes to play, etc.

Prince as a bass player: his strength to me wasn't those amazing melodic fluid basslines that James Jamerson laid down on the regular, but some incredible bass riffs like on Lady Cab Driver and Sign O' The Times. His bass playing and interplay with Sheila E's drums is one of the best things about Lovesexy for me.

As a piano player: I'm a keyboard player and from what I've seen and heard he's a very expressive player with very good technique. He probably did a good amount of his writing on the keys. When he lets loose like on "Strange Relationship" from the Lovesexy tour piano medley he can rock the shit out of the instrument. He's also obviously very capable of playing pretty too, like he did on his version of Joni's "A Case of You"

xps I own a dozen of the 12" singles, and I could use a dozen more tbh

wheeeerre is this 12" extended mixes comp ... i had something a while ago, can't seem to find it now.

^

yeah I would listen to that

I have several 12"s (Let's Go Crazy/Erotic City, I Wish You Heaven, Scandalous suite, etc.) but I know I'm missing a bunch

That D'angelo performance was making me cry and then I realized he looked like a silly creampuff and couldn't stop laughing.

lemme know if y'all got my emails

I know you can get all the 12"s from a few hq sources on P1rat3 B4y.

my webmail thang is on an ages-old email account ... could you send one to tywilc @ gmail.com, brad? THANK YOU.

i wouldn't mind one myself.
forksclovetofu at gmail if ya don't mind

I would also like to check that out - burningambulance at gmail. Thanks.

ditto

tarfumes at gmail

thx!

whoah thx v much Brad!!!

Brad I have the so called "Quintessential Extended 12" Mix Compilation" (good sounding needle drops) can u email me too if you got something better

Thanks Brad!

that's the one jon

i had a bunch of scattered vinyl rips before that so imo the "quintessential" comp is saving my life

you've got mine, Brad

mr. me too

donaldparsley at gmail

thanks!

Thanks so much, Brad!

man...d'angelo ;_;

hey brad ilu

sharon dot penny at gmail

sleeve at kittymail dot com please ;)

so I can figure out what I still need to look for on vinyl

yo brad, hook a brad up?

brad dot cahoon at gmail

lol ok y'all

um, i hate to be the dork who says "what about me" but i think you may have missed me on that email hookup given the others calling hosannas.
for those working at home it's forksclovetofu at gmail, gnarly spelling likely the culprit
and thanks!

That did it!

<3

thank yooooo

Anxiously awaiting - again, burningambulance at gmail dot com. Thanks!

can't remember for the life of me if it was this thread or the other where the rainbow children was suggested as his worst album. it is very much not. imo it's really good

lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ChEIsTJU0AAi8mp.jpg

The Revolution is going to do shows.

the dangelo cover only got me when he said prince's name. other than that, it was nice, respectful, but bruce's PR cover packed more emotion for me. dangelo obv felt emotion *himself*, but i didnt feel it much. plus, every time i see him these days, i wonder whats going on with his hair, and then i wondered why he was wearing that white fur thing as whats good for prince isnt necesarily a good fit for dangelo. im being petty i know (though prince was pretty good at pettiness so im sure he would approve).

the rainbow children was insanely good apart from the song the work, which was another one of his slightly sterile JB tributes.