Prince RIP

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.

trying to do "prince versions" of sounds reigning on the R&B charts at the time

man is this the truth. 1990 really feels like the turning point to me, where shifts in recording/instrumental technology coincided with his assembly of the NPG and both of those fed into this feeling of him trying to keep up rather than move ahead (or burrow further into his own idiosyncrasies, which up to now had kinda been the same thing). Really I just love everything up to Grafitti Bridge and then sonically and lyrically he seems to start losing his way, he never really came back and recorded an album that was enjoyable from start to finish. There were still lots of bright spots and great individual tracks, of course. But something like the song "Diamonds and Pearls" feels so compromised - there's a decent riff and melody in there, but the execution is all wrong, the lyrics are clunky as hell, and the production lacks any kind of distinctive touch, it doesn't feel lived in or fleshed out.

this feeling of him trying to keep up rather than move ahead (or burrow further into his own idiosyncrasies, which up to now had kinda been the same thing)

I'm a broken record on '90s prince but imo gold experience/come/basically any material recorded in 1993 on crystal ball tries to have it all three ways and it mostly works imo

diamonds and pearls by contrast is a really unfocused and empty record though imo

Parade is my favorite of the ones I'm digging into this week. (as a side note, it sucks, but these big musician deaths are doing wonders for me catching up to canon records and artists). I kind of feel the same about it as I do Bowie's Lodger -- weirdest overall record, and not that many people's favorite that I can see-- but super easy for me to get into. I wish he'd used a song like "Mountains" as a springboard for his 90s work, because he's really good at that lush Beatles/yacht-rock/gospel hybrid.

I listened to the Batman album in its entirety for the first time since . . . ha, maybe since 1989, and goddamn that is a good record. "The Future" and "Electric Chair" rank among the great 1-2 punches in his discography IMO. Record should be a lot better remembered than it is.

Was also thinking of how weird the drum programming is on "I Would Die 4 U." boom SNAP boom >>clap<< boom SNAP boom (rest). Then no claps at all in the verses so the 4 of every bar has no snare/clap/anything.

that lush Beatles/yacht-rock/gospel hybrid.

haha this is a great description of "Mountains", and boy is the extended mix of that tune a treat

Yeah one of my favorite 12"

Was also thinking of how weird the drum programming is on "I Would Die 4 U." boom SNAP boom >>clap<< boom SNAP boom (rest). Then no claps at all in the verses so the 4 of every bar has no snare/clap/anything.

that rest kind of makes the song IMO. that jagged stop-start phrasing combined with those incessant electronic 32nd-notes (?) going on in the background. great example of how he combines basically simple drum-machine elements to make a busy and involving rhythm track.

idk Parade has always been a favorite, and it keeps coming up in top fives and tens I've seen (it's in mine).

for me it's his most hermetically sealed record: the many stunning moments are exercises in arranging psychedelia into Wire-esque bursts of energy and concision. To this day I don't know another record like it.

it's absolutely my favorite prince record. that suite of miniatures in the beginning!

one take!

hoo boy

http://www.tmz.com/2016/04/28/prince-tyka-storms-out-estate-alfred-money/

Alfred?

i do not remember when i downloaded the 1984 birthday set but fuckin' aye this version of erotic city

xp lol, yes apparently

http://www.citypages.com/restaurants/what-prince-ate-an-interview-with-princes-personal-chefs-8238997

Actually rather poignant

also dickish. I wouldn't work for a dude who made eyeball gestures after finding a smudge on a box

i put together a playlist that mimics the original crystal ball tracklist. these two sides are a wild set of songs jeez

Side 3:
Crystal Ball
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Rockhard In A Funky Place

Side 4:
The Ball
Joy In Repetition
Strange Relationship
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man

did prince love using flanger so much because flanger units are purple?

or did flanger pedals/units become purple...after prince used it