Prince wins a Golden Globe
Congrats to Prince for a successful night at the Golden Globes, where he won the category of Best Original Song…
The award was given out very early in the show, and not only did I miss it, but so did Prince. He was on the way there, stuck in traffic. He was acknowledged later in the show and stood up and bowed from his table.
The winning tune is “The Song of the Heart” from the movie Happy Feet. Before tonight, I had listened to the song all the way through about 1.75 total times. Not that crazy about it to tell you the truth. But who knows, it may grow on me.
You can judge for yourself here…
Late Night Prince: Hamburg 88
The grandaddy of Prince aftershows, at least as far as 80’s Prince goes, is the ‘Small Club’ from the Hague in Holland, recorded late one night & early one morning on August 19, 1988 during the Lovesexy Tour.
Overshadowed by its excellent quality big brother, this aftershow from later that month is a treat in itself. The sound quality leaves a little to be desired, there’s some skips, there’s parts missing. Yeah, it’s imperfect, but totally worth it. It’s another glimpse into the real Prince, the Prince that liked to keep his band up until the wee hours of the morning, running them through the funky stuff, keeping them sharp, but very relaxed at the same time.
This is certainly the sweetest and funkiest “Strange Relationship” I’ve ever heard. Ten minutes of Strange Relationship-ness, no less. Prince brings up Taylor Dane during “Still Would Stand All Time”, where towards the end she gets into it with the late Boni Boyer (who can sing louder?). We get “Rave Un 2 the Joy Fantastic” a dozen years before it was officially released. A nice long “Love Bizarre”. And during “God is Alive”, Prince (sort of) explains why the ‘Black Album’ was pulled in favor of ‘Lovesexy’.
I’ll always favor this Prince.
Aftershow at Grosse Freiheit 36 club in Hamburg, Germany
August 30-31, 19881.
Just My Imagination[fades in after start]
2.Rave Un 2 The Joy Fantastic
3.Girls & Boys
4.Venus De Milo
5.Starfish & Coffee
6.Raspberry Beret
7.People Without
8.Condition Of The Heart
9.Still Would Stand All Time(w/ Taylor Dayne)
10.Strange Relationship
11.A Love Bizarre
12.I’ll Take U There
13.Down Home Blues / Blues In C
14.Cold Sweat
15.God Is Alive
16.I Wish U Heaven
17.Purple Rain[faded out before end]Prince’s Official Site.
Whilst on a “Lovesexy” YouTube search, I came across this dance interpretation of Prince’s “Sister” from ‘Dirty Mind’. I’m feverishly trying to track down her interpretation of the song that precedes “Sister” on the album. Now I don’t want to exclude anyone, so for those who don’t enjoy that, try this.
Prince at the Super Bowl
It’s official. The NFL has locked down Prince as this year’s halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl in Miami (Feb. 4th). In one year’s time, Prince will have appeared on American Idol, set up a regular gig in Vegas, and performed at the Super Bowl. Not something I could have predicted.
Thanks to Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction”, I guess Prince will probably keep his ass-less pants in a Minneapolis closet. Not that he would ever shock on that level again. The raunchy Prince is a thing of the past. “Sexuality”, one of his great early songs from 1981’s Controversy, is being performed these days as “Spirituality”. And I’m not kidding. But that’s not to imply that the man can’t rock and funk the shit out of a place. He can still do that like no other. But
damndang, sometimes I miss Prince “I sincerely wanna fu-k the taste out of your mouth” Rogers Nelson.Ah well, I’ll be watching. Here’s the commercial…
Computer Blue Debut at First Avenue
I was getting my Prince fix on tonight, and came across some amazing footage from 1983. A very kind soul, godar1990, has posted some tunes from a gig at First Avenue in Minneapolis, a gig where Prince debuted tunes from ‘Purple Rain’.
Check this out… if you want to explore others from this show, click here. Thank you godar, and thank you YouTube!!! I guess this may be filed under ‘Enjoy it While it Lasts’…
American Music Awards
The American Music Awards were on tonight. I watched a little bit. Quick observations:
- I still don’t get Mary J. Blige or Jay Z. Jay Z played his Budweiser song. It made me think of a Budweiser commercial.
- I respect the Dixie Chicks for standing up to the right wingers and all, but the song they performed tonight? Zzzzz…
- I really like Jimmy Kimmel’s sense of humor. And his show.
- I felt very sorry for Barry Manilow during his performance of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” and “What the World Needs Now”. Out of place (and out of face, for that matter – plastic surgery gone a wee bit too far).
- The show was so tame and safe that I actually enjoyed Fall Out Boy’s performance. Finally, a little rock & roll.
- Nelly Furtado is hot.
- I’m writing like Larry King in his USA Today column.
- I realized that I’ve grown a little too old for the AMA’s. My heyday for the AMA’s was the 80’s, and I still remember this 1985 performance; to this day, my favorite live performance of “Purple Rain”…
Prince: The Vegas Years
In the storied tradition of Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Wayne Newton, Liberace, and Carrot Top, Prince has gone and officially set up shop in Las Vegas, Nevada. Last night saw the grand opening of 3121, Prince’s new club inside the Rio Hotel & Casino. Oh, but that’s not all… also opening up for business is 3121 Jazz Cuisine, Prince’s new restaurant.
Prince will indeed be playing regular gigs at the club, supposedly every Friday and Saturday night, kicking off this weekend. There’s no set start time. Doors open at 10pm. Tickets are $125 a pop. Pretty steep, but given the location, not so bad. You can drop that in 3 minutes at the roulette wheel (I know from experience). So I treat this news with more excitement than skepticism. I am a 40 minute plane ride from Vegas, and I will be making the trip in January, or February at the latest. Look for an exclusive Prince interview soon after my trip. Or maybe the busboy at 3121 Jazz Cuisine. We’ll see.
Random trivia time. Here’s a list of some of the acts that have graced the nightclubs of Las Vegas over the years. It took
yearshoursminutes of meticulous research.Elvis Presley – started a regular gig at the International Hotel (the Las Vegas Hilton) in 1969 at age 34.
Frank Sinatra – debuted 1951 at the Desert Inn, age 36.
Liberace – The Riviera, 1955, at age 36 ($50,000 per week!).
Celine Dion – Caesar’s Palace, 2003, age 35.
Elton John – Caesar’s Palace, 2004, age 57.
Barry Manilow – Las Vegas Hilton, 2006, age 63.
Prince – Rio Hotel & Casino, 2006, age 48.It’ll be interesting to hear the reviews, and see what comes of this. Prince in an intimate club setting is the way to see him. I remember almost 10 years ago, after seeing him at America West Arena (or was it Desert Sky Pavilion?) in Phoenix, I zipped over to the Electric Ballroom in Tempe for the Love 4 One Another charity aftershow. He was “hosting” these along the tour for $20 a pop. Sometimes he would play, sometimes he wouldn’t. Well this night at the Electric Ballroom, we lucked out.
Some local band was on stage playing as everyone filtered in from the show. On to the stage came Prince and his band. The band handed over their instruments to Prince and company (even Prince played the guy’s guitar), and they tore into a short but sweet set. I can almost… hear it … noowww.
Prince:
Santana Medley / The Ride(mp3) – Live, April 28, 1997 – charity aftershow at the Electric Ballroom in Tempe, ArizonaCheck out 3121.com for Vegas info.
The Time Funk Up Long Beach
Smack dab in the middle of Vanity 6 and Prince on the 1999 tour (figuratively speaking, I think), was Prince’s funky-ass pet project, The Time: Jesse Johnson, Monte Moir, Jellybean Johnson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, and of course charismatic front man Morris Day. Now, rumor of course has it that the Time were dropped from the tour toward the end because Prince was tired of being upstaged. Truth, rumor? I don’t know. Who can offer insight into this great life question?? Help me people, I was 12 during this tour.
The Time were touring in support of their second (and best) release, What Time Is It?, produced, arranged and composed by Jamie Starr and his Starr Company.
Mr. Starr (yes, aka Prince) had created a monster…
The Time
Long Beach, CA
March 31st, 1983
Opening for Prince on the 1999 TourIntro
Get it Up
777-9311
Girl
Wild and Loose
Gigolos Get Lonely Too
Cool
The WalkPrince takes the stage later this week… | Vanity 6’s Set
Vanity 6 Open It Up
I thought we’d all jump in the time capsule back to 1983 this week, and take a listen to the “triple threat” tour, AKA Prince’s 1999 tour, also featuring the openers Vanity 6 and The Time. First up, Vanity 6.
Made up of Prince’s high school girlfriend Susan Moonsie (on the right above), Boston native Brenda Bennett (on the left), and Canadian model/actress Denise Matthews, who underwent the obligatory Prince name change to Vanity (reportedly after Prince first recommended Vagina – – classy!).
Vanity 6 wasn’t out there to impress anyone with their vocal and musical prowess, they were there to wear trashy lingerie and entertain, which they did. Backed up by The Time (on stage and on record), the music ranged from funky (Nasty Girl) to the new wave of the period (He’s So Dull).
It wasn’t long after this show that Vanity made the decision to break off from the Prince camp and go solo with a Motown record deal, as well as appearances in some quality films (The Last Dragon, anyone??, and Action Jackson, of course). Vanity’s personal life took a nose dive (no pun intended) over the coming years, as a severe cocaine addiction developed. But fear not folks, Miss Vanity found Jesus and is alive and well these days, doing her thing as Evangelist Denise Matthews.
The opening set:
Vanity 6
Long Beach, CA
March 31st, 1983
Opening for Prince on the 1999 TourMake Up
Wet Dream
Drive Me Wild
If A Girl Answers, Don’t Hang Up
Nasty GirlComing This Week: The rest of the show with The Time and Prince & the Revolution
Buy Vanity 6 (the CD’s out of print, but you can buy them used for a fee):
Whole Lotta Love in Copenhagen
Today, we have rockin’ Prince, and we have blues Prince. Coming from a 2002 aftershow in Copenhagen, Denmark, the man is all over his guitar here. May I recommend that you turn this m$%#@er up loud, and enjoy?
Prince:
Whole Lotta Love(mp3) (Led Zep cover)
The Question of U(mp3)Live from a Copenhagen aftershow, October 26, 2002 (Hit n’ Run Tour).
Buy the newly released Ultimate Prince.
The Prince Forum: Ickmusic’s new Prince forum is up & running. For you Prince freaks, get on over and register. It’s worth your while, trust me.
The latest on Prince
The Ickmusic Hero of the Month is Arthur, who hooked me up in a trade with the Feb. 14 and Feb. 15, 2004 Prince aftershows at the Fillmore in San Francisco. The quality is superb, the set lists are amazing, and I’ve been one happy Prince fan the last few days. The parts that really hit me are hearing Prince reach back into his catalog for the old favorites. “The Beautiful Ones”, “Adore”, “Sign o the Times”, “Let’s Work”, “The Question of U”, “D.M.S.R.”, “I Feel For You”, and so many more (even the Time’s “777-9311” – which of course was a Jamie Starr production).
It brought me around again to wondering what is happening today. How 3121 was released back in March, and beyond the publicity blitz around that time with him and his latest protege Tamar, we have yet to see a tour. Meanwhile, his official site closed down due to a trademark issue, and Tamar’s CD has apparently been scrapped. See this 8/31 article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press for a look at the current state of affairs…
Secrets shroud Prince more than purple ever did
by Ross Raihala
Pioneer PressLast week, Rhino Records quietly slipped the double-CD compilation “Ultimate Prince” into stores, five months after its original street date. Fans of the Purple One might remember back in March, when “Ultimate Prince,” which features one disc with his biggest hits and a second with hard-to-find remixes, was scheduled for release a week before his latest studio album, “3121.”
But at the last minute, Prince coerced Rhino (which is owned by his old nemesis, Warner Bros.) into delaying the compilation, lest it compete with “3121.” And it truly was an eleventh-hour decision, as “Ultimate Prince” appeared in that Sunday’s circulars for the big-box stores, and promotional copies of the set had already shipped to the media. (At the time, those rare promos were selling for up to $180 on eBay.)
– read the entire articleSo suffice to say I hope everything steadies its course in Prince’s world, and he gets back to what he does best: making and performing his music, and please, more aftershows like these!
Prince:
The Beautiful Ones(mp3) – live, 2-15-2004D.M.S.R.(mp3) – live, 2-14-2004I thought I’d post this video since there are a good number of folks who have not seen Prince tear up the stage at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2004 ceremony (the year Prince was inducted). Prince’s guitar solo during “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”, the all star tribute to George Harrison, was a show stealer to say the least. This performance won praise from Prince fans and non-Prince fans alike. Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne are showcased during the first half of the song. Then, Prince takes over. Watch……
Prince, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Dani Harrison, and Others: “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
Did you make it this far? Good. Are you anxious to hear the full aftershows? Well, a lucky winner will receive both nights, Feb. 14th and Feb. 15th. It’s as simple as leaving a comment below. One winner will be selected in a couple of days. Good luck….
Update – Related: Silence is a Rhythm Too has a couple of tunes posted from the new ‘Ultimate’ release. Check out the post here.
A WINNER!!! >>> See my comment below for the winner of the aftershows.