prince

been idly reading the Duane Tudahl "Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions". It makes an admirable attempt to be exhaustive, sort of like Lewisohn's "Beatle Studio Sessions" book, and seeing the day-to-day productivity laid out that way is pretty mind-blowing. Tudahl, unfortunately is neither a musician nor a particularly sharp writer, so he doesn't always focus on the right thing or get technical details correct.

One thing that's really striking that hadn't really registered with me before is how much Prince loved pre-sets. There's multiple quotes (both from himself and his engineers/collaborators) noting how he never bothered learning any gear enough to customize sounds or really grasp the possibilities as much as he would just instinctively fiddle with stuff until he found a sound he liked and then go from there. Which kind of explains why his records started to sound shittier in the 90s - when the quality of pre-sets for synths and drum machines generally degraded, and he started to sound more like everyone else and not so unique.

I'm sure that's not the whole story, but I like that thesis!

Well ditching his key collaborators was also a big part of it I imagine

Can you explain what you mean when you say the presets degraded in the nineties? Also, while it's well known that in the early years of his career he did indeed use pretty much just presets, I'm not sure if that applies to the nineties. At the very least either he or someone working for him had learned to use a sampler.

I really don't think his synth work degraded in any way in the '90s, there's still a bunch of cool and unusual synth sounds on his records, the difference comes more from him adopting a fuller and more traditional R&B sound, where the freaky synths and were rarely the lead instrument anymore, and his unique drum machine loops were mostly replaced by "real" drumming or hip hop breaks.

One thing that's really striking that hadn't really registered with me before is how much Prince loved pre-sets. There's multiple quotes (both from himself and his engineers/collaborators) noting how he never bothered learning any gear enough to customize sounds or really grasp the possibilities as much as he would just instinctively fiddle with stuff until he found a sound he liked and then go from there. Which kind of explains why his records started to sound shittier in the 90s - when the quality of pre-sets for synths and drum machines generally degraded, and he started to sound more like everyone else and not so unique.

Also true of Miles Davis. When he started using synths heavily in the early '80s (as opposed to the electric pianos and organs of the early to mid '70s) there were more than a few tracks where the keyboard sound was literally whatever sound was "A-1" on the keyboard.

I find Michael Bland to be terribly uninspiring as a drummer

https://www.theringer.com/music/2020/1/29/21112539/prince-halftime-show-oral-history-super-bowl-xli

That's incredible.

I mean, holy shit at this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kkq4FNgNAWQ

That's a nice history and worth accidentally reading part of the introduction of

Coplin: I had made a call downstairs to the backstage area: “Are we good, are we good?” And then I finally heard from one of the people downstairs and I said, “Is Prince OK?” And then he said, “He wants to know if you can make it rain harder.” I was like, “We’re gonna be OK.”

He smiled at us and he invited us in and we were walking and he was gliding, and the reason why he was gliding is because he was wearing these kids sneakers with the wheels on them. He was wheeling down the floor and the lights of his sneakers were lighting up in the back, the same color as his canary yellow suit.
<3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMVFYGYr76A

they appear to be dropping daily cuts from this concert btw:
http://www.youtube.com/user/prince/videos

That is so badass. I mean that lightweight Page had to rely on a Theremin for his spacenoise

Love when he pulls out the classic rock warhorses, too -- I once saw him and the band do "Soul Sacrifice" at an after-party

I wonder why they are leaning so hard on later stuff for reissues, videos, etc.?

Maybe the newer stuff is simpler to deal with? I imagine it takes a lot of effort and time to work out something like the 1999 box, whereas a Rainbow Children reissue must be comparatively effortless and something they can put out while working on bigger projects. Just speculating.

I would love a Sign O The Times box.

The concert DVD that came with 1999 had awful sound and picture quality, and that was seemingly the best they could find, since it was on the official release. I guess it's just easier to find good quality unreleased material from the vault from more recent shows?

And I would presume the next box set will be a Sign o' the Times one... I can't imagine they'd move to reissuing his 1990s albums yet, cos those are more divisive, and SotT seems like the most obvious choice after the Purple Rain and 1999 box sets, since those three are his most acclaimed albums.

Tell you what, I would love to see the actual live footage shot for the SoTT concert film. I never will though, I guess.

Wasn't there some issue with that footage, that it turned out looking bad? And that's why Prince decided to reshoot the whole thing in Paisley Park? I guess seeing the first footage might be historically interesting to hardcore Prince fans, but can't imagine a larger audience caring about it much, since we already got the awesome SotT film with the same song material. Maybe it will included in the eventual SotT box, though? (Unless Prince had it destroyed.)

I don't like the kind of studio-lit vibe of the released film, and the idea that they're miming to the recorded show kills the vibe for me. I watch concert films to see the artists in the act of expression, not recreating it. I'm kind of baffled that it's so loved, I was really disappointed when it came out (and I was a BIG fan at the time).

sorry for the double-vibe vibe there

https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/prince-revolution-concert-youtube-coronavirus-relief-1234604515/

This is on now and up for a couple of days, I guess.

a joy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRa8ZH_iOXo

How Come You Don't Call Me is supernatural

hilarious too

I used to watch that performance every time they played it on ABC-TV's "Rage" in the 80s-90s-00s, and it always looked better than this. The image has been juiced to the point where things flare out to blank white and the colour is way overdone.
Doesn't matter I guess because the show is FIRE, but it looks like they got an old VHS and pressed "contrast max" on everything.

Yes, exactly.

not the sort of Revolution I need right now but they tried

what a show. some of the arrangements they played were heavenly

That was great. Prince’s vocal range, guitar playing, dancing, and he & the band at times with James Brown inspired funk.

I didn’t let the VHS transferred video quality bother me

One of my main takeaways from this show is what a trip it must have been working on the road crew for that tour. Imagine the orders going around...

"Eyes on the bathtub!... Remember, Darling Nikki's panties need to be on the third step of the staircase...Has lube been applied to Prince's firepoll?...Is the ejaculating guitar loaded? Prince wants a nice, thick stream flowing straight to the fifth row!"

I will never understand people who think Prince was a bad singer

People think that?

I have seen people post elsewhere that Prince was not a "very good" "technical" guitarist.

I think that as a *lead* guitarist he is still very good, but on that front a lot of people lean hard on "Purple Rain" (the album) as proof, even though on that album he's kinda cheesing it up with effects and stuff. But as a rhythm guitarist he is next level. Esp. throughout "Controversy" and "1999;" the guitar touches in "Lady Cabdriver" are crazy tight.

Either way, wouldn't kick him out of my band to make room for anyone.

The bit of that concert that blew my mind was when the band dropped out during "I Would Die 4 U" and Wendy just tore up that insane rhythm guitar part

Wendy playing that fast part on the "Computer Blue" solo, too, is just incredible.

I felt really bad for Dez and his bad vocal day; his low range was completely gone

Was Dez in the band at that point?

lol I have thought Brown Mark was Dez Dickerson for decades, apparently

I had to blink last week and look it up to remind myself tbh.

I thought Modernaire was Mountaineer for decades.

I mean I knew it wasn't Dez–or André!–but for some reason couldn't remember BrownMark's name.

I thought Modernaire was Mountaineer for decades.

― peace, man, Monday, May 18, 2020 10:44 AM (fifteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

lolol

He did do a song about “Mountains” so not so far off

So anyway, I carved out some time for myself and watched this whole thing last night. Loved it of course. But did anyone get the feeling like they were having monitor troubles in the beginning? There were a few songs where they just weren't sounding tight to me. I don't remember exactly which ones and I wasn't taking notes, but it was a distinct impression that I got through several songs. Of course, there were also reworkings of songs that were intentionally looser, but this didn't feel like that, imo. I was also pretty stoned though, so that's another alternate theory.

Before it aired I did a quick scan of social media, and Prince diehards were apparently super disappointed that of all the reportedly filmed sets, they chose to air the same show that was released on VHS back in 1985, then later as part of the "Purple Rain" 2017 reissue. Still awesome, though.

I used to have a boot of I think the final "Purple Rain" show in Miami, so curious I looked it up and found this awesomeness instead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4I7Fuosx-s

This is a cat whose *soundchecks* were apparently epic and impeccable.

yeah I have listened to that soundcheck a bunch it's a really hot one