Prince RIP

NM I am an idiot. I somehow forgot the released version has that intro too. Weird that I never focused on it til now. It's a daring and gorgeous way to open the track.

Britishers may wanna know that Sky Arts is showing Sign of the Times tonight and also 'on demand'.

Reading that article about this crazy new musical concept & then listening to the well meaning but rote "Baltimore" is a bit of a let down...I really wish he'd never gotten involved with 3rdEyeGirl that band was terrible and brought out his worst tendencies

the lead guitar line in Baltimore is so great

Youtube keeps pushing this "Prince in the 1980s" doc which I finally watched this morning. Nothing earthquaking, but some good interviews with former managers, bandmates, engineers and arrangers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRNYiFxR2Ps

Although you may prefer to watch this concert from 1982:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAYQUbh8HHA

I skimmed over three or four of the 'Fork reviews by All of the Usual Suspects, and I was pretty disappointed to encounter All of the Usual points. I was hoping for something fresh, but they read like ... reviews. I guess that's fine. Chalk them up as missed opportunity sacrificed to the god of news cycle deadlines.

douglas wolk's paragraph about "kiss" is like a master class in great music writing imo, come on, not to mention maura drawing all of 1999 through the lens of apocalypse

His wasn't one of the three or four I looked at and I was reluctant to say anything specific, pro or con, about ILXOR regulars. But I'm not convinced drawing an album whose lead title track is about the apocalypse, written, recorded and released in the lingering age of nuclear apocalypse, through the lens of the apocalypse, is terribly novel. I'm also not convinced the essay does that successfully.

Had no problems with the quality of the writing, I should stress.

xpost If I could go back in time and see any era of Prince live, I think right now I'd say "Controversy" tour.

I think I read 1999, Nelson George on SOTT (nothing new there), and Light's Around the World (natch; thought his Purple Rain book was sort of nothing new, too).

idk I feel like it informs the urgency and anxiety of the rest of the record. I think that's a good framing/interpretive lens

brb looking for hot takes on these 30 year old records

I'm not sure what a hot take is.

This seems cool: https://www.mixcloud.com/ginovannelli94/a-rare-collection-of-outtakes-rehearsals-and-live-performances-audio/

Anyone heard/have this massive "1986: A Year in the Life" Prince boot?

http://1986boxset.blogspot.com/2015_11_01_archive.html

Yeah that's a great boot. Worth getting a hold of.

How do you download the 1986 Box? Any ideas?

I can't find it (the box itself or the answer).

It's so annoying, they have pages and pages outlining everything in it and no way to acquire it

Here's my Controversy piece.

Here's my Controversy piece🔗.

That's really excellent

thank you!

The Linn LM-1 came out in the early part 'o' 1980, and was used on The Human League's Dare, which as we all know came out in 1981. The LM-1 was the precursor to the LinnDrum and didn't sound tinny at all.

*2

Although, eye'll concede that those Linn machines were a step above the unprogrammable rhythm boxes like the CR-78. The CR-78, and the CR-68 before it, weren't designed with electronic musicians in mind, they were mainly designed 4 basic accompaniment 4 organists, and it's remarkable how much the class 'o' 1978-1981 got out 'o' the thing. The Linn LM-1 and all that came after it were designed 2 be drummer substitutes - it used "real" drum samples.

I don't even know anymore

http://deadspin.com/tv-anchor-fired-over-prince-themed-sports-report-1774005275

And yet whoever wrote that National Enquirer story still has a job, no doubt.

Haven't kept up with all these threads so sorry if this has already been posted but I love this story about the George Harrison hof performance.

STEVE FERRONE (drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, who played at the 2004 ceremony) I had no idea that Prince was going to be there. Steve Winwood said, “Hey, Prince is over there.” And I said, “I guess he’s playing with us?”

So I said to Winwood, “I’m going to go over and say hello to him.” I wandered across the stage and I went up to him and I said, “Hi, Prince, it’s nice to meet you — Steve Ferrone.” And he said, “Oh, I know who you are!” Maybe because I’d played on Chaka Khan’s “I Feel for You,” which is a song that he wrote. I went back over and I sat down behind the drum kit, and Winwood was like: “What’s he like? What’d he say?”

Then I was sitting there, and I heard somebody playing a guitar riff from a song that I wrote with Average White Band. And I looked over and Prince was looking right at me and playing that song. And I thought, “Yeah, you actually do know who I am!”

love the image of Prince just looking directly at this dude playing his song

that's great

Yeah, great story.

James Redd, your screenname reminds me that WLS-AM used to play "Darling Nikki" fairly frequently (and uncensored) in 1984-85.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5aM6b1apQQ

fuck's sake

seriously, it's such an astounding performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BuCppIjBKg
song at 1.55
i really gotta see sign o the times again.

on the tonight show last night, hugh dancy said he was basing the motivations and character of his cult leader on 'The Path' at least in part on Prince...."I was a member of the cult of Prince myself, you see"

Is someone quoting "Wooly Bully" about the seven minute mark?

Hadn't known how long WLS even existed, Tarfumes, or if it still did.

That was an xpost to motherless child.

youtube is kind of bazonkers right now for prince footage; like for a decade this stuff is strictly verboten and there's suddenly so much available i feel silly posting it because all you have to do is type it in!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny8o1nKFhLo

The Motherless Child performance makes me feel so unworthy.

um
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvNwNdtE8sCfiGJRHQ8pDCg/videos?shelf_id=0&view=0&sort=dd

heard about this, never heard it till now!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKiyeK6cPDU

Hadn't known how long WLS even existed, Tarfumes, or if it still did.

― The WLS National Batdance (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, April 30, 2016 8:09 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, WLS-AM is all-talk now, but it was the big midwest top 40 powerhouse from the early '60s through the late '80s. In retrospect, it was kind of an amazing station: "top 40" meant the top 40 from 195? to the present. You could literally hear Buddy Holly, the Temptations, Prince, and Grandmaster Flash inside of an hour.

On the plus side, it championed local heroes (Cheap Trick's "So Good To See You," Off Broadway's "Stay In Time"); on the minus side, it championed local heroes (Styx' Paradise Theater singles every goddamn hour).

the youtube thing is interesting because i assumed that someone employed by either Prince or his publisher or his legal team was employed to take down this stuff or had it automated to some degree, the same way unauthorized youtubes of new releases just get taken down automatically 24/7. i guess this just means that whoever was doing it stopped getting paid to do so the moment he died?

Or he did it himself?

I should probably take this to Prince.org, but the way he died has got me really bummed. Wasn't there anyone close to him who knew what was going on? To think of him alone in that elevator, it's just too sad

yep it's a good thing I don't have too much to do this weekend because I've already got about nine hours worth of VHS rips of Prince live gigs from 1981-1987 in different tabs

watching 30 seconds of each to figure out where to start is futile, different synth & bass riffs added to the outros of nearly any tune I check out

Lol.

Meaning I did something similar, just not quite so many tabs.

Was this posted already?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6dnzC-5iLg

Is that the Brit Awards from 2006? If so, I don't remember posting or seeing it posted, but know I've watched it a couple of times.