Prince RIP

also 1.) please let internet word drones opt for another nickname other than "the Purple one" 2.) I don't have the heart or stomach to watch videos of Richard Hell singing "purple rain," which joins "Life on mars" as the unimaginative musician's choice of tribute in 2016, at the Ivan Julian benefit last night…

Have you seen the Bobby Gillespie "Purple Rain" tribute version yet?

"place in constraints" sounds pretty kinky, prince probably would have been ok w/ it.

― wizzz! (amateurist),

"Joy in Repetition"

Have you seen the Bobby Gillespie "Purple Rain" tribute version yet?

omg plz tell me this really happened

hey guys, smashmouth did a cover of "purple rain" in tribute to prince and jason mraz came up on stage to sing harmony. it's amazing! just google it.

women are not butterlflies
we are computers too

In the future, everyone will cover "Purple Rain" for 15 minutes.
-Bob Vonnegut

Only 1/4 of the earth's population heard "Purple Rain," but every one of them did a karaoke version of it.
-Butch "Two Trucks" Firbanks

there's this sense that he's never displaying the full extent of his abilities
totally. this is what i always thought of as effortless cool, like he was born to be a dancer/singer/guitar player/drummer/everything he tried.

over the weekend i saw purple rain with two people my own age who had never seen it
so fun! the crowd was lame but i enjoyed seeing the movie again + hearing what they thought of it

when people do 'purple rain' as karaoke, what do they do during the long guitar solo?
― wizzz! (amateurist)

in the past, i've just looked for the approving nods

Run don't walk to the oral history of Prince in the 90s which rolling stone put up today. It's awesome.

Bland: He was really into the Pretenders at some point. He talked about how much he liked Chrissie Hynde and the songwriting. He played me some of the first Sly Stone records I ever heard. That was an education I couldn't have received anywhere else. We held meetings, and we would watch random videos people would send. Michael Jackson loved sending Prince old footage of Sly. Prince would just stop everything and bring everybody to his office. One time we watched the Jackson 5 Goin' Back to Indiana special.

He talked about how much he liked Chrissie Hynde and the songwriting. He played me some of the first Sly Stone records I ever heard. That was an education I couldn't have received anywhere else.

yes no one else had ever heard of obscure artists Chrissie Hynde or Sly Stone before, their records were definitely hard to find and not rhapsodized about by anybody

dude it's not a stretch that before the internet people would not have heard music

it's the "couldn't have received anywhere else" bit I was referring to

Allow him to mourn. Besides, I would assume it would mean something to hear Prince pontificate about the Pretenders.

Yeah, we listened to Sly Stone, but did we have Prince sitting next to us to explain the nuances to us?

Does "Starfish and Coffee" have a line about " Cynthia Rose" and if so, is it a Family Stone reference?

Run don't walk to the oral history of Prince in the 90s which rolling stone put up today. It's awesome.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/prince-in-the-nineties-an-oral-history-20160505?page=6

As I read that I kept thinking, man, someone should talk to Prince about how he's spending money, or, at this rate he won't have enough to retire on, and all sorts of stuff, even as I kept reminding myself that he's not around anymore ...

Okay, that was indeed awesome, thanks.

It didn't make sense to have all those studios and that soundstage. It was never profitable. He'd meet a girl and take her back to Paisley and record a double album with her overnight.

omg

Surely this is a (perhaps slight) exaggeration for rhetorical effect, although not altogether out of the question.

it's the "couldn't have received anywhere else" bit I was referring to

― Οὖτις, Thursday, May 5, 2016 6:14 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't think he meant, "nobody but prince could have possibly given me sly stone records" but rather "the sum total of the musical education i got from prince --of which exposing me to sly stone records is but one facet -- was one of a kind"

which, you know, is probably true.

xpost

"record a double album" means "two orgasms," right?

but WB said "nuh-uh…"

the official story iirc was that prince cut it up himself to fit "take me with u" on the record which I kinda find more believable

past two weeks has been lacking in the kind of testimony found in the RS piece. I am a musician and have worked for near sociopaths in publishing, so it's useful to read the RS piece and to remember that the pleasure, invention and galactic inspiration of his work come courtesy of someone who at least in the early '90s and many other times had to be an incredibly difficult person to work with and for. The NPG didn't have the benefit of being the Rev.: they had to be the ones who were never in the trenches and had to do everything he asked on command, no questions asked…

Ya think?

"It didn't make sense to have all those studios and that soundstage. It was never profitable. He'd meet a girl and take her back to Paisley and record a double album with her overnight."

this explains the mayte, carmen electra, and ingrid chavz albums.

that RS 90s piece is good, but too general. it doesnt really tell you in much depth about the different phases and developments in that decade, or explore them with much specificity. its more just a general overview of working with prince at the time. surprised if bland hadnt heard sly pre-prince, very surprised, but its not impossible.

Re: point three posts up. The Revolution and the Before-The-Revolution surely had to put up with plenty of control freak behavior, especially as far as being forced to dress the part at all times, Gayle tells a story of a young lady coming into her hotel room and throwing some clothes at her and saying "Prince says wear this or your fired" (although maybe this is just showbiz). But on the other hand there is a still a sense that they were still all "Just Kids" together and that they were in some sense really the Band of Brothers and Sisters that he needed to portray them as. Musically there are stories of him asking them for recommendations of what records they listened to. On the personal front, there was no army of flunkies separating them, and when he went to LA he would still sleep on Wendy and Lisa's sofa. As the time marched on, it seems they developed a nickname for the every more rarely seen human side of the guy. I believe they referred to that side as "Steve."

In fact the Flight of the Conchords lyric "Did Steve tell you that?" is a reference to his.

I watched the 1983 first avenue benefit show on YouTube the other day (v v recommended) and yeah even though purple rain would start filming in just two months, the Prince of this concert is visibly 'just kids'. The difference is amazing.

(It's Wendy's first show w them and she is really just kids!)

The real crazy thing is that the official released track or "Purple Rain" - and one or two other songs, I think- is from the recording of that very benefit, with some very minor sweetening. Maybe that was even the first time it was ever played in public.

Re: the NPG piece, a lot of that scans pretty familiar practice for a dude at the height of his performance powers who hires the best and expects them to be ready for anything. It's really no different than, say, the pick-up guys waiting in the studio for Sinatra or whatever. What the piece does not get into is which of the people in the NPG was the de facto music director in charge of getting everything tight and ordered for whenever Prince shows up. Also what seems unusual is the degree of improvisation required. They had to be perfectly rehearsed but prepared to do anything at a moments notice and have that be perfect, too. Probably pretty similar to how James Brown worked, I imagine.

Yeah that microphone-gun-to-the-head thing sounds very JB.

Maybe that was even the first time it was ever played in public.

it was

think the NPR musical director was Levi Seacer. and yeah, the thing should have been called "oral history of the NPG," as it stops in 1996. Would have been good to go on to note, for instance, his son's birth and the aftermath and Emancipation and Crystal Ball, but Browne likely had the interviews he had with the musicians, most of whom were gone shortly after '96, and was compelled to finish it ASAP.

yeah Levi Seacer, Jr., according to the Hahn bio.

compelled to finish it ASAP

Proofreading or lack thereof betrays this.

alfred, did you have the hahn bio before two weeks ago or did you get ahold of it recently? I really regret not holding onto it, but when I was fired from blender they did the whole "the shit you were sent belongs to us" thing. I mentioned many hundred of posts ago that Hahn says that the "no drugs" thing was not true, but now I'm wondering if I misremembered, but it seemed to me at the time that his research was totally solid. I presume you've been looking at it: is there anything therein that you find interesting/revelatory etc…

Been holding off on getting that bio until...until I can't hold off any longer, but the part I've read of it is really good.

alfred, did you have the hahn bio before two weeks ago or did you get ahold of it recently? I really regret not holding onto it, but when I was fired from blender they did the whole "the shit you were sent belongs to us" thing. I mentioned many hundred of posts ago that Hahn says that the "no drugs" thing was not true, but now I'm wondering if I misremembered, but it seemed to me at the time that his research was totally solid. I presume you've been looking at it: is there anything therein that you find interesting/revelatory etc…

I bought it eleven years ago and, yeah, your memory is correct: Miko Weaver claims Prince did a couple lines with him.

It's rather badly copy edited, which undermines his authority a bit, but he spoke to a lot of sources on the record.

Only Prince book I have (and will finally read next week) is Matos on SOTT. Are there other good ones?

Oh wait, bio I am talking about is another one, by Matt Thorne, that seems to have come out recently.

I find it hard to picture Prince getting into kind of fist fight... I'll bet he looked like a well-dressed Scrappy Doo.

I'll bet he was one of these tough little guys, like Little Jimmy Dickens, who went right for the sensitive spot.

the only Prince bio I have is Pers Neilson's "Prince: The First Decade", which seems p exhaustive in cataloguing what was recorded/performed when & where and for some insights from various collaborators but it is not particularly well written and (of course) features some opinions I disagree with