Prince RIP

i think there's some undeniable Funkadelic influence in Prince's synth work but he was also using the synth a lot in place of where other funk/R&B acts had a horn section

Gary Numan seems like the most obvious synth reference point at least early on (he's obviously way beyond Gary as a keyboard player)

Yeah I did read him express appreciation for numan in some 80s interview or other

i think there's some undeniable Funkadelic influence in Prince's synth work but he was also using the synth a lot in place of where other funk/R&B acts had a horn section

― some dude, Thursday, April 28, 2016 2:47 PM

otm -- JOdy Rosen brought up this point in Slate's podcast yesterday iirc

that basically was one of the 2 or 3 core markers of the mpls sound - synths replace brass

well brass + saxes

u no what eye mean

surprised that geraldo rivera wasn't present when they drilled into prince's vault

...and all they find were some dusty unused purple condoms and some spare parts to a drum machine.

and several crates of Appolonia and Nona Gaye long boxes

(i wonder if any under-35 ILXORs will get the geraldo rivera joke)

Yeah, Prince rated Numan highly in the early '80s, and the feeling was mutual if eye recall. 'We Take Mystery (To Bed)' has some Prince-like elements 2 it.

Eye'd avoid the Prince covers Numan did in the early '90s, mind. His version 'o' 'U Got The Look' is fucking terrible.

i think avoiding 1990s gary numan is probably a good idea in general :(

Numan is really happy playing goth buttrock and I'm glad he's happy but yeah dnw

(i wonder if any under-35 ILXORs will get the geraldo rivera joke)

dear god if only i were qualified to answer that question ;_;

i got it

i got it

I don't think anyone should be shocked by any influence on any act. Neil Young swears by Randy Bachman. Does anyone talk about Randy Bachman? Doesn't really matter. I have no doubt Prince was every bit as into George Harrison as he was (Santana era, I assume) Neil Schon or Joni Mitchell. Or, per that above link, Billy Gibbons or anyone else.

I got it, too, even if I flashed on an old Bloom County strip en route to getting it.

Wasn't Prince married again after Mayte? Her name was Manuela I think?

apropo of nothing: of prince's minimalist-funk tracks, i really like "new position." wtf is that repeated sound on the one and the two, which sounds a little like a steel drum but more industrial. like someone hitting a kitchen sink basin with a pair of pliers?

I thought it was sampled steel drum. Maybe it's real steel drum!

in a fit of desperation I watched that episode of the New Girl that Prince was on. That show is terrible but Prince was funny.

I think somebody mentioned above that the steel drum sound was a Fairlight preset? I like to imagine a real steel drum myself, I LOVE that sound

"Does anyone talk about Randy Bachman?"

uh, well...now that you mention it...

I think somebody mentioned above that the steel drum sound was a Fairlight preset?

that wasn't verified although it very well could be

apparently there's an unreleased version of that song with a full orchestra on it? wtf

he had to try a new position!

A Clare Fischer arrangement no doubt

I don't think anyone should be shocked by any influence on any act. Neil Young swears by Randy Bachman. Does anyone talk about Randy Bachman? Doesn't really matter. I have no doubt Prince was every bit as into George Harrison as he was (Santana era, I assume) Neil Schon or Joni Mitchell. Or, per that above link, Billy Gibbons or anyone else.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 28, 2016 3:17 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

on the current they told a story about the station manager going to paisley park to hear a new track and he made some offhand crack about grand funk railroad and prince admonished him and said grand funk was great and then played "foot stompin' music" for him

The demos for Parade that are out there have Clare Fischer all over "I Wonder U" and some other tunes but not on "New Position".

this says it was Clare: http://www.princevault.com/index.php?title=New_Position

Sorry - the version of NP on that boot has no Clare F - as opposed to the version on Parade. Prince sings on it as well I think.

Fuck - i'm confused. I meant I Wonder U.

Chemtrails dept:

Sometimes it Snows in April recorded 4/21/1986
Prince rushed to hospital with heart palpitations 4/21/1996
Prince dies 4/21/2016

Charade

sometimes it snows in April was in 1985

xp

(xpost) That's insane.

Has anyone seen the pic posted today (?) of P buying his last music - I'm assuming - at Electric Fetus in MN? He seems super humble. No entourage. No smiling gawkers standing around taking his pic (not counting the possibly smiling gawker who took said photo).

Interview with Randy Bachman in which he discusses his personal relationship with three guitar greats: http://www.gibson.com/news-lifestyle/features/en-us/randy-bachman-0616.aspx

My neighbor went to college with Clare Fischer's son and told me sometimes he would see Brent Fischer walking around campus with shades on, looking haggard. When asked what was up he invariably answered that he had just gotten some Prince demos the day before that he had to stay up all night transcribing for his dad.

Haha 85 of course. Still... 4/21

yeah that is crazy

I don't actually know much about Clare Fischer at all besides his Prince work. It sounds like they had a really smooth detached working relationship.

Ahem- Charade leads to something.

I figured. And am excited. But on my phone at the moment.

xpost Funny Bachman should mention Lenny Breau, he's another guitar great a lot of Canadian musicians cite. I think Danko and Helm played with him early on Anyway, I think he had a serious drug problem and ended his career playing with Anne Murray.

Dig in at yr leisure.

Don't know as much about Clare Fischer as I should except that he wrote a tune called "Pensativa" that is considered a standard and at some point he operated in the area that became known as Latin Jazz. Just read that he got into R&B arranging because his nephew was the drummer for Rufus feat. Chaka Khan.

I don't think that description of Lenny Breau's final days is quite right.

i'm willing to bet the sound on "new position" is a synth and not a real steel drum, because it just sounds... weird. but misidentifying sounds outside of their normal contexts is the easiest thing in the world to do, so.

just thinkin here... probably not saying anything a million people haven't said... but it seems like parade is the album where prince seems to be existing in his own universe... the sonic palette is the most idiosyncratic. he's developing experiments from earlier albums, taking them to extremes. sign of the times is a bit in this vein too, but it's more sprawling and has more stuff that feels like pastiche, or at least prince riffing on more familiar sounds rather than prince riffing on price. and by the time of lovesexy and (esp.) diamonds and pearls, prince is already kind of playing a bit of catch-up, trying to do "prince versions" of sounds reigning on the R&B charts at the time....

just spitballin.

maybe that schematic doesn't work too well, b/c batman in its own way feels very idiosyncratic, too. i guess any schematic would be confused that at this point all of prince's albums are a mix of "new" material, material that's a few years old, and slightly old material thoroughly reworked. so it's hard to make distinctions from album to album to chart a clear pattern of development. to do that you'd have to really listen to the flood of studio outtakes in chronological order.